Chapter XL: Número Uno
January 31, 2541 (UNSC Calendar)/
Hill Uno, Juno, Olympus System
It had been the case. The carrier still had one particular weapon, which served to ward off any ship that came nearby. So far it had only destroyed a frigate that had come here to give us supplies. The ship in question had been neatly bisected as a rather thin plasma beam cut through it as it was about to break atmosphere. The supercarrier had literally sniped the frigate from around fifty thousand kilometers away. The frigate had landed all over the place, some of its crew managed to bail out in time. A few of the other regiments in Juno had gotten their supplies. So far we could manage, but bringing supplies from any of the three remaining UNSC ships was a lengthy process that involved loading pelicans and shipping ammunitions and food to us instead of simply bringing them all at the same time on board a ship.
As I was saying, the energy projector that the supercarrier sported prevented any UNSC ship from making an approach to this side of the planet. It could literally blast away at a frigate that was fifty fucking thousand kilometers away for Christ's sake.
Our camp was still a camp and we were well supplied, we would last a long time in this place if we were required to, but for now we were content to wait for the UNSC reinforcements that had been called for.
"No reinforcements for now," Brooks' hologram said.
"What?" said every single person in the room. There were seven people inside, a very coordinated response.
"The UNSC Navy is busy in other systems, they can't afford to send a single ship to this system, especially if they can be destroyed from halfway across the system," he explained. "However, they have not forsaken us, so we will receive freighters with supplies, although I seriously doubt that we will be receiving any nuclear weapons."
"Captain, what does that mean for us?" asked Hernandez, a frown covering his face.
"For now, you fight." Having said that, he signed off.
"Well that's just great," Darbinian started. "How many apes are on that ship? Twenty thousand?" At least."
"Twenty thousand covvies, not apes," Sharma said.
"Well, regardless, what do we do now?" asked Chloe.
"We could simply stay here and wait this thing out, only fighting when the enemy comes to us," suggested Hernandez. "This is a pretty defendable position."
"I don't think any of the soldiers here could wait that long," murmured Yevgeny.
"I agree," I said.
"These men are soldiers, they need to fight, most of them want to fight," Pavel said.
"Because they are recruits!" Darbinian said, outraged.
"May I remind you that all of these men had seen combat more than once?" Nezarian said.
"We can't fight alone against them," he complained.
"Well, we do have a couple of other regiments planetside," Delacroix said. "Won't be alone, just saying."
"I think we should stay here," Darbinian said.
"How the hell is he your executive officer ma'am?" Pavel asked Sharma. I elbowed my friend for his comment. Darbinian simply stormed off the tent, visibly angry.
"Is he allowed to do that?" Pavel asked again. This time I let it pass.
"He's just under a lot of stress," Sharma said.
"Not important," Yevgeny Nezarian said. "What do we do?"
"If we won't wait out, I suggest that we wait only a little longer to see what the ground troops will do," Major Hernandez said.
"Sounds good to me, sir," Lieutenant Delacroix said. It seemed like part of her shyness had disappeared, although she still blushed for things I considered rather insignificant. Pavel told he loved that.
Whipped. I thought. Then: Hypocrite. My own mind made the word sound like a rhyme with whipped. My mental issues had decreased over time, but they were still there. Yup, I needed a real shrink, or not, I wasn't about to ask around if certain things that happened in my head were normal. That wasn't normal.
"No raids?" I asked.
"Or sabotage?" that was Nezarian.
"Not even some recon?" asked Pavel.
"I guess we could do a little bit of mayhem," muttered Captain Sharma.
"That's what we're her for ma'am," I said.
The troops that were on board the supercarrier plus the additional ones from the CCS-class battlecruiser had all been dropped to the ground, with only a few remaining on board to serve as command and control. There were roughly 25,000 enemy ground soldiers in addition to air and ground vehicles. We barely amounted to a division. We had 10,000 army soldiers and marines. A small division at that. Fortunately, humanity tended to triumph in overwhelming situations whilst on ground combat. It had been joked that it was 3-1 in space for the covvies, but they were 1-3 in ground combat. I secretly hoped that that was the truth.
Right now Pavel and I had been sent to do some recon. A small covvie legion had decided to move towards our direction, while other larger forces had moved to face the rest of the UNSC forces. The brutes were eager for carnage and we would give it to them soon enough.
"What do you see?" I asked Pavel. My VISR and helmet zoom only went so far.
"Well, not that much really, they've got wraiths, ghosts, banshees, revenants, and a buttload of infantry. Nothing out of the usual."
"Leadership?" I asked.
"They haven't left the command tent yet, but I have spotted a few minor chieftains, so it looks like they are lead by a full-fledged ape."
"So this recon mission was simply a recon mission," I stated. "Well that's disappointing," I said as I slung my sniper rifle over my back and headed back to our mongooses.
"Wait, wait!" Pavel said.
"What?"
"The chieftain is out."
"And?"
"Uh-oh," Pavel said. "They're moving out."
"Now?"
"Yes, we'd better go, like right now," Pavel said.
