Chapter XXII: Luck, Chance, and a Little Bit of Talent
June 4, 2537 (UNSC Calendar)/
New Istanbul outskirts (other side), New Constantinople, Cygnus System
The unfortunate soldier didn't get to finish, as he was rudely interrupted in the form of a large needle through his left eye. He died instantly, at least that's what I hope, net because the explosion would hurt (he wouldn't even feel it), but because we would spend two seconds knowing that his head was about to be blown up. Nobody should live with that knowledge. His head exploded in a mist of red and pink, effectively ending my worried thoughts.
The elites were now at a full charge, headed straight for us. They had been around 400 meters away when they first started their charge, but they were now only a third of that distance, their large legs and powerful muscles allowed them to run pretty damn fast.
The sound of that unfortunate marine's head disappearing was what snapped me back to reality. I raised my rifle and fired at the berserk elites. I managed to bring one down before I heard the lieutenant shouting through her comm.
"Third Squad, warthogs, NOW!" she yelled.
The rest of the platoon, which hadn't participated in the battle so far opened fire from the enemy's flank, joining our own barrage, well, more like covering our hasty retreat while we tried to get as far away from the wall of psychotic elites as possible. I looked behind me as I climbed the rubble frantically. The elites were obviously less than when they started, there were a couple of explosions in the center of their mass, killing at least five of them each. A couple of sniper rounds took down two elites before the floor Sinha was in was blown up with help of a fuel rod cannon.
I reached a relatively decent piece of cover and started firing back. I saw the two warthogs roll towards the enemy charge, one of them headed straight towards it, while the other went around, simply firing at it. The one that decided to ram the elites went through at least six of them before the engine stalled. No matter how powerful is your car, you'll never be able to go through a mass of bodies, especially if those bodies are elites. I watched as three elites pulled the crewmembers from the car, snapping their necks or executing them on the spot.
"Hold the line!" ordered a lieutenant that was going increasingly psychotic.
"There is no fucking line!" called out another marine. He was partially wrong, most of the soldiers that had managed to survive, which was seven, were actually forming a line of sorts, if it had been drawn by a five year old with Parkinson's, but a line nonetheless.
I placed switched to the assault rifle that Pavel had given to me and started firing, soon other weapons joined me. We managed to kill a number of the first line of the enemy assault, but it wouldn't be enough, when the elites reached our position, we would be killed. Simple as that.
I looked around while firing (didn't really have to aim) to see if I could find a better position than this. The building behind us was way to steeply inclined to climb back up easily, to the right side we were faced with the base of the collapsed building, and to our right was the other partially collapsed building. We could go to either side for similar cover, but the building where the sniper team had been blown up to our left was much more closer.
"Follow me!" I called out as I started running towards our new cover. Pavel knew me well and went right behind me, the others hesitated for a brief moment, but pretty much every single one of them was sprinting behind me in a question of nanoseconds. I fired to the side while running, eating through my assault rifle ammunition, those things could fire pretty damn quickly if you wanted them to, but nobody used the MA5s like that.
We entered through the glass doors, or what was left of them, with the elites very close on our tails, the marine to the rear was actually picked up by the neck and thrown to a wall before being curb stomped. I turned to provide some sort of covering fire to the rest of the marines, shooting down the lead elite. I threw my rifle away, it was out of ammo and I wasn't planning on carrying ten extra pounds around.
"Stairs, over here!" Pavel called. He kicked down a metal door and we all went in. As soon as I was in he closed it and used a fire axe through the handle to prevent the elites from coming through. Like that was going to stop them.
The door bent inwards, actually falling of a hinge. I could see an angry elite through the corner of the door. Pavel emptied at least thirty rounds through the door, leaving a very large hole in the middle and allowing us to see to dead elites.
"What the hell's wrong with them?" I asked as I climbed the stairs, "They might go nuts every now and then, but not like this."
"Well, I don't know," he answered as we climbed to the third floor, where our sniper team had been located, "maybe the big one is controlling them with his mind?" he suggested.
