Chapter LVIII: A Serious Security Breach
February 22, 2542 (UNSC Calendar)/
Unknown Location, Peninsula Accia, Aztlan, Eta Cassopie
Avoiding detection in a crowded enemy camp isn't as hard as it sounds. Of course, it would've been a lot easier if the enemies were human, had regular weaponry and armor on, and didn't have skin bright enough to attract a bird. All in all, it was a lot easier than expected. It had only been a day since we climbed down that gigantic cliff and into the covvie camp. Pavel liked to joke that the climb down was easier than avoiding detection, he was almost right.
We had found this nice little hideout after three hours of mapping down patrol routes. The patrols were so frequent that we managed to get the routes that over eight different patrols followed within that time. Our shelter in question was truly a gift from the gods. Or God. When the Covenant was putting troops on the ground as fast as a turtle hiding inside its shell, some sort of accident must've occurred, because one of their Spirit dropships had crashed down just inside of the perimeter of the camp. It had happened to crash on a small hill that overlooked the rest of the enemy garrison and was close enough to their defense lines that we could sneak out easily.
"Ok, so what's the plan?" Pavel asked.
I glared at him.
"Hey, there's no harm in going through it again," he complained.
"Very well," I said. "We sneak deep into the camp, we avoid the nightly patrols here, here, and here. Oh, and also here, here, here, and here. And here. We avoid pretty much every single patrol we see. That should take about thirty minutes give or take."
"Easy enough," he said.
"Yeah right. Well, once we reach the prophets' quarters, which couldn't have been more ostentatious or inconspicuous, we detonate a small pre-placed charge set here," I said while I pointed to a line of dirt representing a bunch of plasma coils that some idiot had decided to place nearby the barracks for a bunch of elite officers.
"Once the squids are dead, one or two of the prophet's guards will come out to see what's going on. We take it out before it puts up its shields and-"
"But won't the explosion frighten the prophets and make them send for more guards?" he asked me.
"Yes, that's why we're attacking before they even get the chance to get out of their beds or sleeping chairs or whatever they take naps in."
"Ok, carry on."
"Once we kill the lone guard that came out to explore, we will go in guns blazing. A couple of flashbangs and flares should do half the job for us while we make our way in. That's the difficult part, we have no idea what the inside of the temple-home looks like, there could be anywhere between two elites to fifty."
Pavel glanced at me.
"Let's hope for a lower number."
"Yeah, let's," he agreed.
"Right before we detonate the first charge, we will have placed a couple of charges all over the temple, in case we have to turn around and bail, think of it as insurance."
"You know," Pavel interrupted. "I might not ask for you to repeat every single plan seventeen times if you told them in the proper order."
"As an insurance," I went on unabashed. "Once we succeed or fail in our goal of putting a couple of rounds through the prophets' skulls, we will run and detonate the charges," I said.
"Then comes the hard part," my loyal squadmate chimed in.
"Then comes the hard part," I agreed. "There is a banshee landing area here," I said. "Close enough to the temple that we can make it there with a good sprint."
"Ah, nothing like sprinting through a marathon," Pavel said, "reminds me of bootcamp."
"Good times," I agreed. "Easier too."
"Well, do go on."
"Once we reach the banshee landing area, BLA, if you will, we hop on one of those ugly fliers and make way to our frontlines, we ditch the craft and haul ass back to our lines. Simple as pie."
"Ok," he nodded. "One question."
"Yes?"
"Is it BLA as in bee-el-eh, or as in blah?"
"As in blah."
"How would you know?"
"Well, I did just make up the word."
"Should've though of that first," Pavel said.
"Well, we go ahead tonight."
"Pleasure serving with you Frank," Pavel said with a quick salute.
"Likewise Pavs," I said, returning the gesture. "Now, clean your gun and make sure your silencer is snug on the barrel of that monster, I don't know how it can quiet down your machinegun even one bit."
"Of we go," I said.
