Chapter XLI: Regular Infantry

February 20, 2542 (UNSC Calendar)/

Hill Uno, Juno, Olympus System

The original legion that had been sent to eliminate our small group had long since disappeared, courtesy of the noisy Armadillos and their 30mm autocannons. Oh, and one particularly nasty airstrike, courtesy of seven Shortsword bombers that departed from Vigil, the small city that acted as the capital of this moon. We were now surrounded, no other way to put it. We weren't completely surrounded, but there were three legions facing us, with another one already on the move to cut of our escape. Said escape was taking place right now, with the soldiers and marines hopping of into the Pelicans, Armadillos, Scorpions, Cobras, and Warthogs. The rest of the marines had been mounted on our few pelicans, everyone except us and the Rangers were ready. That meant there were thirty-two men defending all of Hill Uno.

Luckily, we didn't plan on staying here for long. We were only to serve as a stalling force in case the Covenant legions attacked, which wasn't something that seemed likely to happen soon, not after the ass-kicking session that we had given them two days ago.
I checked the timer in my helmet, the same timer that was counting down simultaneously on my helmet, Pavel's helmet and thirty other helmets of the Army Rangers. We were now only a couple of minutes away from escaping on board of two pelicans that were left behind. One of them was Marina's, the other one was the craft of another pilot that had been on board this ship since before me. Apparently his flying skills were legendary.

After a hundred seconds of unbearable tension and fear of enemy strike, we all silently fell back towards the pelicans. At that moment all of the vehicles available to us ignited their engines at the same time and sped away from Hill Uno, looking to escape the three legions and avoid yet another one already on its way. This time nobody bothered to try and move slowly, every single on of those vehicles sped away at speeds in excess of 60 miles per hour. Our pelicans took of thirty seconds later, the exact time it took us to climb over the hill and reach our escape craft.

Unfortunately, things didn't go so smoothly. The sentries on the covvie camps alerted all the troops, which prompted a random barrage of wraith plasma to land all over the place, along with a wall of spiker rounds, needle rounds, and the occasional carbine, to shoot aimlessly at our hill.

They didn't even have to aim, all they had to do was fill the entire space in front of us with a wall of projectiles. Fortunately, we had already left. A wraith mortar shot forced me to dive away from my trajectory and hop inside the other pelican, instead of Marina's. Frankly, it made me nervous, I had never flown with someone that wasn't Marina. At least not for over five years.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to UNSC Air, my name is Horace Zelkawe, and I'll…" "Shut the fuck up and take off already!" some cried out.

"As you wish, sir," the pilot said through the intercom, but he was already a couple dozen meters of the ground.

I was already manning the rear turret of the pelican, my job was to discourage any banshee pursuers from giving chase. It was a beautiful display of fireworks as green lights erupted all over the place. The AA wraiths were carpeting the area. I watched the lovely green lights land all over the place and rattle our craft. Eventually I bored of it and simply used them as flares to try and spot banshees. I fired three bursts at an eager brute pilot before it finally decided against it and retired. Then, we were alone.

Later, in the morning, I decided to give my position in the turret to somebody else. I had been aiming at nothing for a few hours, and my feet were tired. Two falcons had flanked our craft a few minutes after we had left the hill. They were crewed by Army troopers but there were three marines on board of each, hitching a ride. The four Falcons that we sported had originally been sent to cover our retreat, now they simply stayed there because they had no better place to go.

Our column was moving slowly now, a great deal of sand being lifted by the tracks and tires. Luckily, we had managed to fit every last foot soldier into or on top off a vehicle, that way we moved considerably faster. Our destination was a small town near the Edian River, a rather large river for a moon this barren and small. The fact that there was even an ocean in this place was astounding. The town was in the exact place where the desert started to shift into prairie. It was six hours away from Hill Uno at the speed we were doing and uncomfortably closer to the supercarrier. We had no other choice though, it was a good defensible position and would put the brutes in an awkward situation because they were now four legions short and would leave us in a position viable for an attack if such thing was planned. Besides, it had a river, with actual water in it. Water! Isn't that exciting?

Finally, the town came into view. I moved through the cargo bay of the pelican and entered Horace's cockpit.

"Hey what are you…?"
"Shut up," I ordered as I took in the small town.

The houses weren't built of wood or even metal or plastics, they were made out of concrete and stone, good, sturdy houses for the unforgivable weather in this region. They all had small windows facing the desert, where sand and dust storms usually came from, and larger windows facing the river. There were about three hundred or so buildings in the town, mot of them houses, but some of them were evidently small businesses. I could spot the police station, with its landing pad empty, and a large supermarket, probably completely empty of product when the colonists here left. That town would be my home for a while. Rio de Juno was going to be my home. And it sucked.

