Hey guys, just wanted to apologize for not posting a chapter in a while. Well, since I've got nothing else to say that is actually relevant in some way or other. I'll leave you to it. Enjoy boys and girls. Remember to give me feedback.

-casquis

Chapter L: You Hopeless (Idiot) Romantic

September 1, 2541 (UNSC Calendar)/

East Maruca, Concordia, Zama System

Nothing beats a full day of rest after a week of intense fighting. I'm serious nothing at all can beat it. Not even sex. Well, if you combine the sex with the rest, then you can probably beat a full day of rest, but it has to be really great sex. It almost never happens, most soldiers are to tired to actually bother to stand up and do something, even if it is for their own good.

Right now, I was enjoying myself a lot. Not that I was doing anything productive, but that was the beauty of it. I was half awake on a portable bed with a couple of empty beer bottles to my side, there was another four in the six pack. The sun was high in the sky and the breeze managed to take away most of the heat, leaving me to simply relax and take a sip of the local beer every now and then.

"Frank, toss me a beer," Pavel said. It was the fifth time he had said the exact same thing.

"No, you finished yours," I reminded him. "Not my problem."

"Mgnphf," he said.

I opened the third beer of the day and took a long, long drink form it. It felt so good. I seriously thing the scene could've been used for a beer commercial and that commercial would've been incredibly successful. Of course, good times, like commercials, tend to be incredibly short, especially during war, especially during a war you're loosing, especially during a war you're fighting in and loosing, especially if you belong to a special operations unit during a war that you're loosing. I think you get my point.

"Staff Sergeant Francisco Castillo?"

"The one and only," I said, not bothering to open my eyes.

"Captain Sharma wants to see you," the marine stated.

"Go figure," Pavel said.

"Yep, I'll be right there," I said.

As the marine left I sat up on the portable bed and looked around. We had made camp right outside some sort of forest, and there was a large plain in between us and the city of Marcia, the unofficial capital of East Maruca. The city had fallen under attack two days ago, the UNSC Army had done a nice job in defending it, but now it was starting to look like we might actually need to send in the marines to help them push the covvies back. Whenever we send the marines there's bound to be some sabotage right before they go in. That's my job, and a damn good thing that I do it right.

I groaned loudly as I stood up from the bed. I stretched myself and looked around. We were back in the Inconvenience camp, only that this time the army was missing completely, instead we had a pretty small cluster of tents around the command tent. I could spot the city far in the distance, but the smoke rising form it seemed disproportionate in comparison to the size of it. It reached as high as I could see. I could tell from here that the army dudes were having a hell of a time. Not that I cared of course, it wasn't really my problem as long as I didn't fight. Well, it actually was, but never mind. As soon as I finished stretching my arms I emptied my beer in three large swigs. I burped after I was done.

"Keep the rest of the alcohol," I told Pavel.

"Sure, taking one for the team," he said as he reached for my six-pack and raised it in a greeting.

"On second thought, save me one," I told him. "Feels like I'm going to need it."

I walked across a couple of tents and entered the surprisingly well-lit interior of the large command tent. There were only two people inside in addition to the large holotank that right now was showing a very accurate almost real-time projection of the battle going on a few miles away from us. I stretched yet once more as I entered. I saluted just as I was done.

"Ma'am, lieutenant," I said politely.

"Castillo," they both said with a simultaneous nod. The nod managed to look deprecating and polite at the same time. Like the smartest man in the world asked you a question which you answered correctly, only that it took you longer than it would've taken him to answer it. Am I making any sense? I think I am.

"Ma'am, what am I needed for in here?" I asked.

"Stupid," Darbinian muttered. I don't think I was supposed to hear it, but there had been some mention of enhanced hearing when they augmented me. I hadn't really noticed until now, or well, Darbinian now simply didn't care. There was about a 50/50 chance, but I wasn't that worried. Because I didn't care either.

"We are mounting an attack to help the Army," Sharma started. "They've run into some trouble lately, us Marines are going to take out that trouble and then the army will completely destroy whatever we decide to leave for them."

Yep, that's typical inter-service rivalry for you.