And go we did.
More luck had rained down on us. Literally, it was fucking pouring down here. I don't think I had ever seen that much water falling from the sky, and I am from Jericho VII, where hurricanes are known to encompass half a hemisphere every now and then. Well, truth be told, no tropical rainforest is complete without a storm that includes lightning and the following thunder. The clouds and rain did a good enough job at hiding us, our thermals could go through them easily, but then again, so did the enemies'.
The ground was muddy, with all the trees and flora here gone, there was nothing to hold the soil together, and now it was starting to show. I trekked across the first few meters outside the crashed dropship when I realized that running away in this mud was going to be harder than I would've liked it too, Pavel noticed too, because as soon as he took three steps, he was cursing about escape plans and whatnot. He tends to complain a lot sometimes, but I don't blame him, he's got more reasons than pretty much every single person in the entire world. And when you're sent on a quasi-suicide mission, you earn the right to cuss every living thing in the universe and beyond.
We reached our first target soon enough. The barracks were large enough for a military building meant to house soldiers. The UNSC wasn't nearly as nice to simple grunts when it came to shelter and housing. Perhaps the covvies were so nice to the elites because they were a military race and the backbone of their military, perhaps it was because they were simply nicer than we imagined them, or maybe they were so nice to them because elites are seven-and-a-half-foot-tall monsters that could rip a man's arm from its socket with the same amount of effort it would take me to rip a turkey leg from the whole thing on a Thanksgiving dinner with the neighbors while my uncle whipped recruits into shape.
Man, my analogies are really weird.
"Ok, see anything out of the ordinary?" I asked.
"No, two guards, look bored as fuck, but then again, who am I to judge a four-mandibled freak's expression?"
"And the batteries?"
"Hey, I can see about the same as you can, can't really see through walls."
I went around the long building with my rifle aimed high while Pavel walked slowly backwards, aiming at the corner in case an elite decided to show its ugly face. Finally, we reached the end of the barracks and came to a wide space with neatly arranged blue cylinders. The plasma batteries or energy coils, or whatever you'd like to call them shone dimly, but the light they produced was enough to make me worry about getting to close to them. Well, nothing could be done about it.
"Cover me."
"When have I not?" Pavel replied.
I made a quick dash for the small mountain of explosives and slid to a stop. I did it so friction wouldn't fail me and I wouldn't go tumbling into the explosives. That would've been a rather unfitting end for Francisco Castillo, ODST and veteran of a dozen campaigns. No, my end would be a lot more glorious than that, and if I got any say in it at all, with a whole lot more explosions than this cache could possibly dream of producing.
I reached into my very useful butt-pouch and produced two items. One was about the size of my wallet and had the texture of play-do while the other was the detonator for the first item, which happened to be a block of C10 plastic explosive. Shit was about to get real in here boys and girls. The little block of destruction was adhered to the battery nearest to the barracks and as soon as I was sure it wasn't going to fall off. Not that it would've mattered, the explosion that the wallet-sized explosive would've made by itself could've burnt through the unarmored walls of the barracks easily, killing the occupants closest to the blast zone. The plasma batteries were just a finishing touch really, and they went off in pretty blue explosions, sadly, I was going to miss them.
"Damn, such a shame that we'll miss this majestic display of fireworks," Pavel lamented.
Huh, great minds do think alike. Kinda creepy to think that my mind is on the same level as Pavel's.
"Brain-mouth filter," he warned. He was too used to it to be offended; besides, he was pretty blunt sometimes as well. "Besides, you like to pour yoghurt over scrambled eggs."
I did, it was a habit that I had picked up after visiting a friend's house when I was around twelve. I remember thinking that it was extremely weird, but when I was offered some I played the courteous guest and accepted. Since then, I have been mixing scrambled eggs and yoghurt whenever possible, it's gotten me more shit than I care to admit, but it's harder to leave than booze. Believe me, I know. Well, enough with strange culinary combinations and traditions and on with blood and gore, hopefully lots of those.
