Chapter LX: Ambusher
March 3, 2542 (UNSC Calendar)/
NH3 Highway, Aztlan, Eta Cassopie
The night was starting to get really humid and uncomfortable as we waited for the infamous convoy to show up. The hornet hovering a couple of kilometers above us hadn't spotted anything yet and I had failed to put a long sleeved shirt under my armor. The consequences of that decision were a complete failure of climate control in my armor and the intense jungle heat messing with my entire body. We were lucky that this was a night mission, otherwise I would've been boiling myself alive by now. Well, maybe I would've actually worn my undersuit for once.
"Shit," Pavel said. It was the fifth time he had said it in less than three minutes without anything prompting him to.
"Will you shut up already?" the pilot on board our aerial support snapped.
"Easy for you to say, you're a couple of clicks up in the sky with a nice air conditioned cockpit, you have enough fuel to stay there for a lifetime and we are down here, sweating as crazy and without any way out other than your flimsy little plane."
"Call this beauty a flimsy little plane and I won't pick you up," she warned.
"Flimsy little plane," Pavel repeated. "You have to pick me up, so don't make empty threats."
"Asshole," she muttered before she blocked Pavel's signal.
I took of my helmet and washed away some sweat from my brow. It had leaked through the sponge-like fastener that pressed against my forehead and gotten into my eyes. I shook my head to wash away as much as the sweat as possible and then put the helmet back on. It flickered briefly and then the HUD appeared again. I aimed at the explosives to see that they were still in place and then back to the point where the road turned and the cliff blocked me from seeing anything else.
"With this much wait we could've called for backup," Pavel muttered.
"Why didn't we?" I asked.
There was a moment of awkward silence.
"Now I feel like a moron," he said.
"Guys?" our pilot asked.
"Back so soon?" Pavel teased.
"They're here, about ten minutes out."
"Finally," Pavel muttered.
"Don't jinx it," I said. "Just… don't."
As soon as Pavel got up from his comfy rock-seat and aimed down range we were ready to kick some ass. I pulled out the detonator from my pocket and held it tightly while I waited for the convoy to enter the explosives' blast radius. The hornet descended to about 500 meters of the ground and waited for the fireworks to start. There was a circle outlined in red in my HUD that showed the estimated explosive radius of each explosives and an orange circle to signal the blast radius.
The first vehicle to show up was, of course, a ghost. Following it closely behind were two Shadow troop transports closely followed by a wraith. Then there were several other shadows and about half a dozen ghosts serving as escorts and an AA wraith. They were all driving pretty close to each other, which meant that the explosives would take out more of them. Sucks for them.
The first ghost went over the first charge. My finger twitched a little above the detonator but I didn't press it. I waited for what seemed like hours for the first ghost to clear the ten charges and then waited some more for it to approach the charges set on the cliff wall.
"Boom!" I said, I couldn't help it, so I said it.
There were eleven different explosions, ten on the ground and one on the cliff. The ground below and around me shuddered as an avalanche of rock collapsed right on top of the lead ghost and the front of the first shadow, crushing its pilot. A bunch of other vehicles were blown to nothing as the charges detonated below or around them. They lit up in pretty green explosions to accompany the gray plumes of dust and dirt raised by the explosives. From my vantage point I could spot small limbs flying high in the air and bloodied bodies being tossed like rag dolls by the shockwaves.
There was a couple of seconds of silence after the explosions. The covvies were a bit shocked that they had just been ambushed, it usually was them who did the ambushing. A nice little reversal of traditional roles if you ask me. The silence was broken as two rockets slammed into the wreckage of a ghost and a line of tracers riddled more destroyed vehicles with bullets. I followed the yellow lines and could just make out the faint outline of a hornet against the night sky.
The first shot that the covvies fired came from the AA wraith. A long stream of plasma flak was sent in the direction of the hornet. Our pilot cut off her fire and started moving sideways. The green rounds from the wraith could track her craft, but if she kept moving sideways they would fly by harmlessly. They didn't have the ability to turn very developed, instead focusing on firepower. A big mistake if you ask me. A few seconds later the green blasts flew a few meters of the hornet and two missiles slammed into the wraith, rearing it backwards and damaging its front armor. The wraith let of another stream of green flak and the hornet started strafing sideways again as the AA munitions slowly adjusted their route.