"Sandbags, that should be easy; barbed wire, we can always make some; ammunition we're getting shipped, food, we have our C-rations; water, there's that fucking river. What I can simply not tolerate, is the absolute lack of any entertainment!" one marine complained loudly.

"Well, if you just took the time, you could watch some of the films left behind by the colonists, but apparently they're all Junian or outdated," an Army soldier said. "You could have a whole lot less free time if you wanted to."

"Well, maybe that's because as a marine, I'm not used to getting secondhand equipment."

I took a glance at the Army equipment placed next to the soldier and instantly knew he was right. He had a battered old MA37 ICWS that was on top of everything looked like it had been through a couple of campaigns against the URF before being handed to this soldiers, it looked like it was about to fall apart. Don't get me wrong, in my opinion the MA37 is a superb weapon, besides, I think it's better looking than the MA5C, but it performs less than satisfactory on most aspects.

The UNSC Army issued its infantry soldiers with other relics. For example, the M6G that I and all the other troops in the UNSCDF had was the same, but this army guys had older version of it. And let's not even get into the body armor of Army troopers. It is cumbersome, heavy, doesn't have climate control, and on top of everything, is slightly less effective than the Marine Battle Dress. Really, poor guys.

The soldier and marine started getting into an Army vs. Marines argument as I walked away from them. The town of Rio de Juno, apparently called like that in homage to Rio de Janeiro, had been made a fortress. There were sandbag barricades forming a wall covering the perimeter of the small town, then there were more elaborate defenses inside of the town, mostly consisting of tanks aiming down the streets two avenues and Armadillos in intersections. It would be a nightmare to get through this place, especially when an armored company and a company from the famous Hell's Ambassadors defended it.

Unfortunately, this place was boring as fuck. We hadn't had a major attack in the few days that we had been here. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing, but I'd rather fight a hundred covvies right now than have to wait for them endlessly. It made me feel jumpy and I wasn't the only nervous one.

I jogged through the small town to kill time, not really because I wanted myself fit. I went through the small town hall, which served as headquarters for the 'Inconvenient JSF', as we had been nicknamed by ourselves. We were a joint strike force because members of two different UNSCDF branches composed our strength. The town hall had been turned into a mountain of sandbags, with said objects covering all lower windows and forming a perimeter surrounding the building. There were also sandbags on the roof and outside the door.

I made my way to the small police station, barely the size of an Elephant troop transport. It had been used as storage for ammunition, seeing that it was the only building in the city designed to store weaponry and actually fend off assaults. A pelican was positioned on the landing pad, not that it was used, it was simply there because it was an actual landing pad. The rest of the pelicans were grounded in the parking lot of the supermarket, same as the falcons. Our scorpions were placed in the two avenues of the town, covering the whole length of the streets with their 90mm cannons. The other two had been placed next to the town hall and on the other end of town respectively. The warthogs that we had would be used as warthogs. Right now they were on use as courier messages and shade providers. The mongooses we had were not getting any use and likely wouldn't receive any for a long time. They'd probably serve better as barricades.

The worse part about this though, was the sun. It was significantly colder here than it had been back in Hill Uno, but 41º Celsius is still hot as fuck. Not literally. I think… Well, I don't know. Regardless, it was still very hot, and most male soldiers chose to mill around topless. Doesn't sound that sexy when it's with large military men does it? I can tell that some of the female soldiers were excited about that. They giggled and pointed at different soldiers sometimes. I managed to forget that most of them were in their early twenties or late teens. They could've been going to college and getting a nice degree, perhaps even getting married. Or they could've been dancing in strip clubs. Who knows?

I finished my running at the river. Unfortunately, the water wasn't drinkable unless I wanted to get the flu. I still drank it. It felt good as splashed water on my face. I would've jumped inside right then and there, but I didn't want to get one of my two pairs of cargos soaked. I returned back to my own little house at a slow pace. I am very glad to say that I did spot a group of Marines stealing glances at me and giggling amongst themselves. Fortunately, they were all women.

I arrived at the house with a big smile on my face. I decided against taking a shower. We had running water, but we still had to ration it carefully.

Why?

Why what?

Why do we ration water? It's not like the river is going to dry up any time soon.

A fine point, I told myself as I turned on the shower.

Two hours later I was dragging a marine without both of his legs to safety. Funny how things change that fast. The marine had been hit by a plasma grenade, the explosion it produced actually managed to burn through both his legs. His screams were almost unbearable.

"Cover me!" I yelled as I dragged the soldier over a pile of sandbags and to safety. The marine was aided by two corpsmen and tourniquets placed above his knees. The man would probably survive just fine. He'd be open for replacement limbs for free. He'd probably get a nice pair of electrical legs after he was honorably discharged. He would be able to live his life fully and normally.