"Sure, that's exactly what is happening, he is controlling them with his mind."
"Oh shut up," he said. We had made it to the third floor nice and safe. Elites had a really hard time climbing stairs and ladders, their backwards knees were to thank for that, it was really one of the only downsides to their legs.
I noticed that the lieutenant was pale and looking unhealthy, at least she hadn't broken down yet.
"Third Squad, what's your status?" she asked.
"We're fine, they seem to be solely focused on you guys, there are a couple of them taking potshots at us, but nothing we can't handle."
"Ok, as soon as you can, take down the remaining cannons," she ordered.
"Are you sure we need to? No one is manning them anymore, besides, that explosion took down four of them, how do two rockets even do that?" said the sergeant from the last remaining undamaged squad. I was inclined to agree with him, we had had a brilliant stroke of luck when the rockets fired.
"Destroy the remaining cannons sergeant!" she ordered again.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Rocket team, how are you doing?" she asked as she switched channels.
"We're fine ma'am, regrouping with Third Squad, although Yago here was nicked in the leg. He's complaining like a little girl."
"Ok, regroup and help the third squad in their objective," the lieutenant told them.
"Ma'am," they acknowledged before the connection was cut.
"Corporal, what's our status?" she then asked.
"Well lieutenant, we're down to six men and woman, there are angry aliens at the door, and they seem to have surrounded the building," the corporal informed.
The lieutenant looked like she was finally about to break down and cry, which she did.
"I don't know what to do!" she cried out.
I rolled my eyes, I hated when this happened, if it were up to me, lieutenants would have to be promoted to leading a platoon after going through at least some hours of combat. Whenever this happened a lot of good men died.
Time to take over.
"Ok, that's enough ma'am, Pavel, grab one of the soldiers and cover the stairs. We don't want any of them coming through there. The rest of you, spread out to each corner and fire at any and all elites you can see. That includes you lieutenant," I said as I propped her up, dusting her off.
"It's not much, but its all we've got."
She nodded and took her own corner. I heard Pavel's gun go off a couple of times before it went silent.
"You should've seen that one Frankie," he called out, "it was even gripping the rail for support, like it wasn't sure how to climb stairs!"
"Hope you recorded that man, sounds like fun," I called back as I set up. From my corner I could see the enemy cannons and the other collapsed building to the side. The remaining warthog was still there, it was stationary while its passenger and gunner fired at some elites I couldn't see. It moved slightly to the front to avoid a fuel rod. It then started full march before it was suddenly halted. An elite materialized out of thin air in front of it, halting the hog's progress with its shoulder. It was not any elite, it was the monstrosity that had shot the sniper next to me back in Jericho VII. The driver floored the pedals and managed to push the silver-clad elite about ten feet before it decided to stick on of his swords in the hood and jump up. The engine kept working, but there was smoke coming out of it. A couple of rounds from the LAAV pushed the elite back before he used his other sword to cut the cannon in half, eliminating that from the equation. Then he stabbed the passenger in the chest, leaving the sword stuck there, he then moved on to the driver, punching his face in. The gunner got smart and jumped off. The elite crouched before jumping at least ten feet in the air and landing in front of the escaping gunner. He got a couple of rounds to the chest for his damage before stabbing the marine through the torso. He lifted him up with his sword, the marine clearly still alive. He said something to the soldier before throwing him to the side.
"Woah," I heard from the other marine that saw that happen. My reaction was a bit different, a bit different as in five bursts of 9.5mm lead to the monster's head. It recoiled as its shields flickered, all bursts made contact, but they didn't seem to harm it. It rolled behind the warthog and disappeared.
Pavel's gun fired again.
"Got another one!" he boasted.
I switched my target to an adventurous elite minor that had decided to stand in the middle of the rubble, firing with his plasma rifle. It was promptly taken out with three bursts.
