Chapter XXXVI: Easy In
September 2, 2540 (UNSC Calendar)/
Creek, Dawson's World, Beta 415 system
"Pavel…"
"Tiatan-2," he corrected me.
"Titan-2, you in position?"
"Affirmative Titan-1."
"Ok, wait for my signal."
My signal consisted of winking my acknowledgement lights so that they would appear in Pavel's HUD.
"Roger that."
I was scouting the area ahead of us with my thermal scope, occasionally switching back to regular when I could peek through windows or cracks in the walls. Pavel had climbed all the way down the building (one floor, don't feel bad for him) and made his way to the parking lot outside the warehouse. I was to take out the sentries patrolling the roof and outside of the warehouse before Pavel went in. He was more than capable doing this on his own, so I'd remain here, with four kills to my credit while he took eleven. Well, at least that was the plan.
"Ok, knocking out the one on the left," I said to myself.
My battle rifle had a suppressor attached, even though it was called that, a silencer would've been more appropriate for the metallic cylinder. It was state of the art, designed by ONI, built by Misriah and issued to all special forces operators. The device in question was a black cylinder that attached to the muzzle of my rifle, it was around two inched in diameter and probably ten in length. It doubled as a suppressor and as a flash reducer. It was daytime, so the second quality wasn't important right now.
I let the circular crosshairs of my scope land on the forehead of one of the innie patrol soldiers. He looked about average, and was sporting an MA3 rifle in addition to some unidentifiable handgun. I squeezed the trigger a quarter of a second later I got my first confirmed human kill. About a second later, I got my second one.
I knew that I should've felt somewhat weird about this, perhaps even guilty, but I only felt like I was doing my job, and rather properly as well. Perhaps I was late for a shrink evaluation.
"Two down," I said.
Next I switched my sight to the doors of the complex. They were large metallic doors that opened manually, large enough for a scorpion tank to fit through easily. On each side of the door there was a sentry.
"Need help with the ones on the ground?" Pavel asked.
"No, I got this," I said.
I set my sight on the insurrectionist on the left and squeezed a shot, the only noise that came out of my pistol was a low fwup, perhaps as loud as someone smacking their hands on a table, but at this distance, no one would make anything of the noise. Even before my bullet hit home, I was already squeezing of a second shot towards the other man, they both crumpled to the floor with a single entry wound on their forehead and temple respectively.
"Nice, which one did you target first?" Pavel asked.
"The one on the left."
"Well, kudos for you man, it was almost impossible to tell from down here."
"Aw man, thanks," I said.
"No probs, Titan-2 going in," he informed me.
I connected my HUD to his little helmet camera and a small image popped up in the top left corner of my visor. It allowed me to see anything that Pavel was facing at. It almost looked like a videogame, one of those obsolete First Person Shooters played with controllers.
I watched my friend enter the warehouse through the front door, then quickly hiding in the shadows to the left of the entrance. I switched my scope to thermal while allowing the screen on my HUD to remain there. I would shoot through the walls if it was needed.
Pavel crept along the wall and grabbed one of the innies from behind, snapping his neck cleanly. Then he let her body on the floor and moved on, shooting down two other men with his pistol. The suppressor on the M6 made even less noise than my battle rifle, and on the large warehouse with the noises of battle in the background, no one suspected a thing. He had eight more to go, or seven, depending on the possibility of actually capturing Paradiso.
It was at times like this that I was reminded why Pavel was an ODST and why he had survived for so long on board the Inconvenience. He positioned himself behind an innie and stuck his knife in between the first and second vertebrae, effectively disconnecting the brain from the body. The knife was then removed from the innies neck and used to slash a sentinel that had just turned around a corner. Five more men and he would be done. Or six, you know, depending.
The rest of the Insurrectionists were all concentrated inside a small room, gathered around what could've been a table. They didn't seem to be aware there was a large Eastern European man dressed in ballistic armor just outside of their little box.
"Oh shit," I murmured.
"What?"
There was a convoy of cars moving towards the warehouse, they were civilian cars mostly, although there was an old warthog painted with innie colors, complete with chaingun and all. They were turning around the corner, as soon as they stopped, they would see the bodies on the main entrance. There were two large SUVs and a smaller sports car in addition to their warthog.
"You might want to keep Paradiso as a hostage," I said. "We got an enemy convoy right outside. Two SUVs a warthog, and a sports car."
"What kind of sports car?" he asked. Even as he asked that he was already opening the door and shooting two innies with well placed bursts.
"I'm not sure, I think it could be one of those Caballo cars, from Madrigal."
"Those are nice cars," Pavel said, putting three rounds in the chest of an innie just about to draw his sidearm.
"Indeed," I agreed.
Within seconds he had finished off the rest of the Insurrectionists with well-placed shots. Two rounds bounced of his chest piece before he lunged at Joanne Pardiso, tackling the middle-aged woman to the ground pretty hard.
"Done," he said. "What now?"
By that time the innies in the convoy had dismounted and were barking at each other, with one of them yelling to the warehouse's walls to see if he could get a reply. The others were spreading out and taking cover behind their vehicles, aiming at the doors of the warehouse.
"I'm coming out, I've got Paradiso hostage!" Pavel called out, normally I wouldn't have heard him from this far, but his helmet mike did the job.
"Don't tell me you want to do this," I said.
"Don't see any other way out," he said, a lot more quietly.
