Chapter LI: Not as Bad as it Sounds
September 1, 2541 (UNSC Calendar)/
Marcia, Concordia, Zama System
After leaving the pilot back in the kitchen we moved across the city. This time we had to be more careful. We had to keep checking the houses for enemy combatants and had just partaken in a short but noisy firefight. Since it was a large battle we had some time before the covvies noticed that a patrol was missing in a semi-secured zone. At least that's how I pictured it in my mind.
"Covvie patrol, hundred meters out and coming in our direction," I said.
"Can we avoid it?" Pavel asked.
"Sure, get inside there," I said.
Pavel and I crossed the street while crouched, using a couple of piled-up cars and an abandoned barricade to avoid being spotted. There was a general store that had been hit hard by plasma fire. It was still fully stocked up with products. I grabbed a can of coca-cola and put it in my butt-pack, right next to the C12 explosives. I'd probably get sick of energy fluids in a couple of minutes. Nah, I got tired of energy fluids as soon as they went down my throat. Besides, I'd probably need them for later. The coke would have to keep me up for now. Not like they sold coffee in here unfortunately. I mean real coffee, like coffee with water, not this frappuccino crap.
The covvie patrol was like any other covvie patrol, unfortunately, this patrol in particular had a ghost attached to them. That by itself wasn't necessarily bad provided we could stay hidden. Unfortunately, things had a tendency to go wrong for us. Well, now that I think of it, whenever we were founf, things went wrong for the covvies too. They usually ended up all dead or routed. Mostly dead though.
Just as our luck would have it, the patrol stopped briefly in the intersection where our store was located. Then the elite wort worted something and three grunts decided to enter the store. I peeked over the cash machine and saw them going through the aisles.
"Frankie?"
"Rule number one: kill 'em before they kill us."
"Roger."
I grabbed one of my flashbangs and primed it. I gave Pavel a small nod before I tossed it over the counter. I heard the squeals of the grunts and then the metallic casing of the grenade hit the floor. Then my helmet's noise receptors shut down momentarily and my visor polarized a little bit. The next thing I could hear was absolute silence, but I was already on my way up. I leaped over the counter while Pavel hosed down the stunned grunts. I took aim at the elite minor that was leading the patrol and emptied five bursts into it, killing it. Pavel tossed a grenade at the ghost, when it went off it tilted it sideways and then it fell upside down. The grunt pilot tried to get away from the craft and find some cover, but I took it out with a quick headshot. The lone jackal in the patrol didn't even have time to activate its shield-gauntlet before Pavel put five shots through its chest.
"Nice."
"Yep," I agreed. "High five."
When we high-fived I winced in pain and was forced to rub some biofoam on my burnt hand, an act that Pavel considered hilarious.
"Screw you," I said playfully.
The patrol was now out of the way, I used a plasma grenade to destroy the ghost and we were well on our way to the area we were supposed to be causing havoc in. My HUD showed a small but detailed map of the city around Pavel and me. There were some friendlies about a kilometer our way, but they wouldn't be able to help in our mission, so we ignored them and kept on going. The drones also updated the location of large groups of enemies constantly, despite that, they missed most of the covvies in account to the smoke and interference from the battle.
After half an hour of avoiding patrols and slowly sneaking towards covenant-held land, we found our first target. It was a group of three wraiths, they were accompanied by a covvie platoon consisting of every race except brutes. Well, there weren't any Drones either, but those are rarely in any battle.
"Over there," Pavel pointed. The thing he was pointing at was another house, the only thing that marked this one apart from the countless houses in Marcia was the covvie sniper tower mounted on the roof. It would do wonders for observation.
"Ok, let's go," I said.
We moved towards the house while keeping our heads down, trying to avoid being spotted. As soon as we reached the door Pavel switched to his ACS and took the lead. He went straight for the stairs while I cleared the lower floor. It was empty except for a couple of covvie artifacts that I left alone. I climbed up after closing the door and using a table to barricade it. The second floor was also empty, but we now had to take out the jackal sniper in the roof.
I climbed up to the roof while Pavel stayed in the second floor. As soon as I reached the base of the sniper tower I jumped in the gravity lift that held it where it was. I was pushed upwards as if by magic and came to find myself facing a very surprised jackal. The creature died with that expression on its face when I smashed its head in with the butt of my rifle.
"Ok, you can come up," I told Pavel.
