Chapter XLIX: Refined Tastes
August 23, 2541 (UNSC Calendar)/
Titanium Refining Plant IX, Concordia, Zama System
Smoke and dust drifted by slowly, giving the day a little bit of dullness. Not that it needed any, there was some sort of stalemate with the covvies right now. A couple of large offensives by the Army and the colonial militia had actually managed to hold off the bulk of the covvie ground forces. Sometimes I wondered why the covvies didn't just simply glass away at the planet instead of wasting their time trying to kill us pesky humans.
"Hey Pavel, why don't they just glass us and get it over with?" I asked.
"Well, for starters they need to turn on the intensity of their plasma projectors, which means that they need to go up into the atmosphere, second, it takes time to position themselves in an appropriate glassing pattern. Finally, they have to put their shields down to fire, that would cause a massive nuclear and MAC barrage that would surely destroy most of the ships before they even got off one single particle of superheated plasma out of their cannons."
"Wow, did you actually learn that stuff?"
"Yeah, read a paper a military dude made on it," he explained.
"You, reading?" I asked. "I tried to get you to read The Wet Dirt, Maika's Journal, and A Soldier's Tale. You refused with the excuse that they were nerdy."
"Well, what can I say, I'm a changed man," Pavel said as he placed his hands behind his back.
"Did Delacroix make you read it?"
"She did not!" he said. "I am outraged that you would make such a suggestion! It goes against my integrity, nay, my honor that you would even thing such a thing conceivable… of course she made me read it you idiot."
"That sure was a lot of big words smart guy," I said. "Did she tell you to read a dictionary as well?"
"Shut up," he said, although I could see a smile on his face before he turned away to put on his helmet.
I glanced at the landscape in front of me. There wasn't really much to look at. My buddy and myself were sitting on a pipeline with our feet hanging over the edge. This pipeline was on the very edge of the refinery we were supposed to protect, it overlooked a small town that the covvies were attacking right now. I could see the wraith mortars as they traced their high arcs before descending. It would've been a beautiful spectacle had I not known that each of those blasts killed human soldiers and marines. Every now and then I could hear the faint explosions whenever an ammo dump was hit and it blew up, raising even more hell than the one that was being lived there.
"Don't you think it's a little odd that we're the only two guys assigned to protect this place?" Pavel asked.
"Did you fall asleep during the debriefing?" I asked.
"Maybe…"
"Well, if you hadn't you probably would've learned that we are only here as a token holding force and to cover the retreating forced from that small town over there. Should happen pretty soon with the way things are looking."
"That explains the SRS," Pavel said as he motioned to a ledge above us. I had placed a duffel bag and a sniper on top of it. I'd also positioned a large box filled with SRS magazines. It was bound to kill some covvies. I'd be relieved of the weapon as soon as a proper sniper arrived into this refining plant, but in the meanwhile, I'd simply dedicate myself to blow alien skulls off. Or wait until I was able to do that.
Turns out that I didn't have to wait long to use the sniper. By the time the night turned into day, there was a rapidly moving column of troops and vehicles moving towards the refinery. It was dishearteningly small. Perhaps about a company's worth of soldiers plus a scorpion, three warthogs, and a single armadillo. Yep. There had been a battalion in there originally, I'm pretty sure that there had been at least five scorpions in there, not to talk about the hogs and armadillos.
"Suit up man," I said.
"Way ahead of you man," Pavel said jokingly. He had been suited up for two straight days now, save for a couple of times when he took off his helmet and his chest piece. I climbed the ladder to the ledge and went prone, my hands already reaching for the sniper rifle. I pulled back the bolt, feeling a sense of elation as the familiar noise entered my ears. That noise meant danger, simple as that.
The escaping UNSC soldiers (for they were Army) were making a breakneck pace, even then, they would be a long time before they arrived. The covvies also noticed that they weren't receiving any fire as soon as they left cover, and soon enough I saw a group of ghosts emerge from the ruins of that little town, in hot pursuit of the escaping soldiers.
"Helljumper," a crackled transmission came in. "We might need some of that support we were promised pretty soon."
