Chapter XLVI: Anticlimax

March 10, 2541 (UNSC Calendar)/

Ajai Badlands, Juno, Olympic System

I barely flinched as the brute chieftain lunged towards me, its hammer raised for a fatal crushing blow, and its eyes betraying the fury and hatred it fell for me and for my race in general.

"Die impling!" it proclaimed as it closed in on me.

"Impling?" I asked myself out loud, striking a thoughtful pose. That only served to anger the chieftain more.

I still didn't move an inch, I had utmost confidence in Nezarian's boy sniping skills. If the sniper had Nezarian's word backing him, then that was enough for me. Oh, and the chieftain was charging straight towards a Lotus Anti Tank mine.

Do you think I'm stupid? I wouldn't stand in front of an enraged chieftain with only a sniper that I don't know for safety. That's just plain stupid.

The chieftain stepped on the mine. There wasn't even a click as the thing exploded, sending dirt, air, and fire towards the heavens. And the body of the stupid chieftain as well. The brute landed a few meters away from me, missing both its legs and one of its arms. Surprisingly, it was still alive. I walked towards it and gave it a once over. Something caught my attention. There was a small mace on its belt. Well, actually, it was a spike grenade. I grabbed the massive explosive, it was almost as long as my forearm.

"Impling huh?" I asked the chieftain.

The brute was too wounded to make any comment, but the hatred in its eyes could've easily made an inexperienced soldier loose his lunch. I simply shrugged and brought the explosive down on the brute's head. The spikes embedded themselves in the chieftain's face and then I pulled.

The chieftain howled in pain in a way that made my hair stand and a shiver run down my spine. I brought the spike grenade down again, and this time the brute didn't make a single noise as its thick skull was pierced by the crude, but sharp spikes on the grenade.

"Well, that is a noise that I'll never forget," Pavel said as he left cover and walked towards me, trying to avoid the occasional covvie body.

"Yeah, it was quite unexpected," I said as I placed the spike grenade on my back.

"All clear staff sergeant?" a familiar voice asked through the comm channel.

"It is now," I said. "Nice work with the mine by the way," I said.

"I aim to please," Yevgeny Nezarian replied.

I sighed and sat down on the body of a brute, not the chieftain. The body squelched a little as the armor and fur pressed the blood and bodily fluid in between. I didn't mind. We had been fighting a type war that was not meant to be fought by ODSTs. I was meant for special operations involving fancy terms such as: stealth, infiltration, long range patrol, assassination, extraction, and my personal favorite, extreme prejudice.

But yet here I was, fighting against brutes, jackals, and grunts like I was just another lowly infantryman and not the elite of humanity's military. In the last days I had grown to respect regular infantry a lot more than I had before, but man, did their jobs suck. They didn't really have any goals, they simply fired and hoped they didn't get hit. And it was even worse for the army!

I sighed once more and look around. The place was littered with covvie bodies, mostly brutes, but there were a couple of jackal snipers with half their chests blown out by Nezarian's boy.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Well, we wait," Nezarian said.

We had been pushing forward for the past five days. The edge of the supercarrier was now actually directly above us. It only served to remind us of what exactly we were facing against. I stood back up and checked my gun for ammo. Satisfied that it was fine I returned to my position, a small cluster of rocks that we had successfully held for five hours with not a single casualty. Seven of Nezarian's rangers and Pavel and me. Us nine had been bundled up together as a squad while we got reinforcements and replacements. We made for a pretty deadly squadron us nine, with all of us being elite specialists and all that.

We waited for additional attacks, but none came. Eventually our earpieces waked us up from our half-slumber.

"Nezarian, Castillo, you there?" asked the familiar voice of Major Hernandez.

"Yeah, we're here," I replied. "Sir."

"Well, we're sending a pelican to your position, you are to come back to base immediately and prepare for an op," he said.

"Finally," at least five of us muttered simultaneously.

"Good to see the optimism, but keep it professional," the major said and with that, he cut the channel.

Minutes later a pelican filled up with fresh-faced marines landed in our position. The kids looked us up and down in awe and surprised at getting to be so close to the legendary ODSTs, not to mention the badass Rangers. A couple of them actually gaped at us with their mouths opened. I grinned behind my faceplate, thanking them for the ego boost.

"That's right boys, this is probably one of the few times you'll see someone as badass as us," Pavel said as he sat on the pelican's hatch, legs hanging out.

All of the rangers and me laughed at that, obviously offending the newcomers a little bit. You know, with the damage to their professional pride and because we caught them staring at us like we were the first pair of breasts they had ever seen.