"Moving on," I said, ignoring Pavel's breakfast comment.
Now that we were going deeper into the camp things got slightly more complicated. The rain and our black armor did a good enough job at protecting us from prying eyes, even against the purple backdrop that covvie buildings provided. Our biggest danger was noise. I could hear the rain sprinkling off of my helmet, but I calmed myself down by convincing myself that I was the only one that could hear it since I was inside of my armor. The more dangerous noise was the slushy sound that Pavel and I made as we walked through the mud.
As we came around the corner we found ourselves facing a patrol. More appropriately, we found ourselves facing the back of a small patrol. It was avoidable, so we sprinted across the empty ground in between two lines of small grunt barracks and kept on going. Pavel quickly noted the enemy's position and number on our HUD in case we had to come back through here. They certainly wouldn't be here if we came back, but they might be in the area, so just in case. Better to be sure. Accidents can be prevented. Better safe than sorry. You know how it goes…
"Ok, there should be a patrol coming in shortly," Pavel said.
I grunted in acknowledgement, I knew the routes of the patrols that we had spotted by heart, but as I repeatedly stated in the previous paragraph, better to be safe than sorry. We stopped as soon as we reached the corner of yet another purple building. I peeked out and saw only emptiness surrounded by two rows of neatly arranged identical purple buildings, most likely housing the majority of the grunts of the Covenant army on the planet. It looked like something out of a horror movie, it was dark, it was muddy, and on top of it all it was pouring down on us.
"Shit, they should be here right about now," I said.
"Maybe they're running a little late."
"You think."
"Hey, calm down."
I tried to, I really did, but after five minutes of absolutely no sign of the patrol that was supposed to come here I was getting nervous.
"Ok, cover me," I ordered.
"Frank…"
"Cover me," I repeated.
My friend shrugged and went up to the corner of the building. I patted him on the back and he popped out of cover, his M247L scanning the darkness in front of him for any movement that might be even remotely dangerous to me. I ran quickly to the other side and slid down once again. I don't know what would be worse for me, tumbling into a bunch of explosive crates or slamming into the wall of a building filled with enemies. Even if said race of enemies was notorious for their deep slumbers.
I got up and popped out of cover Pavel, who was already sprinting towards me. He was just in time, because not five seconds after I helped him get up from the muddy floor a patrol went through. Two elites clad in blue armor and sporting plasma repeaters walked by chatting amongst themselves. My translator picked up snippets of conversation and some words it wasn't able to translate. I shrugged, but who would want to know about the latest female squid face that Private Split-Chin here had banged (or whatever it was they did) on their last shore leave. In fact, I don't think anyone wanted (or wants) to know about it.
"We're one hundred and fifty meters our," Pavel notified.
"Yes," I agreed, my helmet's HUD was as good as his.
The rest of the way there was even harder, the buildings were packed less tightly, which meant that there were lots of open spaces which served as easy killing grounds in case we were spotted. Oh, and they didn't provide any cover at all. The increasing number of night patrols didn't make my heart rate go any slower either. As we turned around yet another corner after avoiding yet another patrol, we came face-to-back with our first victim. It was an elite. I closed in on the standing warrior and once I was a foot away I made sure that the rain was bouncing of his armor and not of his energy shield. I turned and nodded at Pavel while I reached for the large knife slung across my back. I slowly unsheathed it, careful not to make a noise. I could feel Pavel aiming his machine gun at my back in case the elite turned around and I had to dive out of the way in a hurry.
I crouched and took a step so that I was half-behind and half-besides the elite. Its right arm was hanging down to the floor, it made for a potential obstruction, but if it didn't notice me, it shouldn't be a problem. I lunged upwards with a small jump. The entire strength of a reasonably (who am I kidding, a super) fit man that also happened to have stronger muscles and bones that the average human was focused into a point that was perhaps about three or four atoms in thickness. The knife went in between the two lower jaws of the elite and hit its palate, it kept going on, tearing through flesh, skull, brains, and more skull. The knife was stopped by the sturdy armor that the elite wore, but the damage was already done. I let go of my knife and the guard collapsed to the floor. I grabbed the body on its way down and almost collapsed with it. Pavel reached for the dead alien and helped me lay it gently on the ground and pull it farther into the alley between two buildings.