He climbed the ladder and stayed on the roof instead of climbing to the sniper tower with me. He positioned his LMG on the edge of the building, aiming at the covvie platoon and wraiths a hundred meters away.
"What was our code number again?" I asked.
"Titan something?"
"Well, I don't think we're Titan anymore," I said.
"Yeah, I never pay attention to those briefings."
"Me neither."
"Mhm…"
"Well, try to think," I urged him.
"Ok, so there were three ODST units, we were one of them," he said. "We're Alfa, Bravo, or Charlie something."
"Right…"
"Aw, cmon just give it a try."
"Command, this is ODST saboteur unit Charlie, requesting an artillery strike," I said.
"Umm, you're designated as fire team Zulu," a voice replied. "Remember that."
"Sorry about that command, fire team Zulu requesting artillery strike in grid H12. Lasering targets."
"Roger that Zulu, laser away and we'll fire."
I acknowledged the man in command and 'painted' the three wraiths and two hunters with my laser designator. While we wouldn't be getting any missiles, the satellites would receive the location of the wraiths and the artillery crews would use that information to sight their guns. It was highly effective and was usually done by remote drones, but the covvies had some very effective AA units as well as the capability to track individual drones and jam them. That's one of the reasons our HUD maps weren't accurate as to the position of enemy troops as we'd have liked.
"Targets are painted, feel free to fire," I said.
"Roger that Zulu, take care."
At least thirty seconds passed before anything interesting happened, but when it happened, it happened. High-explosive shells landed all over and around the wraiths and the hunters. Since the vehicles were surrounded by their escorting troops, they were all incinerated or shredded to pieces. Fire rained for five straight seconds. I would hear a whistling sound before a gigantic explosion appeared seemingly out of nowhere in the midst of the Covenant troops.
After those beautiful five seconds of hell, Pavel opened up on the surviving covvies. After he had killed the elite missing both its arms we started moving again. Next on our list was a machinegun nest that had prevented a couple of companies from breaking through. By machinegun nest I obviously mean building filled to the brim with plasma turrets and enemy snipers. Yeah, it was what you'd call a fortress, even if it was only a small one. To get to the fortress we moved through the rooftops. Houses here were so tightly packed that it was almost like walking on the street, even if it was a street with varying heights every ten meters. While Pavel and I were doing some crazy parkour shit we got word that several banshee squads had been spotted on the far side of Marcia and were headed towards our general direction. We had to pick up our pace or they'd get us out in the open.
We reached the machinegun nest after three minutes of sprinting. The place in question was right in between a road fork, completely covering it and the long avenue that lead to it. It formed what you could call a sniper alley, even if in addition to snipers you had rapid-fire plasma weaponry. It was a couple of blocks east of where it was marked on the HUD map, so we updated the battlenet right before calling in the big guns.
"Command, this is fire team Zulu, requesting artillery and missile strike," I said.
"Zulu, this is command, we copy. I'm going to need the…"
Whatever the guy at command said next was lost to me in the noise of a large portion of the wall exploding. I jumped backwards as a beam went through the wall and less than three inches away from my face. Pavel jumped dropped to the floor just in time for three carbine rounds to perforate the wall next to him and hit thin air. We were already rolling away from the room and moving towards better firing positions.
"Command, command!" I yelled.
"I'm here Zulu, give me the coordinates," his voice was calm and professional. I think that was supposed to help us soldiers calm down, but right now I wasn't really feeling very calmy.
"Grid H14, painting target in a couple of seconds, start redirecting artillery," I yelled into my helmet. Pieces of the wall were exploding all around me as the jackals with carbines and beam rifles fired at my heat signature. I was lucky that plasma weaponry was unstable and couldn't penetrate the walls, otherwise I would've already been fried very thoroughly. I half-slid half-fell down a flight of stairs and into the first floor. My laser designator was already on as I peeked out a window and pointed my rifle at the nest. I actually fired a couple of shots to try and keep the jackals down. Not that it worked.
"There, target's painted!" I said.
"Yeah, we're going to need more than that, sat only got an area about two hundred square meters," he said.
"Oh fuck."
I peeked over the broken wall again but was forced to jump behind as carbine shots blew bits of rock all over the place. This wall was reinforced with polycrete, so shots wouldn't get through outright, but if they kept firing they would certainly destroy the wall.