Good times.

I jumped on the pelican and it flew off, staying close to the ground to avoid AA fire. Pavel gave a mock salute to the replacement marines before they were out of sight. The landscape cruising below us was familiar. After all, we had fiercely fought for it for the past days. There were still some burned out husks that were once deadly choppers or ghosts. There was also the occasional crashed banshee or destroyed scorpion. Not to mention all the covvie bodies. All human bodies were retrieved so that they could be shipped to their families and as to avoid demoralization of the troops.

"So, what do you think this is about lieutenant?" asked one of the Rangers. This time I made a point not to learn their names. Witnessing Lunge's, Park's, and Banks' deaths after actually getting to know them made them even worse.

"I dunno," Nezarian said while shrugging. "Heard exactly the same that you did," he explained.

We chatted a little bit about our theories concerning the reason we were being called back from frontline duty. It ranged from a simple resting period for us to a special mission to board the covvie supercarrier. Eventually we all decided that it was probably a simple long range patrol or some recon thing.

It wasn't

"WHAT?" was the unanimous response to the comment that the general had just made.

"You heard me," he said.

"But sir, this is absurd, plain suicide!" Nezarian complained.

"Now you watch your tone lieutenant," the general warned with a stern voice.

"Sir, I think I am inclined to agree," I said. "This mission would be suicide."

"Well, that's why we picked you. You are the best we have," he explained.

"That doesn't make me feel better," a ranger mumbled.

The general decided to ignore him. "Get some rest, the operation starts tonight, good luck gentlemen," he said. And with that, we were dismissed.

That night, at the signaled time, we were all ready. This time we didn't bother with anything other than ammunition and a small can of biofoam each. I had at least double the ammo that I usually carried. My rifle was equipped with a drum magazine and my knives were sharpened. Pavel didn't spare any expenses either, he had his M247L, his ACS, and even an SMG. With spare ammunition for all of those. Not to count his sidearm.

Nezarian and the rangers were equipped with only their rifles and sidearms, but they were carrying as much ammunition as I was, perhaps a little bit more, taking into account that they were Army and those guys are famous for carrying tons and tons of ammo every time they go on combat. It had actually spawned a couple of jokes about the bullet to kill ratio of the UNSC Army. They were very sensitive about it, so I didn't mention it.

A minute later the NWMH team got here. By the way, that stands for Nuclear Weaponry and Material Handling. They were clad in the HAZOP version of marine armor. That did not bode well for me at all.

"Don't worry kid, this is our standard attire, you are at no risk being near the bomb," one of them said when he caught me staring at their armor. They all had SMGs and pistols, the sign of either special operations or of troops that rarely fought. I assumed it was the second since they didn't look like battle-hardened veterans to me.

Behind them came a troop transport warthog with what seemed like a longer flatbed in the back. On top of it was a dull grey cylinder. The only thing that signaled what it was were some black letters spelling Shiva. That meant it was a Shiva warhead, and by the size of it, it must've had a yield of some 50 megatons. Yeah, enough to wipe any city in human space from the map and then some.

"Well, we're ready."

With that, we set off. Our part in this mission required us to escort the NWMH team through the covvie lines and right under the belly of the Inheritor. Once we got there we would hold the ground for some time while the nuclear guys set up the bomb and everything. They wouldn't detonate it, but they would set it to red alert. That way when the carrier decided to lift its shields to fire at some ship, the bomb would blow it all to hell. Quite literally, as I hear that nuclear explosions are very hot. Who am I kidding? I've been near a nuclear explosion more than my fair share of times.

We left the camp with absolutely no armor or heavy weaponry to speak of. The only vehicle was a warthog laden with a rather heavy bomb on the back.

This time it wouldn't be about firepower, it would actually be about stealth. Yet here we were, carrying tons of ammunition that we were told we wouldn't use, but this is the kind of mission that goes wrong.

We had been walking slowly for a few hours now. The rangers and us were walking in a wide circle around the slow-moving warthog. The NWMH members were driving, going shotgun, and sitting on top of the bomb respectively. We had two rangers for scouts, warning us whenever an enemy patrol was ahead of us. So far we had managed to avoid every single brute patrol and had to eliminate one quickly.

"How much farther?" someone asked.

"Bout eight kilometers."
"Damn," the first ranger replied.

Eight kilometers was a long way to go at the rhythm we currently were doing. We had to get to our goal before daybreak, otherwise we'd have a difficult time returning without actually having to eliminate half the enemy army, something which we were in no position to do so. Well, technically we could've detonated the nuke, but I wasn't big on that plan.

