Chapter XXIV: The Tide Turns… Twice

July 16, 2537 (UNSC Calendar)/

Third Front, New Istanbul, New Constantinople, Cygnus System

"Ready boys and girls?" I asked, adding the 'girls' part for the benefit of lieutenant Motou.

My HUD was filled with green lights of acknowledgement. So, it meant they were ready. I heard some whistling right above my head, and seconds later, the rhino barrage reached the enemy line, breaking the silence that had taken over the front and probably carbonizing a few covvies as well.

"Any moment now," I said, mostly to myself.

It seemed to happen in slow motion, first the ground in front of us ballooned up, and then you could see that it was riddled with cracks, from those cracks you could see fire from the explosives. Finally, the whole section of dirt in front of us was blasted away in what I could only compare to a volcanic explosions. It was really something to look at.

"I guess the Colonel didn't lie when he said the tunnel was filled with explosives, eh?" commented one marine as we protected our heads from falling dirt. A jackal arm still attached to a plasma pistol landed not two meters in front of me.

"Smokescreens," I ordered calmly.

At my command, four smoke grenades were thrown at the stretch of land in front of us, we would have to throw more once we reached the edge of the cover these had provided, but they would do the trick for now.

"Ok, go, go, go," I said very quietly, the first part of our mission depended completely on stealth and silence, the second part was based on a more 'blood and pain' approach.

With that, ten souls hopped out of our makeshift trench and started a quiet sprint across the barren wasteland that separated them and us. Halfway through I heard and felt two other explosions similar to the one that had provided us an opening to attack. I looked to my sides without stopping, there were indeed two majestic displays of fireworks to my right.

"Smokescreens," I ordered once more. The squad stopped and five more smokescreen grenades were launched. Now we had a safe road to the enemy trenches.

I found myself walking down a slope, I was now in the crater of the explosion, I could see some covvie remains littered nearby, but the smoke did a good enough job at hiding the rest of the carnage. I directed my team to go to the left of the crater, after all, we needed to take out whatever covvie soldiers had survived.

I raised my fist to signal my team to halt. There was something I could see through the smoke. It was a house. It was missing the front walls, all of them. I could see some movement through the windows.

"Spank their asses," I ordered. The rocket marine jumped to action. He advanced a few feet before taking a knee.

"Safeties off people," I reminded them. Most already had them off, but everyone checked the side of their weapons just in case.

"Firing one," the marine let us know just as he pulled the trigger. An HE round streaked to the air, a little to quietly for a rocket. After what seemed like an eternity, it went through a window and the roof of the already damaged house flew upwards. That's when it all went loud. That was the signal for the marines back in the trench to start a full barrage to keep covvies distracted and with their heads down. We would be clearing a line of around eight houses. After that, the Army guys behind us would go all WWI on those alien dipshits.

One down, seven left.

"Move!" I ordered, silence no longer important. No rounds flew even remotely near our position, the guys back there had been informed of the op. and of our positions, no sense in ruining a decisive operation with friendly fire.

While the team moved, they separated in two. One would take the holes and barriers that were in front of the houses, while the other would clear the houses themselves. If it all went well, it should've taken less than fifteen minutes. Knowing my luck, we would probably end up pinned down in a house.

I attached my knife to the bayonet lugs in the rifle. It made the rifle a little bit more barrel-heavy than it already was, but my other bayonet was stuck in the body of a Spec. Ops. Elite on the other side of town. My team would be taking the houses; the lieutenant's would go through the even-more-rudimentary-than-ours Covenant trench. I kicked down the door, not that there was much left to kick down, the door was barely holding on to a hinge, and started a sweep of the house.

"Clear!"
"Living room clear!"

"Kitchen's good."

I heard the familiar noise of a blade going through flesh and back. "Dining room's safe!"

The second floor was really empty as well, empty of life at least. The movement I had seen was an elite minor and two jackal sharpshooters. The elite hadn't fared too well, with its upper half almost completely missing, while the jackals had been taken out by the concussive blast of the explosion, their insides turned to mush. I bayoneted the jackals just to be sure, also because it gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling.

I heard Pavel's machine gun roaring right outside the house, along with a faint 'clear.' Seems like they were doing their job a little bit more loudly.

The next house wasn't empty, but two grunts aren't much of a threat to anyone, really, I swear, those things could've served as target practice for kids that wanted to play paintball. They were harmless in small numbers. Of course, whenever you found yourself outnumbered ten to one, nothing seemed quite that harmless.