"There's the temple," I said, my heart beating fast.
"Aye," he agreed.
We sprinted quickly after a group of miserable-looking grunts half-stumbled out of sight. We both made more noise than I'd have liked as our heavy boots slammed against the mud and water, but there was no helping that unless we wanted to be caught in the open. This time we both used the structure of the pyramid-like temple to stop ourselves. We did it very quietly, I might add. The main and only entrance was almost on the other side of the building, another inconvenient, but one that was expected. I nodded at my friend and we both started moving around the temple in a combat crouch.
"Sniper tower," I warned.
"Shit," Pavel murmured. "What do you want to do?"
"Don't really feel like taking the other side."
"Frank…" he said, concerned.
"Relax."
I aimed at the jackal strolling in circles around the floating platform. It didn't seem to be actually looking around at anything, but it looked miserable as a vulture can be. I sighed my scope on the vague outline of the alien and switched to thermal. The whole world immediately went a dark blue save for a bright red circle in ground level, the sniper tower's gravity lift, and the familiar shape of a jackal. I waited a few moments so that I could get a good shot at the sniper. Just as I was about to fire, a line of bright red criss-crossed my HUD. I forced myself to put keep my hand under the gun as it instinctively reached up to rub my eyes. As the sound of thunder came, I squeezed the trigger and saw a little bit of orange blossom from the top of the jackal's outline.
I heard a loud sigh through the radio.
"Lightning damn near blinded me," I said.
"Yeah, you have no idea how beautiful it looked from here," Pavel said as we started moving again.
"Huh, I didn't take you for a man that would appreciate the beauty in destruction."
"Frank, I destroy things for a living, for a lot of people's living. How could you possibly not think that I'd enjoy the beauty in destruction."
"Good point," I conceded.
We reached the door without a major inconvenience. I could tell from here that it would open automatically due to the lighting the edges of the three different parts that made the door. What worried me though, was that there were no guards on the entrance. That could mean that this was either a trap, or that the prophets were more stupid than a stallion near a mare in heat. Or a male near a female in heat for that matter. Of any race. Damn hormones.
"What now?"
"We wait," I said.
Fortunately, we only had to wait about a second and a half until two elites stumbled out of the door. Had I not known better, I'd have said that they had just been woken up from a very deep sleep. That was terrific news. That meant that they'd alertness would be down and that the rest of the honor guard would most likely be enjoying a couple of minutes of sleep. I sighted in on the elite farthest away from me and tried to decide where its head ended and its helmet started. Those things could have not been practical combat headwear.
"Shields?" Pavel asked as he aimed at the elite closest to us.
"Can't tell from here," I said. "I know that with this rain I would most certainly have them on."
"You know how they like turning them off when they feel safe."
"Yeah, thank God for that," I murmured. After a couple of seconds of silence I spoke again. "Yeah, let's go for shields just in case. Try to make a headshot."
"Try?"
"Sorry, to much to ask from you," I teased.
My friend shook his head and laughed quietly. Even he had enough sense to appreciate a good, harmless joke.
"On my mark."
"Yessir," he acknowledged.
"Three… Two… One… Mark."
The three-round burst that my gun expelled sounded about as hard as a polite clap with the special silencer that we had been issued. The rain slamming down on everything around us also helped to dull the noise. Pavel fired a five-round burst from his weapon. The first three rounds hit the upper chest of the elite while the other two hit it in the neck and head respectively. The first three stayed inside the body of the elite while the last two went completely through, small sprays of blood and brain matter were telltales. My three-round burst hit the elite on the right side of the back of its head. The rounds fragmented just as they were supposed to and completely destroyed its brain, killing it instantly.