I grabbed my pistol and activated the small camera it had, linking it to my head's-up-display. A small square displaying the live feed replaced my HUD map. I pressed the pistol to the rifle so that it was aiming in the same direction and put both of them over the wall. I zoned in on the machinegun nest and waited a couple of seconds.
"Ok, looks like we got it," I said.
"Artillery is firing," the guy at command notified us.
While the shells and missiles rained down on that building I wondered why the hell my helmet didn't lock its sound receivers when artillery and explosives went off nearby and it did when flashbangs detonated. I simply shrugged and waited for the shaking to stop. After fifteen seconds of constant explosions, it finally did.
"Pavel?"
"Yep, I'm here," he groaned.
"You good?"
"The only thing that was hurt was my dignity," he informed me.
"Yeah, know what that feels like," I muttered.
I got up and dusted myself off. Not for show, because the barrage had actually lifted quite a lot of dust. I grabbed my backup knife and attached it to the bayonet lugs in my BR55.
"Let's go confirm the kills," I said. What I really meant was 'Let's go make sure those covvies are fucking dead and if they're not they'll get awfully close to knifey here.'
"Roger that," Pavel said.
We walked across the damaged street with out weapons up. Visibility was almost zero in account to the dust, but we soon started making out large parts of the building. Eventually we got to a pile of debris, so we assumed that we had made it there. The dust was starting to clear, but we still weren't able to see more than ten meters ahead.
"Ok, you take the right, I'll check here," I said.
Pavel nodded and broke formation, headed towards the right part of the blown-up building. I kept my eyes mostly on the ground, trying to spot any squirming shapes. Eventually I had to be satisfied by a delirious jackal. I pressed my boot against its throat as it struggled and bayoneted the thing.
"Clear," I said.
"Same over here," Pavel called out. "Artillery is nice."
"Amen to that brother."
Once the dust cleared and we confirmed that the building was completely destroyed we contacted command and told them that the place was gone. The AI leading this along with the generals would send an armored division through this point and shift the plans to adapt the weakened covvie line. And we weren't even over yet.
"Next?" I asked.
"Well, we've got the barracks or the armored column. Nope just the column now," he informed me. A few moments alter I heard big explosions not to far away.
"Why don't they just do orbital attacks?" I asked.
"The AA gun, remember?"
"Right, let's go take that armored column down and then we'll take care of that AA gun," I said.
"Yessir."
We started trotting (again) and headed towards the last known position of the armored column, it was perhaps seven hundred meters away from here, they'd probably be farther away than that by now, but that's where we had to start. We crossed a couple of alleys and finally stopped before an intersection. Pavel peeked out of the corner to confirm that it was clear.
He immediately returned to cover and ran away from the corner. I followed him out of instinct, Pavel wasn't the kind of man to run away from something unless it was worth running away from. And even then he might think about it twice. So when Pavel runs, you run as well.
"What?" I asked after we slid into cover behind a pile of debris and an upside-down car.
"The whole armored column is heading this way!" he said.
"Oh shit."
Oh shit indeed. An armored column, no matter how small it might be, is more than enough of a match for two soldiers, no matter how skilled or badass they are. We'd have to move out of this place right about now or else we'd get killed.
"You remember the name of the street?" I asked.
"No, didn't check."
I looked on my HUD map and found out that someone had forgotten to name the street where Pavel had seen the column. I rolled my eyes behind my visor and then peeked over the debris to see if I could make out the name of the street. I made out a sign nailed onto a wall before poking my head back down. There was already a group of elites and grunts appearing around the corner.
"Ok," I said. "Took a capture of the street name," I said. I gave my helmet the commands necessary to show the most recent picture taken, even if I was tempted to see the recent pictures. Birthday gift courtesy of Marina.
"Command," I said. "Zulu again."
"Command here, what can I do you for Zulu?"
That was awfully informal. "Yeah, we've met armored column, designation for them is…"
"EC3," Pavel said.
"EC3, they're in…" I checked the picture and zoomed in on the name of the street. "…Hope Street. Ironic, isn't it?"
"Yeah, shortswords will carpet-bomb the area in a few seconds."
"What? Carpet bomb? We're right next to them," I complained.
"Oh, you'd better get moving then."
"Asshole," I said.
"Oh shit, again," Pavel added.