It was at this point that faster-moving blue orbs and purple beams started flying towards the sky. Those were slightly more dangerous since they moved a whole lot faster than flak and a single shot might bring the entire craft down. If that happened the pilot was as good as dead, the hornet had the aerodynamics of a rock strapped with lead.
"Fire at the infantry," I said.
My first shot hit a grunt in the back of the leg. I was too far away and forgot to account for the drop and wind and all that, my second shot managed to strike it in the back and detonate its methane pack. Pavel simply opened up in full automatic at the point where most of the small weapons fire was coming from. Rounds slammed all over the place, but some managed to make contact with the unshielded grunts. It wasn't long before the surprised soldiers realized where they were being fired at from and switched their aim at our position on top of the cliff.
"Hold this position for thirty seconds!" I said. "Then we move out."
We fired at any covvie stupid enough to leave cover to take careful aim and I managed to take out a jackal sharpshooter and a sniper. Pavel simply focused on hitting whatever shiny blue containers he could see. Those explosions only added to the overall chaos of the situation. My rounds found the midsection of several grunts with relative ease. It was only after a couple of elites sprinted from the back of the halted column that their return fire started getting dangerous.
"Ok, move out!" I said as soon as a beam singed the edge of my forearm armor. "Pavel?" I asked as I turned to see an empty spot beside me.
"Over here you idiot!"
I slid from my position just in time for a fuel rod to melt the rock into hot glass. Some of it landed on my armor, hardening instantly and sticking to it. After I removed it from my armor there would be a nice scorch mark that would be impossible to remove. Hey the more damaged my armor is the more badass I look. The more badass I look the more likely Marina is willing to give me some action, the good kind.
I jumped through a fallen tree and landed in our next pre-planned position. It was some sort of crevice on top of the cliff that protected us from incoming fire on all sides save above us. It was a perfect position, the only reason we hadn't chosen it first was because it was too obvious and because the additional protection would be needed once we had a whole company's worth of plasma raining down upon us.
I quickly put the stock of my rifle in my shoulder and took aim. We were closer to the enemy now, and they had been edging slowly forwards. Our initial blast had succeeded in stopping the column and destroying several vehicles, but at least half of the infantry troops were still alive and ready to kick our asses. Normally, that wouldn't have been a problem except that our air support was currently engaged otherwise.
"I'll be there as soon as possible, I swear," our pilot said through her teeth. She must've been pulling the controls of the clunky hornet as hard as possible to try and stay ahead of the plasma flak. All the while she was firing at the AA wraith, most of the shots missing, it was only a matter of time before one of the two vehicles was hit. I only hope that it wasn't the hornet, if they hit our pretty pilot then we would be as good as dead, facing overwhelming forces and stranded far away from friendly forces.
There were a couple dozen small figures trying to make their way through the wrecked vehicles and come closer to our position. Most of them did a pretty good job at it, but some of them got a bullet through the eyes for their troubles. That's right, I was close enough to them to allow myself the luxury of headshots. The good thing about headshots (other than giving you an ego boost) is that they drain morale from the enemy. Whenever you see your friend's face burst like a watermelon you get some doubts inside your head. Those doubts can mean death in a combat situation.
Case in point, I shot a grunt through the right eye and the blood sprayed all over the grunt next to it, it stopped for a second and looked in shock at the corpse of his friends. I squeezed the trigger of my rifle again and the shocked grunt got a round through its throat. Pavel took advantage of the confusion of the small group of grunts accompanying those two and hosed them with his gun, either killing them or sending them behind cover.
"Hey, where's that elite?" I called out over the noise of firearms.
"Behind that overturned ghost, the one next to the shadow."