"On it Captain," I said. I knew the man by voice, but that's about it. Since he sounded pretty calm despite the situation, I assumed he was a talented soldier.
I zoomed in as much as possible, my scope went from the group of soldiers and vehicles and back towards the chasing ghosts. As I moved back to the ghosts I saw one of them explode after being hit three times by explosive round. Seems like the armadillo was making use of its cannons.
I set my sight on a ghost, the closest one since my range was less than adequate for my passable skills as a sniper. I compensated for the distance and the wind after getting the readouts from the instruments, then I moved the rifle a good distance in front of the ghost's trajectory. I took a deep breath, and I squeezed the trigger.
The boom that the gun made never ceased to amaze me. It lifted some dust from the ledge and most of it fell through the grated floor. I could clearly see an actual shockwave for an instant before it dissipated. I spotted a rapidly advancing trail of vapor and waited for the shortest of instants for it to strike.
Imagine a linebacker, now imagine that that linebacker was huge, strong, and fast. Now picture the big guy sprinting towards you as fast as humanly possible for him (or her). Then picture the linebacker tackling you while you weren't wearing any protection whatsoever. I bet that you imagined that it would hurt. Now, imagine all that strength, all that power, focused on a point little less thick than a millimeter. It would probably cause some damage. Wrong, it causes in incredibly amount of damage.
I don't know if it was luck, or talent, or a combination of both, but my first bullet flew right into the ghost that I was aiming at. Not any point, but the elite driver's head. I smiled with pleasure, elation, and satisfaction as I watched the head explode, the speeding ghost left behind a trail of purple blood and skull bits as the headless corpse let go of the controls. The craft eventually halted completely before setting down on the dusty ground. For a moment I wished that my rifle was bolt-action so I could feel the awesome feeling of making a kill that long in all its glory, unfortunately, I simply switched targets.
"I bet you liked that, covvie bastards," I said to myself. Well I'm just getting started.
Three magazines later I had managed to destroy the engine of one ghost and nick a grunt in the arm, well, by nick I mean hit in the shoulder. Not bad for a semi-capable sniper right? Anyways, the soldiers were still doing a steady jog while the warthogs and the armadillo fired at the ghosts that decided to come a little bit to close for comfort. It seemed like they would be able to make it just fine when I saw two things. First, I saw alien infantry emerging from the town, there were a few other ghosts and some wraiths among them. The second thing was a lot more worrying. Banshees. It is surprising how a single word can bring so many different emotions at the same time. This time it was worry. For me at least, I am very sure that the emotions that the escaping soldiers felt ranged from panic to horror.
I relaxed a little, only physically. I shifted from the ghosts to the banshees, and then back to the infantry covvies. I abstained from taking a shot, I needed every last round of ammunition for when those alien ground soldiers as soon as they got here. In the meanwhile, I was powerless to watch as the banshees strafed the escaping soldiers. The scorpion shot down a couple of them, an impressive feat considering a scorpion is a fucking tank, not an AA gun.
The banshees killed about a dozen soldiers and damaged the scorpion before they were forced back by the AA fire from the hogs' M41's. That's about the time that the wraiths started shooting. Those beautiful blue blobs of plasma traced high arcs in the sky before going down with a vengeance. Fortunately, the wraiths were just firing their first salvo, and most of their shots missed wildly, although a couple of them grazed two of the hogs, tilting them slightly sideways and probably leaving some pretty nasty burns on the occupants of the jeeps.
"Any moment now buddy," Pavel said.
"Yes indeed," I said as I pulled back the lever of my rifle, placing a round in the chamber.
The soldiers started flowing through the refinery, entering the complex through pre-marked entrances. The tank didn't stop as it plowed through a chain link fence. Two of the hogs did the same while the armadillo actually went through the designated entrance point for it.
"Get to your positions!" the captain ordered. My helmet automatically picked up his transmission since he was so close.
"Ghosts are closing in," I warned.
"We know, goddamit!" he replied.