"Halt," one of the scouts whispered.

We all complied and crouched, the NWMH guys hopped off from the hog and they aimed their guns toward the direction of the scouts, waiting for the enemy to either pass us without notice or come guns blazing.

"One brute, two jackals, eight grunts," the scout whispered.

No one said anything; we had all gotten the information and burned it into our brains for the purpose of utilizing it when we opened fire.

"Looks like they're going to stop here," the scout said.

"As soon as possible, try to take them out," Nezarian said.

"I don't think we can do it ourselves," the scout whispered again. "We need a couple more."
"You, you, go there," Nezarian ordered two of his rangers. They nodded and left at a brisk, albeit noiseless trot.

We waited for three and a half minutes before we heard loud snaps in rapid succession. Suppressed weapons fire. Another ten seconds passed before we heard anything.

"Looks like its clear lieutenant," the first scout said.

"Good, let's keep moving."
The warthog was turned on again and we started our slow walk towards our goal. We passed the place where the unfortunate patrol had decided to take a rest and I saw that the rangers had been very thorough. The brutes had been taken out with headshots, the jackals with regular double taps to the chest while the grunts had simply been sprayed. There was multicolored blood already forming pools in the ground.

I looked up and saw the gigantic ship. The single vehicle had managed to hold out against several UNSC regiments with its ground troops only for several weeks. Granted, their ground troops outnumbered us drastically, but they had received heavy pounding in account to the fact that we counted with different types of support while they didn't. The ship was gray and purple, with several lights dotting its hull. At this close distance of only 200 meters above, I could feel the threatening presence of the ship, it made me feel uncomfortable.

Finally, after another hour of walking and avoiding patrols, we had made it. We were right under our ship. A couple miles away from the cargo bay and slightly to the bow of the ship, but still pretty close to the center of it overall.

"Banshee!" someone called.

We all jumped to the ground, but the flier had already spotted the bulky warthog and was lining to strafe it. The NWMH guys jumped out just in time to avoid being flash-vaporized by the banshee. The plasma cannons left a few scorched marks on the hull of the bomb, but otherwise didn't damage it. Once I realized that I took a deep breath.

Immediately after that, we all opened fire on the banshee. The combination of small arms fire quickly brought it down, but the damage was done, its plasma fire must've been heard all over the place, same as the explosion after it crashed. Not to mention that it probably called in an alarm.

"Get working!" Nezarian ordered the NWMH guys. They happily complied. "Set a perimeter, hundred yards from the hog, give em some space to work," he barked. He shouldn't have bothered, we were already spreading out and finding nice defensive positions.

"Command, we've been spotted. We made it all the way to our objective, but a banshee spotted us, requesting pelican evac."

Static… static…

"Enemy patrol closing in on us!"

"Well shoot it goddamit!"

"You don't have to tell me twice."

I heard the report of the silenced assault rifle barking repeatedly at the unseen patrol. I aimed down the sight to see if I could spot any enemy soldier while we got a response from command. The dark night went gray as I activated the night vision section of my scope, further adding to the VISR.

Static… static…

"Lieutenant, this is command, we cannot send a pelican in for you, we cannot risk any aircraft," came an unknown voice.

"Are you fucking kidding me? We'll get killed out here," Nezarian replied.

"Amen to that," Pavel muttered.

"We need fucking evac right fucking now, or we'll fucking die," Nezarian yelled.

There was a few moments of silence before we finally got a reply. "Very well then, a pelican will be there in a few minutes."
"Well that was easy," I pointed out. "Thank god," I added.

Now, you see, pelicans are fast craft, able to reach speeds in excess of Mach something, they can also hover and fly sideways and diagonally and in every direction possible. They also happen to be armed and armored rather heavily. It is probably the epitome of human engineering and military prowess. Lately though, they were being swatted down like flies.

"Frankie?"

"Oh, sorry," I said. "Zoned out." I fired at a jackal carrying a carbine and killed it with a headshot. Couldn't help but smile a little after I saw its head explode like some sort of fruit.

The jackal wasn't alone though, little vulture there had some friends. Those friends were actually a rather large pack of brutes. The human equivalent to a platoon. Thirty of them, against me. Normally I would've worried, but at this distance the odds would even to about half that by the time they reached me.

Still not good enough…

I fired away, starting with the brute captain and moving down the ranks. After knocking down two majors, I realize my mistake. I could've taken out the captain and then the minors, but now that they were all out of leaders, the brute's went berserk. We all know what happens when they do that. The things charged at me sprinting. They were sprinting faster than even I could, faster than an elite could, probably around the same speed I had seen those Spartan-IIIs move, and that's saying a lot.