Both the guards stood still for the briefest instants before gravity did its job and pulled them down to the ground. Their spears landed next to them only moments later. Those elites got it good, they didn't even get a chance to know that they were dead. Most people I've seen die don't get the same courtesy.
"Ok, let's move in," I said.
"The explosives?" Pavel asked.
"Don't need them right now, might make for a useful distraction."
"Whatever," he said with one of his signature shrugs.
We moved towards the bodies and dragged them away from the entrance. It was only a cautionary measure, anyone that looked at the floor hard enough would notice the clear drag marks in the mud and follow them to the bodies. The rain would take care of that in about fifteen minutes, but in fifteen minutes both of us were going to be either dead or trying our best not to crash-land a banshee into the jungle. I certainly hoped it would be the latter, as weird as it may sound for me to wish to be on board an unstable craft with thin armor and unknown controls, I am pretty damn sure that it is a better alternative to death.
We hid the bodied as best as we could and entered the building. It was well-lit, which only made me more nervous, since it was more likely that we would be spotted, but there was nothing I could do about it. I switched to thermal, but the technology on my helmet's add-on (which was only a loan) wasn't powerful enough to go through the walls in the structure. Pavel's telescope-cam didn't fare any better either, so we moved ahead with no knowledge of what might await us. Soon enough I got a good answer.
There were at least five different sets of steps, all of them the familiar thuds that elite's made. Even when they walked they made a distinctive noise. I glimpsed exactly six elites clad in black armor with bright read and orange stripes adorning it. They were currently weaponless and didn't look tired at all. Still, six elites in closed quarters was too dangerous when one of them might reach you, so I took the easy way out.
"Fall back, hide in that corner back there, I'll draw their attention," I said.
"Frank..."
"Shit had to go bad sometime, let's make it go from bad to our advantage."
"If you say so chief," he shrugged.
For a moment I was rally touched that Pavel would trust me so much as to let me wake up an entire enemy legion just so that we could get six elites out of the way. That's trust and friendship for you right there. Well, he could've simply been hit in the head once too many, same as me (probably). Just as quickly I was picturing the explosion that I had just caused when I pressed my finger down on that bright red button on the trigger.
The explosion was loud enough that I heard it clearly from here, a couple of moments later a slight rumbling shook the entire pyramid. The six elites went apeshit. They started talking in rapid Sangheilio and I could hear their walk turning into a sprint. Soon enough they were in front of us and only instants later their backs were presented to my and Pavel's gun. They were cut down by a hail of fire before they reached the door, one of the bodies slammed hard against it and it opened, when the door tried to close again, the body prevented it from doing so. I wouldn't find that out until I was on my way out, but the body if the elite had been almost cut in half by the door's onslaught. So much for a honorable death in battle.
"You know how it goes," I said.
"Count your rounds," Pavel replied.
"Plenty to go around my friend."
We lunged from our hiding spot and went past the hallway where they had been coming from. My translator had made out the word hierarchs and chambers, so now it was only a matter of time before we found the exact location. Our boots made loud noises as they hit the metallic floor of the temple. I cut down an elite with half its armor on before it could go wort. Pavel kicked it on the jaw as he jumped over it, making a sickly crunch as the neck snapped. By that time, the entire camp must've been awake, including the guards inside the temple. The echoes of our guns, even if they were silenced, ought to have alerted someone to the possibility of intruders being inside the sacred super-tent of the mighty hierarchs.
All the good it did them.
I turned yet another corner of this building and slammed hard into an elite as surprised as I was, this one was armored and sporting a spear. The momentum of my run slammed it into the wall, but then it brought its arm up in an all-too-familiar backhand and propelled me backwards a couple of feet. It didn't get time to attack though, Pavel emptied about twenty rounds into its chest, enough to make that section of the elite's body turn into scrambled eggs. Without yoghurt.