I shrugged to myself and let a single shot fly at a purple hovercraft. Instants later another round followed the first one. The two comparatively small pieces of depleted uranium impacted into the middle of the ghost. For a few moments it seemed like nothing happened, but after a few seconds the ghosts shook a little bit and crashed to the ground, flipping sideways and crushing the unfortunate elite driving it. I thought it was a pretty neat thing to do until Pavel opened fire. My friend had brought a special toy of his here. An AIE-486H Heavy Machine Gun. Not an M247L, an actual AIE-486 machine gun, more commonly known as the HMG. The 7.62mm rounds flying out of the three barrels made an impressive noise. Well, impressive compared to small arms, the scorpion started booming away soon enough, drowning the noise of Pavel's machine gun. I could steel see the results, a couple of ghosts blew up after they were riddled with bullets. Then the scorpion's rounds started blowing them up by the second.
Then the entire company, or what was left of it, opened up. The chasing ghosts immediately stopped advancing and instead started exploding like frags. They were reduced to a single retreating ghost before even that sole survivor was taken care of within three seconds by a pretty damn good shot by the scorpion's gunner. I'd have to give that man a high-five pretty soon or else he'd probably be dead.
"Frank, you're up," Pavel said.
"Got it."
I moved the crosshairs from the wreck of a ghost and the elite missing its lower half and onto the advancing covvies. From here I could make out the leading elites. They were at what I would compare to a slow trot, the grunts were struggling to keep up behind the small giants. The jackals looked perfectly comfortable at the pace they were currently running.
I zoomed in on the closest elite, did a quick estimation of its speed and then used the scope's instruments to know how far away it was and the wind speed and all that crap. I moved the scope slightly away from the bipedal alien and squeezed the trigger twice, just in case. The first shot missed by little less than an inch, hitting the empty ground right in front of a tired-looking grunt. The second shot hit the elite in one of its shoulders, making it do a turn and actually bringing the thing to its knees. The shields held, but the elite now had an arm hanging at a slightly unusual angle. Well, unusual for an elite.
Then I switched targets and started blasting away at aliens. I thought that I was doing a pretty nice job until someone tapped my shoulder. I turned and found myself facing a young kid, probably about nineteen. She didn't look like my idea of a sniper at all. She almost pushed me away from the large rifle before she took aim. I quickly realized how wrong I was when three shots in ten seconds brought down three elite majors with perfectly placed headshots.
"Nice," I complimented as I climbed down.
"I aim to please," she said.
I just love that phrase.
I climbed down towards the pipe and ran across it towards another ledge closer to the perimeter, By that time the covvie infantry was just outside of my range, but I could wait a few seconds before I started doing what I do best. Then of course, I remembered the wraiths. Well, the explosions around the complex brought them to mind.
"Shit," I muttered.
I looked over my shoulder to see small fires in different sections of the refinery. Looked like if this battle went on for long enough the refinery wouldn't really serve a purpose other than… well, nothing. Well, my job was to prevent that from happening for as long as humanly possible. I decided to get to it.
"Now would be a good time to open fire gunny!" the army captain suggested.
"Realx friend, relax," came the reply. "All in due time."
"Now shut the…"
"Unlike you…"
"Fuck you!"
"Fire now you asshole."
"…have a fucking tank for protection."
"I will kill…"
"…or then I'll."
The colorful replies were silenced by 95mm of tungsten being fired at supersonic speeds from the barrel of the scorpion tank. The HEAT round collided with the nearest wraith, denting its armor and producing an explosion. A second round went all the way through the alien metal before the tank blew up.
"All in due time," the tanker repeated.
"Aw fuck you," I said.
This time no one else joined me; I think that they were just glad to have one wraith less to worry about. I was about to call them out on that, but then I noticed that I was having a hell of a time shooting off alien skullcaps with my rifle. When it gets to it, it is probably my second favorite thing to do. Right before long walks on the beach.
"Take that you fucker!"
"Suck in this rifle!"
"Not so tough now eh? Bitch."
"They can't fire back without their brains," a female voice that I recognized as the sniper said.
"Right about that one Bull," came a reply.
"Fuck those aliens!"