"Fine," I sighed.
I could now see Pavel coming out of the door through my scope. He had Paradiso in front of him as a human shield. It seemed to be working, since no one fired at him. Even from this far away I could hear a seventeen different guns cocking at the same time. Maybe it was Pavel's mic, who knows.
"I will now walk out of here and you will let me, unless you want Miss Paradiso here to face a rather premature end."
Pavel did an impressive job at sounding like a psychopath. Or a sociopath, or whatever.
"Shoot him!" Paradiso called out.
"Shut up bitch!" Pavel said as he tightened his grip on her neck.
"Nice," I said.
"Fits the profile," Pavel whispered loud enough for his hostage and me to hear.
"No one has to get hurt here," an innie said.
"That's what I'm saying," Pavel said. "Now let me through!"
"I'm afraid I can't do that," the same innie replied.
"What are you going to do? Shoot me, you're too afraid to hurt your leader here."
"Ignore the man, shoot him!" Paradiso ordered.
"As you can see Miss Paradiso is ready to die for our cause, which means that we'd have no trouble in shooting you right this instant."
Pavel rolled his eyes all the way. I knew this because he rolled his head a little as well. He pulled switched targets and shot the man that had spoken right on the left kneecap.
Guns were raised (even more) and insults were shouted, but not a single shot was fired.
"Nice," I said again.
"Took a leap of faith man," Pavel said. "So? When?"
"I recon I can take the gunner and the ones closest to you before anyone notices," I informed him.
"Which ones?" he asked.
"Blue curls, Blondie, and Mr. and Mrs Bulldog." I said, signaling the innies by their physical appearance.
"Think you could do the one with large machine gun?" he asked.
"Yeah, I recon I could."
"They're preparing to…" Paradiso was brutally interrupted by Pavel pushing his pistol tighter into her throat, I could hear her gasping for air from here.
"Ma'am?" one soldier asked.
"Fucking shoot him!" cried out the one on the floor, no one had moved to help him, either because they were afraid or because they didn't like him. Maybe both.
"I'll fire in three," I said.
"Two."
"One."
I didn't say mark or anything like it, instead I let off three shots in quick succession, then a fourth one just an instant later. Right as the four bullets impacted with the men and woman I had told Pavel I could take out, two others were fired in direction to the man manning the warthog turret and the other innie with a large machine gun.
Even as the first body fell, Pavel fired his pistol at the remaining innes, I shifted my sight to three of the ones that were wiser and decided to take cover from my friend. Unfortunately, they all met their ends rather quickly. Courtesy of a slug to the back of the head. Pavel took out six of the remaining innies before I finished of the other two with well placed shots. The BR55 was truly an impressive machine. My faster reflexes and steady hand weren't so bad either. Ha.
"Dead," Pavel said, "all dead."
"Yeup," I replied.
"Ok, now what?" he asked.
"We call for evac and take Mrs. Insurrection her prisoner. We're getting medals."
"You didn't do anything," he reminded me.
"I'm pretty sure I saved your ass." I said.
"I could've handled it," Pavel said.
"Sure you could've buddy."
Pavel was making his way towards me, finishing off the innie he had first shot with a double tap. I climbed down the building and we met near the warthog.
"Those men," Paradiso cried, "they had families!"
"Well so did the people in the Paradise Bombings," I reminded her.
"And the ones in Cordoba," Pavel chimed in.
"Those were necessary victims for the greater good of humanity and the United Rebel Front," she said proudly.
"Well, those were necessary victims for the greater good of humanity and the United Nations Space Command," I said.
"Nice one bro," Pavel said as he offered me a high five. I took it.
"You are insane!" Paradiso said. Pavel simply smacked her in the back of the head and she crumpled unconscious.
"What?" he asked. "She was getting rather annoying."
"You do realize you could've just killed her, pistol whipping her like that."
"Nah, looks like she's still got a pulse."
"Provided you didn't give her any brain damage."
"What do you care?"
"Good point," I said as I helped Pavel place our hostage over his shoulder.
"Mary's Little Lamb, this is Titan-1, requesting immediate evacuation on my position, we've secured the package."
"Roger that Titan-1, we'll be there in five."
"Minutes or seconds?" I asked playfully.
"What do you think?" Marina replied.
Right before I could come with a witty comeback for her own witty comeback I felt some static around me, even through my suit. Immediately after I had noticed this I heard a loud thump above me, followed by a weak shockwave.
"What was that?" I asked.
Pavel simply looked up, using his special camera attachment to zoom in on the sky, probably out into space. He didn't need to tell me what it was, because soon enough I saw it myself as well.
A Covenant Assault Carrier was making its way directly to our direction. Probably jumped to the other side of the planet after a series of calculations for such a dangerous jump so close to a gravity well. The massive craft made the land shake as it traveled through the sky and positioned itself in the most uncomfortable position it could've possibly decided to choose.
Right above us.
"Titan-1, do you copy? Frank are you there?" Marina's voice came through my comm.
"Yeah, I copy," I replied, still awestruck by the sight. I spoke again before she could do so herself. "Don't worry about it, we'll find our way."
"Be careful Frank," she said.
"Ajem," Pavel coughed.
"Fuck off Pavel," came the answer.
The link was cut and we were on our own.
"No evac then," I said.
"Well no shit sherlock."
Easy out indeed.