The elite slid down the wall slowly, leaving a purple stain on the wall behind it. It was a purple tone different form the one on the walls, otherwise I wouldn't have smiled at the sight of it. Just think you should know the differences in color between Covenant architecture and Sangheili blood. The elite came to rest on the floor with its eyes still wide open in anger and its jaws wide, ready to shout a threat that would never come.
"Hurry," I urged even as Pavel sprinted past me. He knew better than to pick me up and slow us down.
Finally, we reached a very large door. Undoubtedly, it led to the prophet's quarters, important people liked to show what they were through the use of flashy and rather unnecessary items. Kings used to make statues of themselves, and the castle doors were undoubtedly a lot taller than anyone would have ever needed them to be. Rich people had mansions with more rooms than they could possibly need, generals had big hats with lots of stars on them, brutes and elites had ornate headdresses that only became larger and more cumbersome as they ascended in rank. Prophets, like us humans, settled for large doors. Rather modest in my opinion, especially when compared to the rest of the Covenant races.
The door opened as soon as we stepped within its sensor range, something incredibly stupid in my opinion. Back on Reach, you had to get through at least half a dozen different security procedures and checkpoints to reach a general, here, it was as simple as stepping in front of a door. You know what? Forget that, sneaking through an enemy infested jungle and then through an enemy camp more than makes up for the security checkpoints. The door still takes points from them though.
I took a step in, my scope already lined in between the eyes of one of the two prophets, I squeezed a quick burst and saw blood erupt out the back of its head and its long neck snap backwards violently. The creature collapsed to the floor with a loud thud and twitched twice, then it lay still. I fired another burst into the mass to make sure the job was done. The second and a half that it had taken me to do that was more than enough for Pavel to walk farther into the large room and spot the other prophet running for cover behind a large artifact whose purpose escaped me. I made sure to record the entire room for ONI spooks.
Pavel took three long strides and turned around the edge of the object serving as cover for the prophet. A single beam of green energy missed his head by an inch and then Pavel kicked violently at the prophet. Once the frail alien had collapsed, Pavel placed the barrel of his gun an inch away from the thing's head and fired a longer-than-necessary burst into its bulbous head, which promptly turned into an unrecognizable mess.
By that time, I was already heading back and out the door while checking for enemies that had decided to check in on their leaders, but no one was within sight.
"Let's bail!" I yelled.
"On it!"
Pavel sprinted ahead of me and I synched my speed with his, I could've easily gone faster, but for a man that had only the body that God had given him and muscles that he himself had honed in the past years, Pavel ran pretty damn fast. The man was in peak physical shape, it amazed me even that he could run this fast with his full armor and rucksack on. Hell, I amazed myself that I could run this fast and be able to go faster still.
We jumped over six fresh elite bodies and both of us almost slipped when our boots tried to grip the slippery mud. It was still raining, for which we were immensely glad, but now half the camp was awake and the other half was already looking for whoever had killed more than a few dozen elites on their sleep. No doubt the honorable warrior would be offended by our cowardice, but it was their friends who were dead and not us, at least not yet.
"Waypoint!" I yelled into my helmet.
The mike picked up the instruction and immediately displayed a holographic waypoint pointing to the banshee parking lot. A bright blue line also appeared on the floor so that we wouldn't get lost on our way there. I knew that it would disappear whenever we were on an area that we hadn't quite gotten to map before leaving our crashed spirit, but we could surely do those portions of the trip ourselves. If we couldn't then we deserved to die in the most violent and embarrassing way. Men are supposed to know their way around places, and damn it if I wasn't about to stop and ask for instructions.
"Movement right!" Pavel said.
I shifted my aim slightly and fired upon an elite putting on a pauldron while it ran even as Pavel downed the three grunts struggling to keep up with it.