"As you might've figured out, you ODST's will go in first with the Rangers. We have three ODST units available to us right now, you are one of them. Nezarian's rangers actually will be attached to another platoon that suffered casualties for the duration of this mission. That is three squads of ODSTs plus two Ranger platoons."

"Very well then ma'am," I said. "Anything you'd like us to destroy?" I asked.

"Well, you'll be dropped in an area with heavy enemy concentration. You are expected to help target strike points artillery and missile strikes. While you're at it you're free to do anything you want, although I would recommend a certain amount of stealth. Your only real target is this," as she said that the holotank displayed a particular area of the city and then zoomed in to show what looked like an AA gun. It looked so much like an AA gun that I deduced that it was actually an AA gun.

"This AA gun has been causing some trouble for our ships up there," Sharma said as she pointed up to the sky, well, more like the roof of the tent. "Your main objective is to destroy it. You'll be given the necessary equipment for that."
"Oh, don't worry, I've got my own," I said. With about ten blocks of C12 plus six of C10, I was more than ready to blow up anything I wanted to. I could blow up things in quite creative ways, unfortunately, I rarely ever got the chance to do so. My missions rarely (if ever) involved the destruction of materiel. When they did, I usually tossed a grenade down a hall and wrecked a whole lot of computer circuits, but never something big. This would be one of those times.

"I know," Sharma said as she smiled. Darbinian actually scoffed.

Twenty minutes later we were on board a pelican with some young jock for a pilot. On board the ship were ten people. Pavel and myself in addition to Nezarian and his rangers. There was a feeling of anticipation all over the cargo bay of the pelican. Most of us had been confined to camp for a while now and were eager to do something. Since we were soldiers, the only feasible thing for us to do was to fight, so we were all feeling like girls before prom. Well, you know, without waiting to loose our virginities. At least I hope that was the case here.

"Rangers! Fifteen seconds," the pilot announced through the PA system, he could've simply shouted.

"You heard him boys!" Nezarian called out. All of his squad stood up simultaneously and formed up in a line. They were sporting large metallic backpacks that were actually jetcpacks. They would use those to maneuver through the air and then to stop their fall just short of hitting the ground. Despite them having a lower mortality rate than Helljumpers in jumps, I still thought it very dangerous.

The Rangers checked the backpacks of the guy in front of them while Nezarian walked back and forth the line making sure everything was fine. Once he was satisfied he stood next to the ranger closest to the hatch. He looked over his shoulder and made eye contact with me, my visor that is. He gave me a small nod and I returned it. Then the pelican opened its hatch. We were at a pretty high altitude, so there was a slight change in pressure as the doors opened and all the rangers held on to their handles and stumbled a little bit. From my position I couldn't see anything that wasn't clear blue sky and dangerously gray clouds.

"Now!" Nezarian said.

All of the rangers trotted forward at the same pace, taking a leap right as they hit the edge of the opened hatch. They all jumped out and left the bay of the ship within a second. The speeding pelican quickly left the rangers behind and started descending. I spotted a few orange flashes, tell-tales of the location of the rangers. I quickly lost sight of the flashes as the pelican went through some clouds. When it emerged on the other side, I could hear, see, and actually feel the rain. It was pouring down here.

The only thing I could make out through the rain was the ever-approaching city and another pelican that was flying about ten meters to our right and fifty or sixty meters behind us. It was probably empty and simply escorting us until our own pelican dropped us off. Then I could make out something else. Not that it was hard to distinguish it, plasma flak explosions are rarely confused with anything else.

"Brace yourselves boys," the pilot said with a confident tone.

He pointed the nose of the ship down and started a shallow dive. I held on as the green blasts appeared all around the area behind the pelican. There would probably be some pretty frustrated covvie gunners down there. After ten seconds of them completely missing us, I realized they were aiming at the other pelican. It looked like the pilot was having a tough job at avoiding the AA fire. Even as I watched, two green blasts appeared on the wing of the pelican, sending it down in a spiral.

"Mayday, mayday, I've been hit, I'm going down, I repeat, I am going down!" the voice was distinctly female.