"Uh-oh," was all I said as the brutes lunged at me. I started walking backwards while keeping up my fire, hoping to draw them away from the other rangers and allow them to help me out as soon as the brutes came within their fields of fire.

By the time the brutes had reached my original position their numbers had been reduced from thirty to nineteen. Not bad at all given the time I had.

"Frag out!" I called as I tossed one of my grenades. The explosion blew three brutes of their feet, killing one of them and injuring the two others. That's about the moment that Pavel and the other ranger closest to my position shifted their fire and caught the charging brutes in their backs. Five of them were killed in as many seconds. The rest turned around to return fire, making the mistake of leaving me unchecked. I managed to take out three of them before Pavel and the other ranger eliminated the rest of the confused brutes. That could've been a textbook maneuver, three against thirty and coming out victorious without an injury.

"Where the hell's that pelican?" Nezarian yelled.

"A minute away," came the answer. It was yet another new voice, probably the pilot of the craft.

"How is the bomb going?" the lieutenant asked.

"Just about," replied the leader of the NWMH team.

"Well, you'd better hurry up, or we'll actually be rescued before you're done," Nezarian said.

The rangers and us ODSTs had been slowly falling back as several nearby covvie patrols closed in on our position. We had a decent position and our VISR and night-vision gear gave us an advantage over the covvie soldiers. We could've actually held out here for a rather long time provided things remained like this.

I had just killed two grunts when I heard a familiar hum. I looked up to see a low-flying pelican speeding towards us.

"Done!" one of the NWMH soldiers said.

"Hop on the pelican!" Nezarian ordered.

We all fell back in an orderly fashion, making our circle decrease in diameter as we walked backwards while sustaining our fire. The pelican did its job by using its autocannons and machineguns, keeping the patrols with their heads down.

I was last to jump on the pelican, the machinegun on the rear roared as it spewed lead at a group of grunts and brutes, riddling them with holes. The small patrol collapsed, dead.

The pelican lifted up in the air, plasma fire striking the hull but barely damaging it. I hopped backwards to avoid a spiker round and fell on my ass in the blood tray of the ship. This one was surprisingly lacking in the washed-out redish hue.

"Wow," someone said.

"What?"
"That actually…. went pretty damn well. We even managed to set up the bomb and everything."
"We're elite, that's what we do," Nezarian said.

"Aw, cmon lieutenant, when's the last time something went according to plan?"

"Kid's got a point," I said. It actually depressed me to think back to the last mission that had actually gone according to plan. That is to say, none.

"By the way, what happens if they deactivate the nuke?" Pavel asked.

"They don't got the technical know-how. It's more likely that they would set it off than they deactivate it. Besides, the dummy frigate is already on its way.

The dummy frigate in question was an actual frigate with everything of importance removed from inside of it. Its slipspace drive, its turrets, its MAC cannon, it's armor, its everything. It was basically a metallic shell in the shape of a frigate. The engines had been left on though, propelling it on an automatic route to this side of the planet, where it would be in range of the carrier.

Just as the pelican landed on camp, there was a noise that reminded me of uncapping a soda bottle, sort of a fizzing sound. I looked at the carrier to see a part of its top move slightly, although I couldn't really make out what it was.

"I advise you look away gentlemen," the leader of the NWMH said.

I turned around just in time. I heard a noise remembering me of the sound that beam rifles made, only that a million times louder. Instants later, that sound was blocked out by another, more familiar sound. The sound of an explosion. At first I was afraid that the nuke had gone of, actually killing us all, but it turned out that it was the warning missile that had been fired as soon as the carrier lifted its shields to fire its projectors. I knew that a looped recording telling the covvies not to deactivate the nuke as it would likely go off and making some demands was now playing. The recording was a distraction to confuse and delay them. All UNSC forces were now in the process of falling back to outside of the blast radius of the Shiva nuke. Tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, one of the enormous container ships would be used as a decoy in the same manner that the frigate had been used. As soon as the supercarrier lifted its shields, 30 megatons of pure hell would be unleashed, destroying it and most of the surrounding covvie forces.

Huh, it all actually went according to plan.

Isn't it just beautiful when that happens? I think so.

Well, chapter 46 is up. I have to say guys, I am rather pleased with myself for making a story this long and of mediocre quality. I've got to thank you all for that, sticking to reading my attempts at decent writing and that. Thanks for that people, hope you enjoyed this chapter.

-casquis