I grabbed two flashbangs while Pavel did the same. We tossed them as hard as possible over the pile of debris covering us. As soon as they detonated we headed towards the nearest building, plasma fire started flying past us just as Pavel tackled the door. We climbed all the way to the roof while the covvies started organizing themselves and halted the column.
We got to the roof in record time and started heading away from the column as fast as possible. Unfortunately, there were a bunch of elite rangers in there, so we soon found ourselves being chased by a bunch of flying aliens.
"Shit," I said as I jumped over a particularly wide space in between houses. Pavel was a couple of meters ahead, so he turned around and shot at the flying elites. He hit one and forced the rest to take cover a couple of roofs behind us.
"Move!" he yelled.
"We managed to cross to more roofs before we started receiving fire again, this time we both dove for cover instead of keeping running. I popped out and shot a flying elite, its body crashed on the roof of a house noisily. Pavel managed to use his gun as an anti-aircapablesoldiers weapon and forced the elites to stay on the roofs. That way they were much easier targets for me. I shot down two elites and then dove to the floor to avoid a rain of plasma from vaporizing my head. Pavel started firing at the wall that the elites were using for cover. He killed three of them while they were surprised about bullets being able to fly through walls. Those elites must've been rookies, because they switched covers as soon as they realized what was happening. As soon as they did that they were easy meat for my rifle.
"Think we got em," Pavel said.
Just after he said that I saw three shortswords flying one behind the other drop their bombs in the location of the armored column, blowing it sky high with firebombs.
"Yes, we got them indeed."
That would've been a great way to end our mission, unfortunately, we still had to clear out an AA gun and survive. It is easier said than done, especially when it's only two humans against a bunch of aliens. A bunch of aliens that happen to include two or three races that could make an elephant recoil in fright. Ok, bad analogy, but you get what I mean.
We were now heading towards the AA gun, which was conveniently located in a wide plaza. That meant that we would actually need to take out whatever was protecting it before we could take it out. Or we could wait a couple of hours for the sun to set and then sneak in and plant the charges, blowing them up after we're long gone. But where's the fun in that?
The plaza was surrounded by small businesses, most of the buildings that housed said small businesses were five stories tall, providing a decent cover from air attacks. Unfortunately, that included our artillery, which was positioned so far closely that the shells would hit the buildings around before striking the AA gun. We climbed all the way to the top of one of the buildings after avoiding a patrol and eliminating another one with some very clever use of rocks and gasoline.
Anyways we were in the building adjacent to one of the buildings adjacent to the plaza. For those who aren't good with words, that means we were two buildings away from the plaza.
"Ok, what can you make out?" Pavel asked.
"Well, from here I can see a beautiful wall."
"We need to get closer then," Pavel suggested.
"No."
"Don't be an ass."
"I mean it, no, I'll get them to redirect a drone over here and get a live feed you moron. Oldest trick in the book."
"Doesn't seem to work that often," he mumbled.
You're right about that, I thought, but didn't say anything.
A couple of minutes later the drone we requisitioned was sent to fly over here. Now these little things are about the size of an outstretched hand. They kind of look like a bulky falcon gunship, complete with the two rotors. The difference is that the rotors are turbines in case of the drones. They are surprisingly easy to produce and maintain, but they also happen to have a somewhat lacking firewall. They are very easily jammed or destroyed through their networks. Even the covvies, whom are all computer-illiterate know enough to bring this down like flies. Almost literally.
Despite that, since they were so easily made, they kept on making them. Gotta say that when they were deployed in large enough numbers they certainly were useful. Our little mosquito reached our designated target's airspace within a couple of minutes. We got a nice live feed from the sky.
"Ok, that's the AA gun, obviously," I pointed. "I can see why they're nicknamed mantis."
"Well, six, no eight jackals on the surrounding buildings, two on each roof. Those should be relatively easy. One, two, three, four, five, eight elites. Those are tougher."
"Yep, grunts are numbering in the forties maybe even fifty," I said.
"So many of them and only two of us?" Pavel asked.
"Piss poor odds for the little guys," I replied with a smile.
"Let's get to it."
Pavel and I broke off and he headed downstairs. He'd move to one of the adjacent buildings to the plaza where the gun was. After I took out the jackals I'd then he'd have a suitable enough distraction to open fire on the rear of the covvies that would be attacking me. Since I'd be on the roof I could take out any brave elite that managed to evade my friend's little hell storm with a smaller hell storm of my own. That's a nice metaphor isn't it? Yeah, it is a pretty good metaphor.