"Shit," our pilot said. There was a lot of feeling to that word. "Shit, shit, shit! Kayla? Kayla?" he called out. There was desperation in the man's voice.

There was no answer.

"Shit," he said, now his voice sounded almost resigned.

"Why don't you drop us here?" Pavel suggested. "We'll make sure she's fine."
"You'd do that?" the pilot asked. I couldn't see his face, but I imagined the look he must've had. He didn't wait for an answer, instead he simply stopped advancing and let the pelican fall towards the ground in an almost free-fall, stopping ten meters above a three-story building.

"Good luck, I owe you one," he said.

"You should consult me on this type of things before you do them," I told Pavel through our com.

"Hey, the boy's girl was just shot down, at least give him some hope," he said. "We all need some of that."
"That's deep," I said. I actually meant it.

We jumped off as soon as the pelican was close enough to the ground. I rolled as I hit the ground, Pavel simply landed and bent his knees to absorb most of the shock. He was carrying his ACS behind his back, so he would have some trouble actually doing combat rolls. Not that he would need to, those things are mostly just for show.

"We'll get her out," I told the pilot through my helmet radio just as he left.

"Good luck," he repeated.

I watched as green blasts erupted all around the pelican, and by extension, us. The craft went high into the air while moving forward at high speed. The blasts started following the ship. I saw as it turned around in a sharp U-turn, tilting the pelican almost sideways. The pelican roared as it went above us at over 1000 miles per hour, the blasts in its wake trying to keep up.

"Well," I said as soon as the pelican disappeared from sight. "What do we do first?" I opened up a small map in the corner of my HUD as I said that. There were more than enough miniature drones flying above the city to make a good real-time map of the place and the battle. That and the combination of mini-sats and maps of the city gave us a definite edge over the covvies. That is, until they got their very own drones to map the place for them.

"How about we make sure the pilot on the pelican is safe first," Pavel suggested. "We can call in a unit to pick her up of she's alive and then move on to our teal mission."

"Sounds good," I said. Not that we had much choice, we had been dropped about a click away from our intended drop-zone, we'd have such a good time getting there…

We left the roof of the building via a rusty fire escape, it was only two of us, so that reduced our chances of being spotted, but then again, it also meant that it was only two of us. The pilot had sent us the estimated location of the crashed pelican, we had a general bearing of the place where it had crashed, so we were heading in that direction. It was perhaps some three hundred meters away from the small building that we were dropped in. Marcia, the city that we had been dropped in was a weird city for a colonized planet. Most cities were planned-habitats. They consisted of pre-planned buildings and houses, designed for maximum efficiency and commodity while trying to remain relatively small in occupied area. That is one of the main reasons that most cities in human space consisted of beautifully designed sly-scrapers packed tightly together with smaller buildings all around the core of the place. Farmers, miners, poachers, and people who didn't like city life were the only ones that used additional buildings such as regular houses. Although the design worked the way it was meant to, it also turned every battle for every single little city of half a million people into the most vicious urban engagement imaginable. Yes, it was rather annoying to say the least.

Well, getting back on track, Marcia was a different city. It had actually started as a small semi-independent colony. It had been sort of a publicity stunt by the UNSC to show that they didn't want to control every single thing in known space. A small group of colonists had been flown to the planet in private craft with almost no UNSC involvement. The initial wave of colonists consisted of rich entrepreneurs and adventurers. Only sixty thousand souls landed on the planet on the first wave. They had their own pre-built habitats with them. As soon as the massive titanium deposits were found, millions of eager adventurers came to the place. Eventually the small communities swarmed into large, almost vast cities. The only problem that came with that, was that most buildings here had been built here, not transported. This wasn't a problem all by itself, but it now meant that I was fighting in unfamiliar territory. Not such a bad thing, but it still made me slightly uneasy.

So here I was, in a city that consisted mostly of buildings that didn't go any higher than five stories, with most of them sporting only two. I was walking through narrow streets and could spot the ominous-looking alleys. Something told me that urban combat here was going to be a lot deadlier than urban combat in a pre-planned city. Maybe it was the noise of gunfire and explosions in the distance, or the massive quantities of smoke flowing away from the city, I don't know, I just knew we were in for a ride.