We hopped on our vehicles and followed our trail back to Hill Uno. It had been named like that because it was "Number One!" according to some stupid marine. At least they hadn't called it Hill Something. That would've been unoriginal, and God forbid something be unoriginal.
We made our way back in a matter of minutes, we even spotted a few banshees behind us, but they didn't seem to spot us. I'll give the mongoose that, even though it is a glorified ATV, it certainly has acceleration. The sandy desert made it less prone to tip over when it hit a pebble, but it also slowed it down considerably. I was glad with the exchange of performance issues. Seemed like all of our scouts were too. Also, dunes made pretty nice ramps.
"Did you see that?" Pavel asked excitedly. "I must've jumped at least three meters high!"
I smiled through my faceplate and depressed the accelerator, using a smallish dune as a ramp. It was a fantastic jump, I managed to fly about five meters high and a lot more than that in distance. Fortunately, I landed on a relatively flat stretch of sand, so I didn't end up killing myself over some stupid trick.
"Impressive, even I'll admit it," Pavel said.
We arrived at Hill Uno and made our way to the rocks that protected the summit and command. We did some hopping and climbing before we finally reached the top.
"They're coming," Pavel said.
"Oh, we know, we do have drones scouting the area," answered the major.
"Then why did you send us on recon?" Pavel asked.
"Well, you were obviously restless, so we decided to give you something to do," Sharma said.
"You two guys get along way too good to be from different branches," I said. "Ma'am, Sir," I added. "What do you want us to do then?" I asked, changing the subject quickly to make them forget I had addressed them as friends, something that was a big no-no in the military.
"We honestly don't have any jobs that require your expertise," the captain said. "When they attack today or tomorrow, you'll simply stay away from the bulk of the combat, maybe do some sniping if you want, but we can't risk loosing you two in this battle."
"You're storing us?" Pavel asked shocked.
"Yes, for later."
"What about the rangers?" I asked.
"Oh, that's on a need to know basis," Hernandez said.
"Well that's just great," I said as I left the tent without saluting or requesting to do so.
The covvies arrived at dusk. Instead of waiting to the morning to execute an attack and let their troops rest, they instead attacked straight away. This time they skipped sending grunts as cannon fodder and all that. They went head-on with a combined-arms assault. Banshees strafed the forward-most positions before wraiths started bombarding the place. Then, a group of ghosts decided to slam against our line with squadrons of brutes, grunts, jackals, and hunters. You know, the usual.
"So, what's your killcount?" Pavel asked.
"I lost track once I hit the hundreds," I said.
"Yeah, figures," he agreed. "What about overall killcount? Any idea how high it could be?"
"Dunno, should be pretty damn high, in account to the two times I've detonated a nuke."
"We, we've detonated a nuke," Pavel said.
"No, that first time in vacuum doesn't count for you," I said. "you can share the other if you want."
Pavel was mature enough not to get in a discussion over this. Since we had nothing left to say, we simply dedicated ourselves to observing the spectacle. The desert was black, you could barely see anything at all. We used out VISRs to make out the silhouettes of friendlies and covvies, but the technology only did so much. What really lit up the sky though, was the tracer rounds and plasma fire. That and the flaming wrecks that were a few of the covvie vehicles. The battle was looking like an intense but short one. The Army guys down there would repel all of the attacking aliens without much suffering and then we would shift the soldiers in the frontline. After that we'd then wait for the second, deadlier covvie attack. That had been the plan ever since we knew that they were attacking us.
Soon enough they covvies were repulsed. We only needed to use one of our Rattlesnakes to handle two wraiths. The rest of the ghosts were taken out with rockets or their riders had fallen prey to a well-aimed bullet. Those intact ghosts would be grabbed and used as stationary cannons. The attack had worked well in our favor, I doubted that we had suffered a single kill. Perhaps a couple of wounded soldiers, but I knew that nothing too serious, otherwise the cries for medics would've been heard all the way over here. Plasma burns are painful, same as spiker rounds to the chest.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"I don't know, I've got nothing to talk about," Pavel said.
"Me neither."
We simply observed as the Rattlesnake shot at the retreating ghosts before they disappeared over a few dunes. Seems like their camp was nearby, less than a kilometer away. That meant that we'd do some Arrowhead raids soon enough, odds was that Pavel and me would be chosen for that.
Finally, some action. I thought excitedly, even though not a single officer had even requested us for the past hours.
"Well, I guess it's time to sleep," Pavel said as he stood up. "I recommend you do the same, remember that nights here are extremely short," he reminded me.
They were, only about six hours each, but it was more than enough nighttime than any self-respectable soldier would need.
I stood up as well and followed my friend to our tent and our folding beds.
When we woke up the next day I could clearly see all of the Covenant dead soldiers. There were a few dozen grunts, brutes, and jackals on the ground, all of them dead. Two wraiths had been utterly destroyed while about five ghosts had suffered the same fate, two were salvaged and used exactly as I said they would be. Not a single banshee had been shot down, but that was not worrisome, we had been attacked at night, with no searchlights and little light to help out any night vision equipment it was rather difficult to shoot a banshee.