Third house was our first complication. There was a pair of elite minors that noticed us going in, luckily, Covenant warriors are not that well trained in close-quarters battle. They are excellent fighters in open terrain, that's why urban combat didn't always turn out so well for them. Four shotgun blasts from a clever marine made quick work of them. So far it was going well. No one was wounded and we were doing our job fast. I hadn't even needed to fire once. That was probably bound to change, though.

The next house was… housing a surprise for us. We were heading towards a side door through what little remained of a garden when that whole side of the house collapsed. From the wooden walls came nothing other than a gigantic hunter. That was good, in a way, it meant it was only one hunter and not yet a pair.

"Shoot it, shoot the motherfucker!" someone called out.

Well thought mister. The hunter's surprise attack was met with a rocket to the face, which was, of course, deflected by the shield it carried.

The rest of us fired at the armored monster. It shrugged off our rain of lead like it barely tickled it. A burst from his arm-cannon sent us all rolling for cover in different directions.

"I didn't sign up for this shit!" complained a marine as a burst of green energy disintegrated the wall behind him.

"Shoot it again!" I called out.

"I'm trying!" came the answer. The rocket marine was reloading his weapon under a lot of pressure, that isn't usually helpful in regards to speed.

A couple of heavier rounds bounced of off the hunter's armor. As usual, it was Pavel to the rescue. I'd really have to do something impressive soon to outdo his recent feats in battle. The hunter turned away from us to face the bigger threat. It crouched behind its shield and started moving towards the other group. Pavel kept on firing, buying us enough time to shoot the motherfucker.

I primed a grenade and threw it at the alien, it landed right between its feet, it detonated, sending shrapnel in every direction, but most of it landing on the hunter. I wasn't particularly surprised by the lack of concern the hunter had for that explosion.

"Hasta la vista, baby!" I heard.

'Hasta la vista' means 'see you later' in Spanish. It was a strange phrase to hear right in the middle of a battle, especially when it was said with a strong Anglophone accent. Seconds later, the hunter received the full force of 102mm HEAT shaped charge to its unarmored mid-section. The explosion was followed by a rain of orange chunks, the only thing that remained of the hunter was its feet and its arms, everything else was too mangled to even start to recognize.

"Hasta la vista?" I asked the marine, smoke flowing from one of the barrels of the M19 rocket-launcher.

"Yeah, Terminator 2."

"Termi-what?" I asked, confused.

"Seriously? That film is a classic," he told me.

"From when?" asked another soldier.

"20th century," he informed us.

"Oh, you're one of those guys," I said.

The marine's expression went from triumphant to ashamed. I felt a little bad of killing the guy's buzz, but seriously, who the hell repeats phrases of movies that are half a millennium old during combat? It's just plain weird. I did a quick check on the state of my team, confirming that no one had been harmed. We were lucky, you don't usually escape from a hunter attack unscathed. And a surprise hunter attack at that!

"Well, move on!" I called out, this time we went around the collapsed house, didn't seem like there would be anyone taking shelter together with a Lekgolo. It's just stupid, those things can just freaking step on you by accident.

The next house happened to be an actual covenant structure, complete with the purple doors and walls. They were still slightly blackened by the recent rhino barrage, and the dust, and the explosion, and the month of being here. The doors weren't opening automatically, so we were in for some good 'ol fashioned breaching.

"Breach breach breach!" I called out as the charges went off. They had left a decent sized hole on the wall of the complex. The complex in question happened to be a bunch of covvie barracks. I could see what obviously were beds, the weird machines where grunts slept, and even an actual table. I made a mental note to avoid taking cover in or around the grunt machine. It was filled with methane, and they could blow up pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, this building in question happened to be filled up with high-ranking elites and some black-armored grunts. At first, it seemed like nothing happened, I was actually half expecting to find this empty and let my guard down a bit, letting myself be surprised by the sheer number of enemies. That's nothing compared to the look on the elite's faces though, their mandibles were wide open and their hands at their sides, mimicking the human expression for surprise pretty damn well.

Then there was a bang, and an elite minor collapsed. It seems like it didn't have its shield activated, only whatever god they believed in knows why they didn't keep them on at all times, it could make for pretty awkward situations, namely a supersonic slug through the frontal lobe.