"Street clear," Pavel said as he peeked over a corner.

I nodded and sprinted across the street and to the other side. I pressed my back to the corner and waited for a few seconds before aiming my rifle down the short and empty street. I could see two undamaged parked cars. They looked a little bit battered and not very fashionable, so I assumed that they were local-made cars designed and used for practical purposes. The light-brown buildings showed no sign of activity.

"Ok, go," I said.

Pavel sprinted across the street, moving a little bit more slowly than I had, not because I was augmented or anything, but because he was carrying at least ten kilograms more than I was. From my perspective he looked like a killing machine, sometimes I wondered what I looked like standing besides the big guy.

We moved across the avenue that we had been following. I could not see the crash site of the pelican, but we had just entered the red circle in my HUD that signaled the crash area. We were heading for the center of the section, it was just around the corner. If we didn't find the pelican in there, we would scout around for a few minutes before leaving. We'd leave a report about the crashed pelican, but it would most likely be ignored until the battle was over and won.

Pavel switched to the other side of the street, moving in parallel to me. We stopped right before we crossed an alley, he checked the one on my side and I checked the one on his side. I signaled that it was clear and e reciprocated. We both jumped across while aiming down our respective alleys. As soon as we were on the other side we kept on moving. He was aiming at the windows and roofs above me while I did the same for him. After a few seconds of moving in that slow, mechanical way, we arrived at another street corner. The center of the crash site circle in my HUD was on Pavel's side of the street, so I aimed at the street from my side. It was clear as far as I could see, but I couldn't see much.

I moved to Pavel's side of the street and told him what I had seen.

"There's a wrecked car about ten meters ahead," I said. "No enemies as far as I could tell," I informed him.

"Understood," he said. Pavel positioned himself and ran off away from the wall. I popped up as soon as he left and provided cover for him. I didn't spot any covvies, so no shots were fired. Pavel slid behind the car and propped his M247L over the hood of the destroyed vehicle, searching for enemies.

"I spotted the crash site," he said after a couple of seconds. "Get over here."

I ran to the car and slid to cover next to him. "Where?"
"Over there," he pointed. I looked at the direction he was pointing and saw a house that looked like it had been cleaved in half. Generally, it wouldn't have jumped to sight in a warzone, but most other buildings here were undamaged, so there was a high chance that the crashing pelican damaged the house. I played back the incident in my memory and confirmed that the direction of the crashing pelican could've caused the damage to the house.

"Ok," I said. "You head over there at street level, I'll provide support."
"Roger," Pavel said and headed to the left side of the street , the one in which the damaged house was. I headed to the other side instead.

As Pavel slowly made his way towards the damaged house I kicked down a door and entered a house. Can you believe that it was actually a wooden door? Who even uses that anymore? As soon as the door was down I did a quick scan of the floor and only climbed up when I was satisfied it was empty. The second floor was scanned equally quickly, but it took some time to find the ladder and trapdoor to the roof. I pressed a button and metallic handles emerged from the wall. I grabbed onto them and climbed into the roof, pushing up a heavy trapdoor.

The roof of the house was pretty much flat except for a ventilation system and a large water tank. I ignored it and headed towards the next house. I jumped over the small gap dividing them and kept on running. The next house was slightly taller than this one, so I had to hang my rifle over my back and climb up the walls. The next house was even taller, but that gave me an idea.

"Hey Pavel, watch me," I said.

"What?"

"Just keep your eyes on the place between the houses to your right," I said.

"Ok?"

I smiled to myself as I ran across the roof. "I've always wanted to do this," I said.

"Don't do anything stupid," Pavel warned.

"Too late," I said as I jumped.

I leaped from the roof and moved my legs dramatically, imitating the movements of stuntmen in films. I instinctively put my hands in front of my face as my armored boots contacted with the window. My armor protected me from the glass as I entered the next house movie-style. My feet collided with a rug and instead of doing the roll that I had intended to, the rug slid and I went down with it, landing on my butt and sliding a couple of feet before coming to a stop.