An instant later a fuel rod from a banshee engulfed them all, killing them instantly. The flier turned around for another pass but a warthog's M41 shot it down, sending it crashing into a couple of unlucky jackals.

"Shoot the brute, shoot the brute!"

Instants later the brute had received about two pounds worth of lead to the face and chest, making said areas look like hamburger meat. The grunts in its squad panicked and fled. They were all shot down within moments.

From further back we were receiving a constant rain of plasma from three different turrets. They had been mounted on I don't know what to make them mobile. The bolts slammed all over the place, mostly missing. Mostly. I dived to the side as I fired in the general direction of the moving turrets. I was to far away to actually aim and fire accurately that quickly, but I am proud to say my shots landed around the feet of the grunt gunner. I sprinted a few meters before sliding behind an overturned ghost. I kicked the dead brute in the face just in case. From that position I popped up and managed to shoot down one of the grunts. Instants later another took its place, and the firing resumed.

"Pavel, where are you with those Arrowheads?" I asked.

"Still no luck, the launching tubes were damaged badly," he said. "I need a higher vantage point to actually throw them."
"Well, climb on top of something!" I said.

"On it," he replied.

I joined the barrage of gunfire that the B and Echo companies were providing, halting the enemy advance but not eliminating it. I did my usual thing, targeting brute minors and grunts with fuel rods. Jackals with shields were somebody else's problem, so I dedicated myself to shooting down the sharpshooters. I jumped off the ghost and switched positions to another barricade, I was beginning to attract to much attention.

"Ok, I'm ready!" Pavel called out. This time I could actually hear his voice from behind me. I turned to face him and saw that he was on top of a house on the edge of town, right behind me.

"Painting targets!" I said as I activated the laser targeter on my rifle. "Throw one," I said.

"Two!" I called out as I sighted in on another turret. As I said that the first missile flew straight at the firs turret I had targeted, destroying it and killing the grunt. The second one didn't fly high enough and slammed into the ground ten feet away from the second turret.

"Throw it higher!" I said.

Pavel grunted as he complied, and the third missile hit the grunt directly, killing it and destroying the turret completely. The third missile took two attempts as well, but eventually we had destroyed all of the three turrets.

"Where is that damn Armadillo?" I asked out loud.

As soon as I said that a red plasma bolt flew right next to my head, frying the radio components on my head. It was awfully close to frying my head as well.

"Fuck!"

I had to sprint all the way back to Darbinian's position. He was in command of this section of the line. I had to sprint through fifty meters of dirt to finally reach the lieutenant.

"Sir!"

"What?" he asked as he fired a steady burst at a jackal, knocking back its shield and killing it.

"Where's the Armadillo?"

"On its way," he said as he ducked to avoid a strafing banshee. "Fuck you asshole!" he called out as he shot at the craft as it flew overhead.

"We need it now!" I said.

"I thought we were doing just fine," Darbinian returned angrily and, obviously, sarcastically.

"There's a fucking revenant there and we can't do shit about it!" I said.

"Fine, fuck," he relented. "Ask Vazquez to use the radio to command."

"Thank you, sir," I said.

Huh, he actually is a soldier. I thought as I crawled ten meters towards Vazquez

"Hey, the lieutenant told me to…" Of course he was shot in the face with a spiker. What else could've happened?
"Argh! Help me!" he called out as he tried to pull the glowing spike from his eye.

"Calm down!" I said.

I left the man there and grabbed his radio as blood spurted out of his eye socket.

"Command! This is Castillo, we need the Armadillo right fucking now!" I said.

"It's on its fucking way staff sergeant, and watch your fucking tone!" came the answer from none other than Chloe Delacroix.

"Just tell the fucking thing to hurry up!" I yelled into the radio, getting into the discussion. "Or we'll die."

"Done," she said.

As soon as she said that I dropped the radio from and let it dangle from the guy's backpack. I grabbed him from the back of his vest and started pulling him back, firing from his SMG while I did so.

"Medic!" I called out. A corpsman sprinted towards me and grabbed the bleeding Vazquez from the same place. I took a knee and killed a jackal that was shooting in out direction. A line of spike appeared ten meters away and moved towards me only to stop an inch away from my boot. I took the moment to eliminate the brute with three bursts to the head.

"Pavel!" I called out.

"What?"

"Make those damn jackals keep their heads down!" I ordered.

"I'm fucking trying!" he said as he fired a steady burst from his M247L. Normally, we would've been more quiet and professional when on a mission, but this wasn't actually a mission. We were simply fighting to push back a covvie advance. This was actually the weakest point of the Covenant attack, but we only had two platoons to defend it. The rest of the troops were defending the western side of town from a stronger advance.

"Chopper!" someone yelled.