The first shot came only an instant after we had gone across the wall, but it should've come a lot earlier. It broke the curse. My team opened fire just like we were trained to, with the shorter members crouching in the front and the taller ones hanging in the back. In the first second of the fight, at least six elites and a dozen grunts collapsed in a heap, the rest decided it was reaction time and rolled away from our fire, we all took cover behind those columns that the covvie architects seemed to love so much.

"Grenade out!" we were notified.

"No, what the fuck?" was all I could say before the explosive detonated, right next to the methane-filled grunt sleeping thingy. The explosion was not the like the pretty blue fireworks that Covenant technology usually gave when exposed to intense heat. It was more like a human explosion, fire all over the place. The marine that had thrown the grenade got a couple of singed eyebrows for her trouble, she was lucky no one else had been closer to her grenade, otherwise she would've had to live with a friendly fire casualty in her head.

I popped out of cover to fire, at first I saw nothing through the burning wreck, but then I noticed an elite jumping across the smoke. I shot it a couple of times before it managed to take cover.

"Flashbang out!" called another marine, now that soldier was a smart one, thinking stuff like that instead of potentially killing us all with a misplaced grenade. I was thinking about explaining the concept of situational awareness to the other marine.

The grenade detonated with a dull thud. At least that's how I heard it, because my helmet's sensors had heard the trigger phrase for shutting down all outside noise. My visor had been blackened completely for an instant as well.

"Ok, move!" I said, but the marines were already out of cover and aiming at their respective sectors. I saw at least six grunts go down with well-placed bursts to the head, no news on the elites though. When we crossed the wreck that had been the grunt's sleeping machine, an elite left the cover of its column, firing at us with a carbine. Its trouble cost it the right half of its chest, although one of our soldiers was hit in the leg. He was out of this one.

Then three elites decided to try the same trick at once, forcing us to jump for cover. The marine that had thrown the grenade was hit in the chest and face with plasma fire before she managed to react, effectively killing her instantly. She wouldn't be getting an open casket burial.

She'll never get to know the proper definition of situational awareness.

We managed to bring down one of the elites, but from that point on this turned into a deadly hide and seek. Shoot at the elite, change cover, shoot again. It sounded relatively simple, and it was, except that the elite was also shooting at us, which upped the danger of the game. There were at least two more elites in there that we hadn't seen, in addition to a couple of grunts that might've survived.

I saw the rocket marine switch column, advancing closer to the elite's position, it looked like he was going to flank the motherfucker. Good for him, taking the initiative like that. He took advantage of me forcing the elite to remain behind his column before advancing again. I saw the muzzle flashes from his SMG and two plasma bolts hit the column he was hiding in, next I heard the thud of a 7'5 foot tall body fall to the ground.

After that I managed to take out a weakened elite with a well-placed burst to the neck. I was really starting to up my kill count. If I kept going like that I would be forced to check the recordings for confirmations.

Next, I found myself pinned to the floor, an angry-looking major looming over me, I fired a burst into its chest, forcing it backwards, before it swatted my gun away from me. This time I was forced to use my legs to hold it back. I actually forced it to jump back and try again, this time, it was more successful. I found myself facing an energy blade that seemed to come from the gap between its forearm armor and the skin underneath. I managed to grab the arm and force the blade sideways. Strength-wise, it was barely a competition, the elite could've crushed me, but with the alien focusing on speed and not strength, I managed to push the blade to the side with relative ease, now I only had to keep it there.

"Help me out here!" I called out as loudly as I could.

The elite raised its hand, my own hands still holding on to its forearm. I was lifted in the air and slammed back down, my hands letting go. The elite loomed over me. I was finding myself in way too similar situations lately, that would have to change soon, or I wouldn't get the chance to tell this stories to my grandkids.

I reached for my pistol, not that it would do any help, before I heard a low thump. The elite simply collapsed, the energy blade falling an inch from my visor, before it deactivated. I pushed one of its arms from my body before standing up. I shot the elite with my pistol for good measure before realizing it wasn't necessary. In front of me, barely five feet away, was the rocket marine with his M19 on the shoulder, one of the barrels was smoking a little. I shifted my eyes to the body of the dead elite. On its back there was a rocket. It was actually lodged to the elite's back, having gone about three-quarters deep into its flesh. The rocket was still producing some sparks.

"Did you just fire a SPANKr inside a building?" I asked, incredulous.

"Yes I did, sarge," replied the smug soldier.

"With friendlies nearby," I went on.

The smile was wiped from his face. "Yessir."