"Ok, I'll admit, that looked pretty cool," Pavel said.

I didn't reply, I was too busy pulling my pistol from my holster. The lone jackal in the building must've been as startled as I was, because it just stood there with a dumb look on its face while I reached for my gun. It jumped at me just as I started taking aim. The impulse it had, plus its own body weight pinned my right hand to the floor. The jackals clawed at my hand, hissing as its nails were stopped by the ceramic and titanium armor. It was bust trying to get my hand to drop my pistol that it completely forgot about my left hand.

Too damn bloodthirsty. I thought, echoing the comment that some soldier had made about the Kig-yar.

I actually contemplated whether to reach for my backup knife in my upper chest or to simply hit the thing, but my arm was already headed towards the jackal's skull while the thought went through my brain. I contacted with my forearm, I was actually aiming to hammer-fist the thing, but the mistake worked in my favor, with the metallic armor hitting the weak skull of the bird-like alien. It collapsed to the floor, stunned by the hit. I rolled away from the alien and promptly stomped on the back of its face, crushing it against the hardwood floor. A large splat of blood appeared, the splat was made larger as I stomped on the jackal's head again. I heard a sickly, albeit familiar, crunch as the jackal's skull caved in.

"Frank?"
"Just a jackal, I'm fine," I said.

"Ok, good, cause I'm about to go in," he said.

"Wait a sec."

I moved towards the window the jackal had been using for sniping. The house directly in front was almost cleaved in half, the one behind it looked the same, and the next one looked like that as well. At the end of the small canyon-like wreck that the three houses were, there was a pelican covered by rocks. It looked like it could be in relatively nice shape. I aimed around the crash site for a few seconds before I spotted the rest of the jackal's friends.

Just as I was about to signal Pavel, there was a loud, familiar noise.

"What was that?" Pavel asked.

"Coopilot," I said.

I watched as a young man in a flight suit shot his pistol, he managed to kill one grunt and wound another before a large elite clad in red armor emerged and ran at the pilot. I saw the creature's shields shimmer before it disappeared from my sight. I heard two more gunshots and then everything was quiet for a few seconds. Then I heard another noise. I recognized it as the terrorized scream of a dying soldier.

"Shit," Pavel said.

"Agreed," I said as I shook my head. "I see five grunts, one of them wounded, an elite major, and two jackals on the roof. I'll provide cover for you," I said. As I said that I sent him a real-time image of the area. That way Pavel would know where the covvies were.

"Don't go until I say," I ordered. "I'll use a beam rifle for my first two or three shots."
Pavel was an experienced soldier and knew better than to question me right now, besides, the only way I could've gotten a beam rifle was because the jackal I killed had one, he knew the answer, so he didn't ask.

I hefted the large purple gun from the floor and propped it on the window's ledge. I knew that that was a fatal sniper mistake, as the barrel could be spotted, but I was unused to the weapon and it didn't have a stock, so I'd have to improvise. I aimed through the unorthodox scope of the weapon and gave myself a moment to get used to the display. It was straightforward enough, so I aimed at the elite major, it was brandishing a sword and signaling for the grunts under his command to search the pelican.

"Wait for my shots," I said.

"Understood."
As soon as my brain had processed the first syllable of the reply, I squeezed the trigger twice. The first beam went straight to the elite's thorax, the exact place I had been aiming at, the recoil from that first shot forced the second shot a little bit up, it hit the elite in the shoulder and tore its right arm clean of the rest of its body. It howled in pain.

I almost howled in pain myself as well, the beam rifle had overheated from the two consecutive shots, and my left hand had been badly burnt by the heated metal and plasma from the weapon's exhaust ports. I looked at my hand and saw that my glove had been burnt completely through.

"Aw fuck," I said resignedly as I grabbed my BR55 from my back.

Pavel had already left cover and was raining lead on the startled grunts. I aimed at the equally startled but faster reacting jackals on the roof and shot at them. My shots were meant to prevent them from firing just long enough to get my sights on their heads. I hit one of them on its arms and the other one was lucky enough to be hit in a metallic plate on its chest. The next two shots went through the skulls of both wounded jackals, killing them.