I looked around for any jackals or grunts, there were none to be seen. I could make out a couple of hunters hanging out back, looking like they didn't want to join the charge or something. As I watched, one of them was blown up in an explosion to large to be from a rocket. I followed the trail that the round had left to see nothing other than a scorpion tank. A scorpion tank escorted by at least ten marine soldiers, which proceeded to open fire on the remaining elites. There was still about seventy five of them, the warthogs had taken out most of them while they were in their suicide charge, but I like to think I did a good job with helping as well.
"Ok, regroup!" called the Lieutenant's voice. She sounded less worried now that there was a decent-sized allied force blasting our attackers away. I felt better too.
"Ok, we will help those marines wipe out the remaining split-chins ok?" she said as we all huddled around her.
"Ma'am, shouldn't we just let ourselves be rescued and feel grateful for that?" asked Pavel.
"I'm inclined to agree with Corpoal Klaus on the matter lieutenant," I added.
"Corporal Klaus? Like Santa Claus?" asked one of the other marines.
"Yeah," I said, "but with a K, sounds more exotic."
Pavel punched me in the shoulder, it probably hurt him more than it did me, but I got the point.
"Anyways…" started Lieutenant Motou, giving us a weird look, "we will join those marines and help them out, understood?"
"Yes ma'am!" we all said. Not that we had much of a choice, the chain of command is the chain of command.
"That's how I like it, now check your ammo."
We all raised our rifles so that we could see the ammo counter more clearly, my HUD had an ammo counting option, but it consisted of little dots representing bullets, so it was difficult to count them that way. I looked at my rifle, it told me that I had 29 rounds left in the rifle, the moment I checked the ammo display in the back of the carrying handle, I also noticed something farther back, it was that familiar distortion of the air.
I pressed the button that projected my bayonet outwards and lunged at it. In a way, I was lucky that there was an elite there, otherwise I would've looked like a total psycho. The bayonet made contact with its belly, going through the armor there with relative ease. Cloaked elites rarely had shields, and since most of the other elites do have shields, elite armor isn't that strong.
The elite materialized with an angry roar. It bitch-slapped me and threw me to the side, the bayonet broke off and I managed to hold on to my rifle.
"Shoot it! Shoot it!" I called out as I landed on a potted fern. Everyone felt like it was a pretty smart idea, so they complied, leaving an elite riddled with bullet holes on the floor, with steam coming up from its armor. Despite the potential creepiness of the scene, it felt good every single time you managed to kill one of the top warriors of the Covenant.
A marine even decided to approach it and give it a kick. He got decapitated for his trouble. "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!" was the universal response. Very elaborate. The mysterious elite that we had seen back in Jericho VII and that had somehow met here was standing there, its armor looking like it had met a warthog face to face, which it actually had. Its eyes were bleeding, or perhaps it was from farther up in his helmet, anyways, he looked scary as fuck. He pretty much was too. He kicked Pavel as he was lifting his M427L to shoot it. Pavel managed to lift one arm to block the kick, leaving the short encounter with a broken arm and not a broken sternum. The lieutenant fired a long burst at it, forcing it to dive for cover. The two other marines joined her, wrecking a wooden desk completely. After a few seconds a marine moved cautiously forward to investigate. He peeked over the desk carefully.
"It's not here," he announced before he started screaming. I watched as the marine was lifted in the air by an invisible hand and then thrown out the window, screaming as he fell. The three of us that were still able to fired at the place we thought the elite was in, hitting nothing, but lifting papers as well as rock and wooden splinters.
I could hear the tank's cannon booming, but it was only a distant noise in the back of my mind. Three of us backed up into a tight triangle, each taking aim at a different spot, Pavel was pretending to be dead or unconscious on the floor, the sneaky bastard.
Motou fired a quick burst from her MA5, none of us moved. It was now eerily quiet, even outside of the building there was no noise.
"Aaargh!" cried the other marine in pain. I rolled to the front just in time to avoid a horizontal slash from an energy sword. The marine that had cried out had been impaled through the chest, the lieutenant simply dropped to the floor to avoid being hit. The elite flickered into existence. I aimed my rifle at it before I was backhanded for the second time in less than a minute. This time I felt like I was being hit by a sledgehammer. I wasn't able to hold on to my rifle. The elite kicked the lieutenant, making her slide through the floor until she hit a wall. She'd probably have to spend a couple of months in a hospital after that.