"Well, if you ever do that again, I'm going to have you dishonorably discharged."

The marine's expression went from confused to angry, he obviously didn't enjoy that the person he had just saved wasn't feeling grateful.

"However," I added, "just this once, I will write you up for a fucking medal, although you should really use your rifle next time."

The man smiled again. "Thanks sir," he said, although I should've been thanking him.

"Hey, don't worry about it."

I shot the elite once more, this time because it made me feel better before calling for confirmation that the building was clear. It wasn't a very large construction, so there couldn't have been many covvies inside. I heard a long burst from an MA5 before the building was safe.

"All clear!"

I picked up my battle rifle and bayoneted the elite that had almost killed me. Just because it made me feel better than simply shooting it.

"Ok, three more houses left," I indicated, tiredness already seeping into my voice. "Lieutenant, how you doing?" I asked into the comm channel.

"We're fine, one casualty, but we're about there!" came the answer. I could actually hear her voice about twenty yards away, but she was out of sight thanks to the Covenant makeshift trench, which seemed to be deeper than ours, it had to be, to protect the elites.

"Sixth house, go!" I ordered my team, this time we actually faced a real house, not a Covenant construction.

"Breaching!" the lead marine called before kicking down a door. I was third in, which meant that I had to take the first room to the left. It was a destroyed living room. On the window facing towards our front, there were two grunts manning a plasma cannon. For some reason or another, they hadn't managed to hear us barreling in. Too much time next to the loud Covenant weapon I guess.

The closest one was dispatched in the form of my two hands twisting its neck backwards and upwards, disconnecting its brain from the rest of the body. Dead was instantaneous. The other grunt quickly punched his tickets with a bayonet through the lower back. I shot a round from my rifle just to make sure, and the grunt collapsed sideways.

"Left is clear!" I called out.

"Clear!"
"Clear!"
"We're good!" I said.

Came the voices of the marines under my command, we were now only three, with one dead and another putting pressure on his leg. He would make it, but wouldn't be able to walk for a while. I had already called for a medvac for the unfortunate soldier, but it would probably be a while before it came.

"Sergeant, Sergeant!" came a familiar voice from the inside of my helmet.

"Yes Colonel?" I asked.

"You have Arrowhead support, feel free to use it," he informed me.

"Thank you, sir!" I said, a big smile already forming on my face. Arrowheads were missiles, they were relatively small, as their name suggested, slightly under the size of the 102mm HEAT rocket that the M19 SSM rocket-launcher used. They functioned very curiously. They were catapulted upwards with special launchers, or in case you didn't have the launchers, you could simply throw them as high as possible. Once they were in the air, they would activate their thrusters and head in a straight line to a laser-painted objective. They were wonderful killing machines. I was already aiming my laser designator at the roof of the next house.

"Ready, sir!" I informed Colonel Zavala.

Instants later a swarm of at least 30 arrowheads landed on the house, detonating whenever they made contact with something solid. The house lit up for an instant before it collapsed upon itself. The missiles must've hit something flammable, because they usually didn't pack that much explosive power. As the dust from the explosions cleared, I aimed at the next and last house. I could see my laser flicker through the smoke.

"One more time, Colonel, and we'll be done."

The reply came in the form of another wave of arrowhead missiles, all connecting with the house farther away. Our objective here was done, and for such a complicated mission, we had done it with relatively no casualties. Relatively.

A couple of hours later, after the largest infantry charge since the Rainforest Wars, the UNSC ground forces had managed to push the enemy infantry back into the city a couple of miles. My squad was allowed to skip the second push, thanks to our 'valiant effort' in taking the enemy line. That sounded good, I'd probably be getting another commendation for this. In addition to the two Purple Hearts I already had and the Red Legion of Honor that I had recently been given, I deserved at least Gold Star, maybe two Silver Stars, I dunno, you don't get to kill an Arbiter every day now, do you? I'd better fucking get something for that. Pavel too, he did a hell of a job in killing that monster.

I left the grounded pelican that had been serving as shelter. I climbed to the top and joined Marina in staring at the battle in front of us. The pelican had landed in the middle of the former no-man's-land, which was comparatively flat. The battle in front of us consisted mostly of tanks advancing while shooting Wraiths, Ghosts, Specters, and the occasional Shadow while the Marines and Army behind them cleared up any covvie stupid enough not to fall back. The assault would have to stop underneath the enemy assault carrier, which would then have to be taken out in a combination attack consisting of a tactical nuclear weapon detonated right underneath, preferably a HAVOK warhead, and then five or six depleted uranium slugs fired from orbit. Yes, that should do the trick.