It went on like that for a few minutes. Army soldiers are almost as colorful as Marines, and those are almost as colorful as a couple of the squabbies I knew. And those weren't even getting shot at all the time. Well, in a way they were, but I think that it is a little bit more unnerving when you could actually see the plasma flying into someone's face. In space, deaths were quicker. Oh, and you can't hear the screaming of wounded soldiers in vacuum. In space, no one can hear you scream. Sounds like a pretty nice tagline for a horror flick doesn't it?
"Aw fuck," someone cried. That was a different insult, not one of triumph. That's about the time the captain got wise and decided to close the open channel and force his soldiers to communicate only amongst their squadmates. A very wise decision in my own (not so) humble and (definitely not) inexperienced opinion. Morale tends to get a little sappy when you hear a kid crying out in pain for his mom to hold him while he dies. Damn wise choice.
All I could hear now was the roar of the battle. Don't get me wrong, by 'all I could hear,' I mean that it was the only thing I could actually hear. Because it was so damn loud. I added to the noise and chaos by taking out the elites and jackal sharpshooters. I knew the sniper, Bull, whatever the reason they called her that, would be looking for the higher ranking elites before she opened up on them while they were this close. It would be a pretty good idea to prevent her from getting killed before she could actually do her job and disrupt the chain of command.
I took out a jackal's kneecap just for the kicks before I finished it off with a nice headshot, I had enough ammunition to take on an army, albeit a small one, so there was no sense in conserving it. Especially if it scared the crap out of the covvies, increasing the risk of them panicking and loosing unit cohesion, or whatever the term for teamwork is. Then I moved my scope and centered it on a grunt carrying a fuel rod gun. I shot it right after it let go one shot. The single green rocket/grenade hit the side of the armadillo, melting off half of the armor on the right side of the small tank and probably damaging its tracks. Two guys jumped out, probably the driver and the spare crewmember. The gunner remained inside shooting all the 30mm shells that the thing had left in.
"Fliers are back!" someone said.
"Oh crap," was the unanimous response.
Whenever you are under attack by infantry and vehicles and you have the same kind of vehicular support you have the winning odds on your side. Especially of vehicle support includes an armadillo, a scorpion, and three warthogs, then you were pretty damn sure that you would win. If you were defending a place instead of actually attacking, and if that position was a nice place to defend, you barely need worry. Well, not when that enemy gets air support. Yep, you're in trouble right about then.
The banshees, five of them, were flying in a classic V formation. They all opened fire at the same time. It was no surprise that they were strafing the scorpion. The tank started doing a full steam backwards while shooting at the banshees. The first round went in between the lead banshee and the one to its right, barely even putting a scare on them. The second shot hit one of the banshees on the end of the formation, blowing it up in a pretty decent fireball. That certainly put a lot more than fright into the elite that was driving it.
Our good luck ran out about then, four fuel rods flew in painfully slow arcs towards the scorpion. The tank stopped moving and instead started going forward. It managed to avoid three of the green explosives while actually taking out one of the banshees. Then the other fuel rod hit the rear right track of the tank, rendering it immobile. We were now reduced to a stationary autocannon and a stationary anti-tank gun. If there's one thing in warfare that you really want/need, it's not staying in the same place for to long, even when you're defending a position.
"Holy fuck," Pavel said in a totally monotone voice.
"Amen," I replied.
My buddy there opened fire on the banshees, catching them unprepared, which is ironic, since he had been wreaking havoc on the enemy lines, killing grunts and jackals like it was what he did for a living. Wait, it was what he did for a living. One of the banshees blew up in another majestic fireball before the wreck crashed violently into some sort of tower structure, denting it and making it fall. The metal groaned as it collapsed upon itself. As it reached the floor, it lifted up a huge plume of dust, damaging our visibility more than the three separate fires already had.
"Captain?" I asked.
"What?" came the reply after a burst from an MA37.
"Might need to call in our air support."
"This close to us?" he asked.
Have you ever heard the term danger close?
"Well no," I said, which was ironic, considering what I had just thought. "All the way back in the town, might need to carpet-bomb it."
"What why?" he asked, genuinely confused.
"There's more of them," I said.
"More? How much more?" he asked.