I groaned as I stood up. My mohawk was still there, but there was a little bit of hair growing around it now. At least it saved me from having to put down some bunched up hair in the early morning. I put on my boots and actually tucked in my pants, that way no sand would get into the leather combat boots. I could've used my armored boots, but they were just a little bit weird to walk around. I mean it looked weird. I even had to grab a surplus jacket. This particular item of clothing was gray instead of black, but it was still ODST issue. It killed me to have to war this, but the sun was taking no prisoners. I even had to put on a cap.
"Morning Frank," Pavel said as I left the tent, he was simply standing there watching yesterday's battlefield.
"How'd it go for us?" I asked.
"One guy was shot in the shoulder with a spiker and a couple of mild plasma burns, nothing too serious."
"Figures," I said.
"So, around when?" he asked.
"Two hours, give or take fifteen minutes," I said.
"Nah, no way, four hours," he said.
Two hours and forty-three minutes later we were under attack once again.
"Move!" I called out to the small squadron assigned to me. They were four marines in addition to Pavel and myself. That is a grand total of six.
We were leading flying through the battlefield in an attempt to reach the chieftain that was leading the attack. Apparently the brute was one of the minor chieftains, but still a pretty dangerous one.
"Movement right!" one of them cried. I heard a couple of shots and then dropped to the floor.
A stream of spiker rounds flew overhead, occupying the space where the entire squad had been moments before. I turned around so that I was face-up and shot a couple of random rounds before sighting the brute minor. Two bursts dented its helmet and went through his skull respectively.
"Keep moving!" I said.
We had been given a narrow window by the rest of Echo and B companies. They were firing all they had at the advancing covvies, while we made our way through their stretched ranks. I am still not entirely sure why we didn't get an Armadillo, would've made this thing a hell of a lot easier.
"Banshee!" one of the marines said. We all dived sideways at the word and a line of plasma turned the sand at our feet into molten glass. The marine that had been carrying out SPANKr turned around and fired a single rocket at the craft. We circled around him while the rocket made contact with its target. A few covvies were already realizing what was going on and firing in our direction, but we moved out of there in no time.
"Let's go!" I ordered as we started running towards our goal. The chieftain was hiding behind a dune directing the assault. He had chosen to spread his force wide, that's what had allowed the tank barrage to open up a corridor for us to go through and take him out. Another one would do the same and allow us to retreat as soon as I ordered it.
"Grunt," someone called out, but the alien had already been made a cheese grater.
Finally we reached the pinnacle of the dune where we would shoot the chieftain. Our rocket marine took careful aim, not even bothering to hide his presence. Just as he had sighted in on the large ape, a silhouette emerged from behind him. Within seconds the marine was in the desert floor, struggling to keep blood from spewing out of his neck and we were shooting a stalker in active camouflage.
The brute kicked another marine, making her tumble downhill a few meters before she stopped herself. It then lunges at the closes marines, but it went face first to the ground as I shot at its leg. Not that it bothered the alien, it immediately stood up and tackled the marine out of the way. I fired a sustained burst at its chest and managed to kill it before it landed on top of me, its right armpit covering most of my face.
"Oh God! The horror!" I said as Pavel pulled the brute off me.
The other marine was attending to the one with a sliced neck, the two that had been kicked and tackled were making their way up here while firing at some adventurous grunts that had been sent here to kill us.
"The chieftain!" I reminded Pavel, and he lunged towards the rocket launcher. He grabbed the weapon and aimed for barely a second before clicking the trigger twice. Only a single rocket flew out of its tube, since the other one was empty, but it was more than enough. The explosion landed less than a foot away from the charging chieftain. Killing it and one of its bodyguards. The other one was taken out with a few shots to the gaps in its armor.
"Ok, let's move out," I said. "Now!" I called into my helmet mic.
Even as we were clumsily making our way downhill, carrying a wounded marine with us, a rain of HE rounds cleared out any covvie soldier that had decided to try and stop us from returning. This time we had to provide covering fire while we returned.
"Move!" I repeated while shooting down a jackal.
"Frank, behind you!" Pavel called out from further ahead.
I jumped forward instinctively and a fist slammed into the wrecked wraith that I had been using for cover. Another stalker had been just stalking us, or me. I turned around and fired two rounds at its chest, both of which had no effect and made my gun go click. I stood up and pulled out my knife, remembering one Bulldog's lessons in close quarters combat. I lunged at the monster, and making full use of my accentuated reflexes and muscles managed to end up behind it after stabbing at it twice. I slashed twice at the back of its knees. It wasn't a deadly injury, but it was enough to bring the surprised brute to the floor, its head was now level with mine, and I promptly slashed its throat wide open.
"Wow, Frankie, that was rather… impressive," Pavel said, startled. It made for a funny image, an ODST with an awkward look on his body while colorful projectiles rained all around him.
"Well, yes, thank you, MOVE!" I said.
We made it to the frontline without greater trouble after having killed a chieftain and several other brutes, grunts, and jackals. That action stopped the attack in its tracks, the covvies retreated to regroup and attack later on.
Not all of us made it, the soldier that had been slashed in the neck died halfway to the medical tent, crying out for us to tell his wife and kids he loved them. He was the first casualty from the Inconvenience in the Junian Campaign. He would not be the last.