"Jackals are out," I said. "Elite might be alive, missing its right arm."
Pavel only grunted in response as he hosed down an escaping grunt. He shot it a couple of times while it was on the floor, detonating its methane pack. Pavel used the explosion to leave cover and head towards the elite. He looked at me all the way from those two houses and I saw him shrug theatrically. He hung his LMG from his shoulder and actually pulled out his ACS from his back. I laughed as I saw him do it. He took aim at something on the floor that I couldn't see and fired once. I could almost picture the face of the wounded elite as the lead pellets tore through its armor and skin.

"Nicely done," I said as I headed towards the street.

"Thanks," Pavel replied. I knew he was already headed towards the pelican to check for survivors as I descended from the building. I decided that it was best to do this quickly, otherwise the covvies would soon be missing a patrol and wondering what happened to it. I crossed the street and climbed over the rocks and wreckage to reach the pelican.

"Found her!" Pavel called out.

I said nothing and instead ducked under the roof of the pelican and climbed inside. The bay was mostly intact, only that there was a small wall of rocks and iron bars blocking about half of it. The cockpit was a different story. I could see the shattered reinforced plastic all over the place, and the walls were most definitely crumpled inwards. There was a small pool of blood next to the copilot's seat.

"Not good," Pavel said. He dragged a body out of the cockpit and put her on the blood tray of the pelican. My helmet picked her vitals and showed that she was alive, even if just barely. Her helmet was battered and the goggles were cracked. Pavel took of the helmet and I winced involuntarily. I didn't wince because her wounds were particularly nasty, I did so because she looked like she had been beaten half to death. Her face was a wreck, even if the rest of her body wasn't.

"Ok, let's get her out of here," I said. "Give her some painkillers and jump-start her," I ordered.

I left the pelican cargo bay while Pavel complied with my orders. He gave little miss sunshine here a batch of painkillers and then injected her with a drug cocktail designed to keep going a soldier after all but the deadliest of injuries. Pavel dragged the woman out and literally handed her to me. I placed my rifle on my back and then put the pilot over my shoulder in a fireman's carry. We trotted away from the position of the crashed pelican after Pavel picked up some spare magazines of ammunition for his LMG and a pistol mag for me.

We had gone about three hundred meters when the pilot groaned.

"You ok there?" I asked. She only groaned in reply. "Very well then," I said.

We kept moving until we found a decent, undamaged, inconspicuous, and strategically not important small house.

"Hey, wake up," I said. I was reluctant to slap her around a little bit because of her injuries, but I did so nevertheless.

"Ow," she said.

"Looks like the adrenaline is starting to kick in," Pavel noted.

"Yep," I agreed. "Ok, listen up, your pelican crashed," I told her.

"Yes," she nodded.

"Your copilot's dead," I said.

"Yes," she acknowledged after some hesitation.

"And you look like crap."
This time she just glared at me.

"Your boyfriend got us to rescue you, so you'd better give him a nice reward as soon as you see him again," I said.

"My boyfriend?"

"Well yeah, mister pilot of the other pelican you were escorting."
"Oh," she said, almost surprised to hear that. "He's not my boyfriend."
"Well, you'd better reward him nicely," Pavel repeated.

"Um sure," she said.

"Now, we'll leave you here and see if your boyfriend or another pelican can pick you up since we can't lug you around. Good luck."

"Thank," she said. Although it wasn't much, the tone in which she said it meant volumes.

We left the woman and told her to stay in the kitchen. I know it sound sort of misogynist, but it was the best place to mount a last stand. I also thought that the situation was rather funny. The pilot obviously didn't, but she did not complain out loud. I turned a table on its side to protect her a little bit from the side and then locked the door before wishing her good luck. Pavel was already reporting the location and situation of the pilot to headquarters, an AI would process the information and decide if it was feasible for a unit to be sent to rescue her. The pilot boyfriend would also be informed, if it wasn't possible for the pilot girlfriend to be picked up, he would probably volunteer to do so and perhaps he'd be allowed. For the time being, there was nothing else we could do without compromising our mission.

"Now, where were we?"