"So, how's it going?" Marina asked me. She had this weird way of addressing me, almost like she was a shrink. It felt good talking to her.

"Alright I guess," I told her. I was watching the pretty explosions in the distance. They felt a lot prettier because most of them were obviously from human weaponry. Marina Bogdanovic remained quiet. After a couple of minutes, she finally spoke. "Your girlfriend doesn't like me," she stated.

"Nope."

I can't really tell why, but every time I had a conversation with her that didn't include the words 'Hang on boys, we're in for some heavy enemy fire' I felt better. Like I had taken some weight of my chest.

So there we were, sitting on the tail of her pelican, watching the most absurd sunset in the history of ever, the large star of Cygnus System was setting underneath a Covenant assault carrier, and the land all in front of us was nothing but ruins, smoke, and the occasional explosion. It was definitely the least romantic sunset in the history of ever.

"Your radio is ringing," I told her after a few minutes of quiet.

She sighed and hopped of the tail of the pelican, landing in the rubble. She entered the ship and for a few moments I couldn't hear anything. Well, anything other than the distant explosions and gunfire. Suddenly, the pelican roared to life. I hopped of the ship, startled.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked.

"We're falling back," she informed me.

"What?" I was shocked. It was all going so well.

"The Covenant has received reinforcements, about fifty ships have made an in-system jump," Marina let me know.

"Well doesn't that suck." Almost two months of continuous fighting to have this rock glassed anyway.

The alarm for retreat started ringing, and the pelican was suddenly filled up with soldiers from my ship, the ones that were here at least.

"Colonel," I asked the old man as he walked into the ship "why are we falling back?" I already knew the answer, but I needed to hear it from him.

"The Vice Admiral has done a hell of a job kid, but he can't take on fifty ships at once, specially when we only have thirteen left in our own fleet."

I nodded, as if I understood perfectly. Pavel hopped on the ship, he was the last one to do so. The pelican flew us towards the FOB, where our ship was landed, there we could see the only other ship other then the Inconvenience, a cruiser, that was grounded was already being filled up with marines and equipment.

"Frank, feel like manning my turret?" asked Marina as the soldiers in the cargo bay headed towards the ship.

I didn't answer, letting her notice her comment.

"Ok, that came out wrong," she said through laughter.

"Sure ma'am," I said, laughing as well. I pulled the lever on the turret as the pelican flew away once more. This time we picked up a bunch of random soldiers, except for one I recognized, it was the rocket launcher-wielding marine that had saved my ass from that elite.

"Hey, I never did thank you," I told him as we flew back to the FOB.

"No you didn't," he said, smiling a bit.

"If you ever get tired of all that 'being a regular' shit, you should join the ODST, you'd make a hell of a soldier, I'll even put a good word in for you," I told him.

"Really?" he seemed excited.

"Sure, as long as you request a transfer to my ship as soon as you leave boot camp," I told him.

"Sounds great!" the marine said, excited.

"Just tell me your name," I asked before he hopped off.

"Private Robert Agnarsson!"

"Good luck private," I said as the pelican lifted itself up in the air once more. This time I noticed that the cruiser was taking off, and that many other pelicans were dropping from orbit to take the grounded marines and army troopers to their respective ships.

"We might be retreating, but we retreat in an organized manner!" I said, mimicking a Texan accent.

"You got that right!" Marina called from the cockpit.

When we arrived to the pickup area, there was actually a crowd of marines waiting for the ship. Most of them were from our ship, so it would make the trip easier, at least for Marina, I wasn't really doing anything. On our next trip back we had to pick up a warthog, that and the full load of marines the pelican was carrying made the fourth trip a lot slower, but we had to get everyone out as soon as possible. The covvies weren't likely to waste time during a full-blown retreat.

We made various similar trips with no incident, it was only on the last one that I had to get the gun going. We stopped at the same point we had been stopping in the last dozen trips, only that this time the Covenant had staged an effective counter-attack and were pushing back the last of our boys, they were dangerously close too.

The UNSC forces had been pushed back all the way to the covvie line that we had taken earlier in the morning, courtesy of my team, thank you very much. I found myself facing to many targets to shoot at. There were plenty of elites within range, and before we even touched down I found myself staring in horror as hundreds of soldiers ran at the evacuation points, while some brave ones made an attempt to hold the Covenant onslaught. Marina landed her pelican and within seconds it was filled to the brim with scared-looking soldiers, most of them were bleeding in one place or another.