I did a quick scan and quickly found the overturned ghost fitting the conditions. The elite was supposed to be behind it, but I didn't see it. Instead, I fired a three-round burst into the fuel tank of the ghost, causing a small explosion that sent the forward half forwards like a battering ram and propelled the smaller rear half upwards. There was in fact an elite behind the ghost, the explosion drained its shields and another three round burst to the chest was all that was required to take it out. I then switched my attention back to the grunts and jackals.
"How's it going up there?" I asked.
"Hold on…" came the reply from our support. "And I think we're done."
I saw two small orange points make their way rapidly towards some object behind a shadow transport. There was a loud noise and the turret of an AA wraith flew upwards, propelled by green and blue explosions.
"Ok, now I'm ready to kick some ass!" she called out.
"About time," Pavel muttered.
A second after she boasted her capabilities in air support her actions proved her words to be true. A pair of missiles slammed into a large group of covvies and machinegun fire hit anything that moved. I could hear the cries of outrage from the elites and the shouts of pain from the grunts all the way over here. I smiled to myself, enjoying their pain. Normally I would've gotten a psych evaluation for that, but they were aliens, so it was cool to enjoy watching them squirm.
I took the top of the head of a jackal and killed an elite that decided to do a vault jump over a piece of flaming wreckage. After that there was enough super-heated plasma vaporizing the rocks around us that we changed positions. Our next spot was a ledge on top of the cliff, it provided minimal cover but an incredible field of view. Might've been a pretty nice romantic spot in another time, but right now it was the perfect sniper's perch. From here I had a perfect vantage point of the battlefield in front of me. The covvies were still firing at the crevice we had been in a minute ago, they were even taking cover from that point and I could spot an elite signaling a grunt with a fuel rod cannon to come towards him. I waited a few moments to fire my first shot.
The slug hit the grunt with the fuel rod through the temple, knocking it sideways and killing the alien. The fuel rod cannon fell to the ground and immediately started expelling some sort of green vapor. The elite tried to scramble away from the corpse and the smoking weapon but the fail-safe of the portable cannon detonated and atomized the elite from the chest down, killing the once proud warrior instantly and sending the troops under its command into panic.
Pavel's machinegun started spewing lead instants after the explosion, he cut down several shielded jackals that were only just turning around after finally having organized a nice wall of shields. They collapsed on top one another and the rest of the enemy squad started panicking. Their fear was short-lived though, two explosives slammed into the ground and they were killed by either shrapnel or the blast wave.
It was all going so very well, the covvies were in complete disarray, most of the vanguard of their convoy was reduced to smoking heaps of flesh and blood and the rest of the vehicles had no way to go other than back, and that was good enough for the UNSC for now. The hornet was still emptying all the ammunition reserves it had with glee and there was no way that it could be brought down.
And then it started tumbling down to the ground.
"Shit! Banshee!" she called out, the alarms could be heard through the communicator. "I'm going down, going down hard!"
"Great," Pavel muttered, "Now how do we get her?"
"We don't," I replied instantly, surprising even myself.
"What?" he asked surprised and with shock evident in his tone.
"We can't there's no way we can get her out of there," I said.
The hornet had spun downwards in a spiral and had crashed right in the middle of all the wreckage of the convoy. There was enough chance that she might've survived the fall because only one rotor was damaged, but we had no way of getting down there and no way of getting back up.
"Frank, we have to try," Pavel said in between bursts.
"How?" I asked. "We can't do anything. She's as good as dead."
"Fuck…" he muttered, resigned. "Ok, let's bail before they realize what's happened."
I stood up from my position and Pavel folded the bipod of his machinegun before standing up himself, I was taking aim at any potential enemy when there was a loud explosion followed by some rumbling that felt like it was right under my feet. At first I thought that someone had detonated a nuke a couple of kilometers away, then I realized that the rumbling actually was under my feet. The ground around me shuddered and actually cracked in less than an instant. I barely had time to curse the universe before the floor slid away from my feet.
"Fuck you universe!" I called out as I fell.