I turned to see the monstrous vehicle favored by the brutes tear through a barricade like it was made of paper. It started shooting all over the place, hitting one soldier in the arm, blowing it clean off. Instants later the bike was propelled upwards by a grenade explosion and then blown up with a rocket.

I started moving towards it to confirm the kill and use it as cover when a large mass moving at 30mph slammed into the wreck, tearing it apart. The armadillo slowed down a little bit to allow for better accuracy. Its autocannon started roaring as it spewed explosive rounds at the revenant. Within moments the vehicle had exploded in a purple flash. The IFV stayed there, shooting any vehicles it could spot with its autocannon and all infantry down with the robotic machinegun. I ran towards it.

"Hey, open up!" I said as I banged on the hull.

"What?" asked a voice through a thin slit.

"There are some wraiths over that rise, you'd better keep moving," I told the pair of eyes.

"Ok, roger that," he said. A few moments later the armadillo rumbled forward and two blasts landed a few meters away from the vehicle, making my neck feel warm. I moved with the IFV and used it as cover, occasionally popping out to shoot at a couple of jackals.

"Wraith!" someone from behind yelled. I banged on the hull.

"I see it," someone answered without bothering to show his face.

I ran back to a house with blackened walls and jumped through a window. I turned just in time to see a wraith appear from a small rise, its sights on the armadillo. The autocannon peppered the tank with fire as it received plasma fire from the tank's gunner. Suddenly the wraith veering of to the side and then stopped. A couple of rockets made it blow up.

Instants later the armadillo started rumbling forward, actually, it was retreating towards our line. On of its sides was completely undamaged while the other one was scorched, cracked, riddled with spike rounds, and slightly melted.

"What about the other wraith?" I called out to it as it passed. I got no answer.

"Frankie, need some help over here," Pavel said. He was behind me and climbed a ladder to the roof as soon as he said that.

I painted a couple of minor targets such as a ghost and a cluster of brutes before a few Arrowheads slammed into them. I repeated the routine a couple of times before we were ordered to cease fire.

"They're falling back!" some marine said, almost like he didn't believe it.

"Finally," Pavel groaned as he sat on a surprisingly undamaged couch. "Those guys in the tank were fucking pussys," Pavel said.

"IFV, it's and IFV," I informed him. "And that's rude."

"I know," he said as he let his head rest on one of the pillows.

I left the house and headed towards the Lieutenant, he was meeting with a staff sergeant and asking him for a sitrep on he battle.

"Three KIAs and three WIA, two of them serious," the sergeant said.

"Could've been worse," Darbinian returned. "What the fuck do you want?" he snapped as he saw me.

"Easy there Kriks," I said. "Just wanted to see how it went." I immediately turned around and left, leaving the bitchy asshole to chat with his staff sergeant. I was surprised that he had been given command of this section of the defense, but he had done a decent job at it, so I wouldn't berate him for that.

Our three KIAs were the guy that had had both his legs blown off and the two corpsmen. Our WIAs were the guy with a spike in his left eye socket and the other one was the one that had gotten his arm blown away by the chopper. The one with the thing in his eye would be operated on and remain here as a combatant. His eye socket would be emptied, stitched, and healed by tomorrow night. The other soldier would likely be evacuated to a hospital in the nearby headquarters where there were larger regiments. Maybe he'd even get a replacement arm.

I headed back towards the town hall, the other attack had been repulsed successfully with help of one scorpion, three falcons, two rattlesnakes, and seven armadillos. Assholes.

I looked up to see a falcon spewing smoke from one of its rotors. The two door gunners' faces were covered in soot and smoke. It landed noisily right outside of the town hall. That would need some serious repairs pretty soon. The two gunners hopped of the craft and coughed half their lungs out while the pilot stopped its rotors and managed to make the flow of smoke slow down a little bit.

I heard a few mortar shots and saw a pelican fly by towards the place of the other attack, probably on its way to pick wounded soldiers.

"Staff Sergeant, what in the fuck are you doing here?" asked Captain Sharma.

"We pushed them back," I said. "And it's not my shift for watchout."

"It doesn't work like that Staff Sergeant, you just fucking pushed back an enemy attack five minutes ago, you have to remain in the frontline for at least an hour before gradually phasing back to regular shifts.

"But the surveillance drones show that…" I started.

"I don't give a fuck, go back there and be helpful!" she ordered.

"Ma'am!" I said as I saluted and did a neat about turn. I headed back to the place where we had been attacked and did an exemplary job of replacing sandbags that had been damaged with intact ones.

Hey guys! Exclamation marks!

Just kidding, I'm happy I reached chapter number 40 (41 technically) so I took the time to upload two different chapters just for you guys, my favorite and only readers. Hope you enjoyed

-casquis