"Sergeant!" I heard a voice coming from outside the pelican. It was none other than one of those kids in fancy armor, the Spartan-IIIs. I couldn't recognize which one I was looking at, although it seemed to be one of the two girls I had met according to the voice.

"What do you want kid?" I asked as I managed to cut down two overeager jackals.

"Come back for us."

As soon as she said that, the pelican took off into the air. I fired into the advancing enemy as I could make out the Spartans forming some sort of semi-circle and trying to hold of the Covenant. There wasn't just five of them, there was at least a couple of hundred. They were making short work of all the advancing enemies.

As soon as we dropped off the last batch of marines I moved towards the cockpit.

"Marina, we gotta go back, pick up those soldiers!" I said through the roar of the engines of over 200 pelicans landing and taking off simultaneously.

"Way ahead of you!" she answered as she lifted her bird.

This time we had to land further back, the Spartans had been pushed back at least a couple hundred yards. I was glad to see that Marina wasn't the only brave pilot that had returned to pick up those kids, there were at least 30 other ships flying with us, more than enough to pick up every single last one of them.

The pelican's main cannon roared through the noise of the engines and the battle below us. Warrant Officer Bogdanovic turned the pelican so that I had a clear field of fire at the Covenant and so that the Spartans could climb up into the craft. She also did that to protect herself from enemy fire, but let's ignore that small selfish part.

My AIE-486 Heavy Machine Gun was taking no prisoners. It was spewing out 7.62mm as fast as it mechanism allowed, which incidentally, was pretty damn fast. I managed to cut down a hunter and a large group of grunts as 12 Spartan kids jumped on the ship, firing at the enemy as they did. The kids looked incredibly badass, backing away slowly, making the Covenant pay with blood for every single inch they took from them. Finally, their numbers were too many, and we had to pull back, just as we did so, the last Spartan was hit by an overcharged plasma pistol, the impact actually propelled him backwards and halfway through the troop bay. I took out the jackal that had done that with a quick burst, taking out its shield and shredding through its body in less than two seconds. I managed to bag two more elite kills before the pelican dusted off.

The Spartan that had been shot in the chest was none other than my good friend, Carter A259. I could tell that because he was wearing a standard-issue marine helmet as opposed to the other one that he had worn before.

"Take off his chest piece!" I yelled, hoping someone would understand.

A Spartan quickly lunged towards his leader and removed the front of his armor, which was melting already, it looked like that armor was even less durable than that crap that Army soldiers got. Carter's chest was bloodied and burnt, he'd have to get some skin grafts for that.

We arrived at the FOB, which now only housed the Inconvenience, some fifty soldiers, a scorpion, and the abandoned command tent. The Inconvenience was already lifting off; we'd have to catch it in the air. A couple of pelicans landed near ors to carry away the Spartans to their ship, made sense, since theirs was a top secret project that I had only found out due to the big mouth of a teenager. Carter was the last one to leave. He was taken out of the ship in a makeshift stretcher, as he passed next to me he mouthed a "Thank you." I didn't think I deserve it, but I nodded at him as a Navy corpsman rubbed biofoam all over his damaged chest, stopping the bleeding.

"What are you waiting for?" I asked. "Let's the hell out of here!"

"Aye aye captain," came Marina's answer from the cockpit.

I pulled the HMG away from the hatch so that it could close properly, right after I was done, and for the third time in less than a year, my whole world went white. My helmet's visor immediately polarized itself to prevent any further damage to my eyes, but id probably need some sort of surgery anyways. The light faded away after an instant, only to reveal a giant firewall under the Covenant assault carrier, that sphere of death disappeared to reveal an intact ship, not really unexpected I guess, but it's always shocking to see something emerge from a nuclear explosion undamaged.

Right as I was preparing to sigh in annoyance and take my helmet off to rub my eyes in an attempt to wash away the image of a white sphere that was burned into my retinas, I felt the whole pelican shake. I saw a white line cross the sky at a surreal pace, hitting the midsection of the ship. That MAC round was joined by two similar others, actually managing to create a large explosion, the Covenant ship started veering to a side, and that was all I saw before the hangar door of the UNSC Inconvenience closed, preventing me from seeing the outcome.