You see, normally, a special operations team coming from a unit as prestigious as the 105th Shock Troops Division and hailing from the legendary (although traditionally held as second to the 7th) 19th Shock Troops Battalion would've simply made their way out quietly and without causing an even larger commotion, but we didn't do that for one particular reason. The Covenant loved running air patrols, and as soon as word of intruders got out, there would be a couple hundred fliers up there looking for us. That by itself wasn't so bad, we can hide well enough, but it also meant that there wouldn't be ay grounded banshees that we could use to escape, and consequently, that we would have to hide for longer, increasing our chances of being caught and executed.
"Two hundred meters!" my friend yelled through breaths.
"I can read you know!"
"Hey, you never know!"
Why are you still yelling?
Yes, I even yell inside my own head sometimes. Even if that phrase sounds like it should come form the mouth of some criminally insane mass murderer, it is true. Thankfully, in a good and funny way as opposed to a, well, criminally insane way.
The buildings gave way to neatly arranged lines of ghosts, specters, and wraiths. I could make out some elites running and getting on board some vehicles, but none of them spotted us. Just as I reached that decision a couple of green bolts hit the wraith next to me and nicked my shoulder plate. I had the grace and presence of mind to throw myself to the floor.
Pinned down and on the run, not a good situation to be in, not good at all.
"Frank!" Pavel called out.
"I'm on my way," I lied.
Ok, think, think, what could get you out of this mess? Did you see where you were being shot at from? No. Do you know if you're facing an elite or a jackal? No. What do you have left in your-
"Aha!" I yelled out triumphantly as I reached for my assault webbing with my left hand. I grabbed one of my yet-unused flashbangs and threw it as high as I could from my awkward seated position. As soon as it was up there I covered my ears and then I felt stupid for a second when I realized I had a full-face helmet doing that job already.
You see, the eye is naturally drawn to movement, and the scope on a covenant carbine can see a very wide area, its weird setup functions very effectively when it comes to spotting enemies. More than once I had spotted a jackal switch targets incredibly fast and through angles greater than the ones my own sight could manage. Unfortunately for the marksman shooting at me, the best aspect of the covenant carbine would be his downfall.
The grenade detonated, igniting the magnesium and ammonium perchlorate mix to bring a glorious display of pyrotechnics producing a blinding flash of slightly over ten million candela and a bang just over two hundred decibels in power. The metallic casing of only two hundred and fifty grams must've looked to a small sun to the observer. From the distance I estimated between myself and my attacker, the flash wouldn't have blinded him completely and the noise would just barely bother him, but ten million candela are enough to give someone spots in their eyes for a couple of weeks, and it would do the job I intended it to do just fine.
I leapt from cover and fired two quick bursts from my rifle in the direction of my attacker. Didn't really expect to hit anything, but covering fire is a very nice accommodation to have when you're in combat.
"Subtle," Pavel commended. From anyone else it would've been either an insult or a poorly worded scolding for drawing even more attention to us, for Pavel and me, it was part of the thrill.
It's weird how just a few seconds before we were both about to piss our pants at the fear of being spotted by anyone and now we were actually excited at the prospect of an entire army giving chase to us. It probably was because we were almost upon the banshees and that an entire enemy invasion force considered us important enough for them to chase two insignificant foot soldiers gave us a slight ego boost.
"I'm in the air!" Pavel made me know.
I took a second to tag his banshee and mark it as a friendly just in case we were given chase and needed to fight of some pesky interceptors. As soon as his craft was outlined in a green line, I hopped on the closest banshee and squeezed the two handlebar-like controls. The entire craft shuddered and hummed as a thousand light lit inside the cockpit. The banshee automatically hovered forwards before I pulled the joysticks up and hit the thrusters. My banshee sped away from the enemy camp as a few lone green bolts flew by my banshee and one bounced of its top armor. By that time there was a big smile on my face and a literal and metaphorical fire raging at my back, one so fierce that not even this rain could extinguish it.
Yes, my job here was done, and it had been done in an exemplary manner.