"Thermal's coming in," I said.
"What's it show?"
"Umm, four heat signatures in my building, looks like three grunts and a squid face. east building has two…. jackals by the look of it."
"Other two buildings?"
"West is… oh shit."
"The drone was shot down wasn't it?" Pavel asked through the com. He was already on the ground floor and heading towards a suitable firing position in the opposite direction I was heading.
"Good luck man," I told him as I climbed down to the fourth floor.
"You too."
Pavel cut the conversation and I started clearing the rooms while making my way towards the wall next to the west building. I found nothing of relevance other than nothing. I kept moving at a steady pace and then climbed out of the fire escape. From there I jumped to the other fire escape. I made so much noise that I thought I was going to wake up a hunter. Ok, now that was a bad metaphor.
Regardless, I was now in the building directly adjacent to the plaza. I started climbing up the surprisingly rust-free fire escape. Normally fire escapes were made of iron, keeping the cliché alive. The titanium alloy that these must've been made of prevented them from rusting right away. I climbed the fire escape while I pondered on this. There was a small ladder leading form the last floor to the roof. I placed my rifle on its magnetic clamps and drew out my pistol. Wouldn't want to be surprised by a jackal sniper.
I climbed the small ladder and found myself facing a startled jackal in the process of putting food in its mouth. Well, it was across the roof, at least twenty meters, but close enough for it to spot my black armor against the brownish backdrop. I raised my right arm as it reached for its beam rifle and placed three bullets on its chest. Its buddy sniper popped from a corner and received three shots himself for bothering.
This actually worked to my advantage. The quiet noises that my gun made wouldn't be heard over the sound of the fucking battle going on around us.
I climbed up and drew my rifle, setting my sight on the jackals on the south building. Those and the guys in the north would be the ones that would be more of a threat to Pavel, so they had to go first. I aimed my rifle at a jackal that was actually pacing around the building. I hesitated when I did it, but I made myself wait until a shot was fired form the AA gun to take out the bird and its equally unsuspecting friend. That made four jackals down and four more to go. I ducked just in case. Jackals had terribly sharp eyesight. Since nothing happened for a few seconds I crawled to a position ten meters away and then slowly popped up again. The jackals in the northern building weren't pacing, but were instead aiming their weapons at inside their own perimeter. That was both stupid and idiotic. Those guys really suck as snipers, but they're terrific shots. I waited for another shot from the AA to be fired and then gave each jackal a burst to the chest while the noise blocked out the report from my rifle.
"One more," I said into my helmet.
The next pair of jackals was directly in front of my building. I took aim and waited for another shot from the AA. That was my first mistake on that offensive. I should've backed away from the ledge, but I didn't. I was spotted by some covvie on the ground, and all of a sudden three plasma globs hit the ledge covering me and another two flew inches from my head. I fell backwards on my but as a fusillade of plasma and needles started raining on my position. The plasma melted the stone while the needles simply destroyed it. I shuffled away from the place I was in and towards a suitable position that allowed me to keep an eye on both the door and ladder that led up to the roof.
"Now would be a pretty good time," I said.
"Firing," Pavel notified.
I tossed my last flashbang backwards without aiming, it must've done something good, because the enemy fire seemed a little less intense for a few moments. That's when I heard the familiar noise that a M247L squad automatic weapon made. Pavel did good on his training and cut down an elite and three grunts before he was forced to relocate. I popped back up to help my buddy but a beam flew dangerously close to my head. I popped back down, the location of the enemy jackal already seared into my brain. I took three deep breaths, calming myself down a little. When I felt that there weren't as many rounds impacting on the rock wall covering me I jumped up, rifle already heading towards the position of the enemy jackal. I compensated a couple of feet and zeroed in on the vulture's chest. It hadn't even bothered to move. It got three 9.5mm rounds through the chest for its troubles. I looked for the other jackal while backing away from the edge of the roof to avoid fire from the ground. I finally spotted some movement on the other side of the roof and hit the last jackal as it prepared to switch cover.
"I could totally be a sniper if I wanted to," I said as the alien's head exploded.
"Yes, you could also try being a decent squadmate!" Pavel yelled.
"Right."