I backed away from the elite as it came towards me, two steaming energy swords in his hands.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK. I wasn't really feeling like elaborate sentences at the moment. I hit a column, preventing me from going any further, the elite just walked menacingly towards me.
"I am the holy sword of the prophets," it said in a deep, scary voice that matched his appearance perfectly, "I will cleanse the universe of you human filth and open way for the Great Journey."
It was starting to ramble now; I unholstered my pistol and emptied the 12 rounds into it in quick succession. Its shield disappeared, but I had run out of ammunition. I was doing my best to reload when it kicked the gun away from my hands.
"Now you die, human," it said as he pushed back his sword for the final stab. Right as I was about to try to roll to a side, I heard a loud blast and the elite was pushed forward, dropping one sword. It used that hand to lean on the column I was backed against, looking down on me with pain and anger on its alien face.
It roared as it stabbed at me with his other sword. This time I was able to roll away in time, mostly, one of the blades on his sword went through my armor and slashed me across the back, making my vision go red for an instant. I turned again to see Pavel cocking his small shotgun one-handed. The empty shell seemed to take forever to hit the floor, but the elite turned towards my squadmate and I managed to pull out my knife from its shoulder sheath. Pavel jumped to the side while firing, hitting the monstruous elite while avoiding a slash. The elite simply shrugged of the lead.
Two shotgun blasts while unshielded and still going, you have my respect buddy, I thought as I blocked out the pain in my back and jumped at the elite, knife in hand. I tackled the elite while stabbing it on its side, right above where its left kidney would've been had it been human. Weakened by two shotgun blasts and a knife sticking to its ribs, it fell relatively easily to the floor. As we fell to the floor, me on top of it, I pulled out my larger knife from my back, raising it to stab it. It raised its hand to protect himself, but it wasn't fast enough, My knife landed straight between his chest and shoulder armor, I had been aiming for the neck. Not my proudest stabbing, but give me a break here.
Pavel had gotten up while I tackled the elite in the silver armor, the armor in question was now damaged completely, the carvings it once had were now mixed with bullet holes and explosions had blackened it. My friend proved to me why he had survived so long aboard the Inconvenience. He jumped at the elite, landing with one foot on its chest. I rolled away as Pavel fired at the elite, point-blank. The blast blew away most of the elite's face, finally killing it.
I reached for my battle rifle, now only a few inches away from my hands. I pulled back the loading lever and emptied the rest of my magazine into its body. After that, I collapsed. Finally able to rest.
Just as I was getting comfortable, I heard the explosions, Third Squad had actually managed to plant explosives on all the cannons and bring them down. With the distraction that our reinforcements had provided, how could they not have?
I was forced to stand up by Pavel, so that I could help him carry the unconscious body of Lieutenant Motou to the ground floor. She was in bad shape, she would need an emergency medvac, and soon.
We were greeted by Gunnery Sergeant Larssen, he had left his scorpion's hatch and was now walking towards us, the rest of the marines were on cleanup duty, that is, stabbing the dead covvies to make them stay dead.
"So how in hell did you guys manage to take out so many of them before we arrived?" he asked us. "We were expecting to find the covvies actually celebrating your deaths."
"Well Gunny, we survived through a combination of luck, timing, and bad Covenant structural engineering," I told him, groaning as the pain in my back became greater.
"Don't forget their unfortunate placement of fusion coils and ammunition," added Pavel.
"And that's not counting my talent for murder," I said, my vision was beginning to blur, I wanted to brag as much as possible before I fell unconscious. "Talking about murder, did you get my knives Pavel?" I asked, my voice sounding weaker and weaker.
"I've got them right here buddy," he told me. I let go of the lieutenant and sat down on the floor, finding the most comfortable position I could. I took of my helmet, placed it to my side and leaned back.
"I'd better get a fucking medal for this," I mumbled before letting the fatigue and pain take over me, slipping into unconsciousness.