"Lots," I said.
It was true, through the smoke I could see the distant buildings of the city, and turning the knobs of my super-expensive and useful scope, I could see small figures and silhouettes emerging from the aforementioned buildings. Looked like even more covvies had been waiting there than had been sent to kill us. This looked like a job for the longswords.
"Looks like a job for the longswords cap," I said.
"Very well them, I'll call them in."
Longswords are the standard extra-atmospheric fighter for the UNSC. They also work as bombers, escorts, fighter-bombers. In fact, they worked as everything, taking into account the lack of vehicles that the UNSC Navy had working in that department. Fortunately, they were good at what they did, taking on the Seraph fighters of the covvies as equals even despite their own lack of shields.
I loved them for more than the obvious reasons. I loved them because they had a huge cargo bay, and I loved them because they worked in-atmosphere. Those things could carry more than your mom's weight worth of bombs. Damn straight. Oh, I should probably say a little something about the bombs that they could carry, but I am too lazy to describe them thoroughly. All I can say is that the UNSC had brought napalm back into service a couple of years ago. Yep, the covvies were in for a surprise that was going to literally be hot as hell. Perhaps slightly warmer.
I didn't have to wait long before I could see them. They were coming in in front of us. There was three of them, well, three black dots against a clear blue sky anyways. They flew at amazing speed over the abandoned town, the flat land in between it and us, and then our refinery. They crossed that distance in perhaps two seconds. The three black shapes flew right above me, instants later I heard them. The sonic boom almost ruptured my eardrums, it certainly shocked the covvies, who weren't to big on looking over their shoulders during combat, no one was. Bad for morale and situational awareness.
"You're welcome boys, Bravo-Zulu out," came the experienced-sounding voice of one of the pilots.
Right about then the bombs blew up. They must've had time-delayed fuses or something, because they certainly took their time. The explosions were comparable to the splash a rock makes when it hits water, pushing up some of the liquid while pushing some more of it sideways. Bright orange flames flew high into the air, making for a pretty majestic display of power. The design of the bomb allowed for the rest of the napalm to travel away from the bomb. A wave about five meters high formed around every single bomb, burning everything that it touched. The covvies back there would certainly have a bad time with the fire and all. A few of them even landed in the land outside of the town, starting massive fires that would prevent the covvies from advancing just now. Right now, it was just us, and the weakened covvie forces trying to attack the defended position.
It was over within minutes.
Our forces had destroyed what was left of the demoralized covvie soldiers with the help of the vehicles. It had only cost us the first dozen victims to that strafing when the soldiers were running away plus another seventeen death and twenty-something wounded. No one was missing or anything, everyone was accounted for, dead or alive. Although thirty-nine fatal casualties sound bad, they really aren't when you're facing a combined arms enemy force that outnumbers you. In fact, we had done a pretty good job at keeping this stupid factory out of the enemy hands. I am pretty sure that the covvies weren't entirely sure why we had decided to protect this place, but they were smart enough to figure out that if we wanted it safe, they wanted it gone.
It had been a nice, clean engagement from my point of view. I had eaten through five of my magazines, most of my shots fired were actual killshots. I had remained on a position that provided me an advantage and that was far enough away from the enemy to be relatively safe. Barely three carbine shots had whizzed by my position. I was satisfied with my own performance during the battle. Quite satisfied indeed.
"Frank, that was very good compared to the rest of our engagements," Pavel said.
"I was just thinking about that," I replied as I dusted myself off. This time I only had to remove some dust and dirt from my armor, instead of the usual covvie or friendly gore bits that tended to land on me.
"Oh well, looks like our job here is done," he said. "Covvies are out of this area, we'll probably be airlifted somewhere else soon."
And back to desperate fighting.
"Yup."
It was a grim outlook on the future, even if it was the realistic one. For now, I decided that I would enjoy the easy triumph that we had gotten over the covvies. The other soldiers would probably mourn the loss of their friends, but I could tell that they were glad to be alive and out of trouble this easily. For a moment I thought how sad it was that we were glad that only one in five men had died during this encounter. Then I went back to enjoying our easy victory.