I moved back to the ledge of the building and took three quick shots at a group of grunts moving to cover, taking out two of them. I then tossed one of my frags as hard as I could towards an elite behind one of those fancy deployable shields. My grenade fell short but it forced the elite to leave his cover under threat of more explosives from that direction, Pavel made good use of my distraction and took out the unprotected elite.
"Pavel, you see the major?" I asked.
"Negative," he answered. It sounded like he was running. "Just a bunch of rookies."
Machinegun fire erupted from the second floor of one of the buildings, cutting down a couple of grunts and a shielded jackal. I took out two minors who didn't realize where I was firing from until too late.
"Suckers," I thought out loud.
"You know what we could really do with?" Pavel asked. I saw the tracer rounds fly from a window and impact a blue deployable shield, turning it redder and redder with each bullet that hit home.
"An air-strike?"
"Grenade launchers."
"Yeah, only army dudes get those," I said after taking out a jackal. I shot it in the leg and then twice in the shoulder, smiling as it went on its knees after my first shot.
"Well, they'd certainly be useful right now."
I didn't answer, instead I jumped back as an elite clad in red armor carrying a plasma machinegun opened up in my . I sprinted towards the door that led down to the fifth floor and tackled it open. Waiting for me on the other side was yet another elite. Unfortunately, the momentum of my tackle and his/its surprise combined to bring the elite down.
My shoulder collided with the slippery energy shield on the elite's chest, the impact sent us both tumbling down the stairs. After we hit a corner, we just kept going down. I spotted a few lightning-like rays of energy on the elite's armor, signaling that its shield was loosing strength.
Five seconds and twenty steps later I found myself lying on the floor face up, my rifle tightly clutched in my hand. I looked at my feet and saw an equally stunned elite. I jumped backwards as I switched to full-auto, then I emptied the rest of my clip into the top of the elite's head, firing even long after it was dead. By the time I was done, its head looked slightly like someone had taken a bat to it repeatedly. Well, truth be told, it probably looked worse.
"Fuck you squid," I said as I stood up. I gave the elite a half-strength kick on the ribs before I moved towards a window.
Pavel was now receiving fire from the elite carrying the machine gun like an assault rifle and from two other turrets mounted on the windows of the buildings in front of him. I took advantage of my new and safer position and took aim at the closest turret. Unfortunately, I couldn't see the grunt manning it, so I fired seven times at the wall where I estimated it would be. The gun stopped firing but immediately resumed. I emptied my clip on the wall next to the window, silencing the plasma fire for good. The other plasma turret kept firing at Pavel's building, strafing the whole area while the elite with the turret went closer, firing all the time.
I finally took the second turret out after two magazines failed to penetrate the wall covering the grunt. I actually had to disintegrate the wall before spotting the grunt and killing it. I reloaded my rifle and took three quick shots at the elite. The beast turned to face me, not even bothering to stop firing his cannon. When he did that, Pavel opened on the alien's unprotected back and brought it down with a four-second burst.
Once we had killed the leader and their heavy weaponry, the rest of the covvies were relatively easy meat. I shot down two minors while Pavel handled the rest of the enemies with 1050 rounds per minute. Unfortunately for my friend, he had stopped using the rucksack/ammunition box a long time ago so he had to reload every couple of minutes. That's when I jumped to action and took out the elites. Finally, there was nothing on the plaza save an automatic AA cannon and dead aliens. Thank God for the element of surprise and enemy unawareness.
"Cover me," I said.
I climbed down to the bottom floor and sprinted towards the closest leg of the massive cannon. I reached for my butt pouch and grabbed a squished block of C12. I stuck the thing on the leg and moved on to the next leg. After I was done I ran towards Pavel's building. I took cover behind an overturned table behind a wall behind another wall and detonated the explosives after Pavel had confirmed he had done the same for his own safety.
The explosion dwarfed even the noise that the AA gun made when it fired, and even the noise that the thing made afterwards when it crashed down on the floor, detonating some of its plasma components. I went to a window to admire my handiwork. The entire thing was a wreck, no way the covvies would find a way to repair it and get a good use for it.
"Command, this is Zulu, AA is down, I repeat AA is down, requesting immediate evac, we are behind enemy lines and have no support. I repeat, requesting immediate evac."
"Roger that Zulu, you guys did a good job."
"Damn right we did," Pavel said with what could only be a big smile behind his faceplate.
Just want to thank you guys for bearing with my terrible puns and chapter names and my occasional metaphors. That being said, I hope you enjoyed.
-casquis