I wasn't unconscious for that long, perhaps about a minute and a half since I fell until the moment a kick to the ribs woke me up. The world went bright as I opened my eyes and reached for my rifle. It was nowhere to be found. I reached for my sidearm and pulled it out before I even realized where I was. In front of me was a semi-destroyed hornet surrounded by several purple wrecks. There were two figures firing at something else, one of them had my rifle on her hand.
"He's awake!" our pilot yelled.
"About time," Pavel gruffed.
"Here," she said, I really had to learn her name, "it's yours."
I caught my rifle as she tossed it towards me and gave her my pistol in turn. I was suddenly realized that we had fallen down a cliff and I was perfectly fine. Then I tried to stand up. There was a metal rod sticking from my leg. The fall had been strong enough to go through my armor, enhanced muscle, enhanced bone, more enhanced muscle, and then through my armor again.
"Shit… fuck!" was the more elaborate comment I could think of to describe the situation.
"Don't worry, it didn't go through the femur, so we're cool," our pilot informed me.
The fact that a metallic rod had just gone through my leg and not hit the bone and it was a good thing showed how dire a situation we currently found ourselves in. Just three minutes ago we had been kicking some serious ass.
"Have we called for backup?" I asked as I stumbled up, leaning on the hornet.
"Yes, your lieutenant is trying to send an airstrike or something to get us safe and sound away from here," she said. As soon as she was done talking she coughed up a dangerously high amount of blood all over my visor.
"We're so screwed," I said.
Then there was a loud explosion ten meters to my left. It blew a wrecked ghost a couple of feet in the air and several meters forward. I heard screaming and looked up to see a banshee banking left to take another shot at us. It would be a couple of seconds before it was ready to shoot us, so I positioned my back to the hornet and took aim at the sky where it would more likely show up.
"Pavel?" I said.
"Yeah!" he yelled through the noise of his gun.
"Wish me luck," I said.
The banshee appeared from behind, of all things, a dark gray cloud. I could hear the screaming-like noise that it made when it turned already. It wobbled a little before it stabilized and aimed on our position. It started its strafing run a little early, with most of the plasma blobs landing in front of me, raising plumes of molten dirt and polycrete. I pushed the stock of my battle rifle hard onto my shoulder and held my breath. Time seemed to slow down for just one second, I aimed and squeezed the trigger.
There was barely any recoil as the three-round burst left my rifle barrel and headed straight for the banshee. The front of the craft started glowing green when the three small bullets made contact with the banshee. One of them hit right where I was aiming at. The small propulsion pod on the edge of the wings had more than enough armor to prevent my bullet from causing any serious damage, but the impact was enough to make the craft loose speed and wobble a little. The fuel rod it fired went high, if only by a few inches and hit a shadow ten meters ahead of our hornet. The banshee scraped the floor and pulled up before colliding with a ghost.
"Ok, change positions!" I called out.
Pavel came towards me and put my arm over his shoulder while our pilot (whom I will refer to as Pilot from now on) stumbled behind us while holding onto her ribs. She was hurt and it was probably bad enough that if she didn't get help soon, she would die.
Our next cover was a semi-overturned shadow transport with an intact turret. I almost cried in joy when I saw it, Pavel could do wanders with turrets, the banshee would be in for a big surprise once it came within his line of fire. I simply collapsed behind the large vehicle and covered my friend while he climbed to the turret. There were several burnt alien bodies around with smoke still coming from them. I might've enjoyed the smell of burnt meat had it not been for the gruesome sight.
"Ok, got it!" Pavel called out. "Watch my back."
I popped from cover and tried to spot any movement. My vantage point wasn't nearly as good from ground level as it had been twenty meters above. I could barely see anything through all the wrecked ghosts and shadows. The small piles of bodies or fusion coils didn't really help with my line of sight at all. I was busy looking for enemies when the shadow started vibrating. Pavel was already firing on the banshee, and by the sound of it, it was firing back. A blue blob of plasma flew a few inches over my head, scorching my helmet and warming up my scalp, another couple of plasma rounds hit the shadow, but none of them was close enough to cause any real harm.
"Yeah bitch!" I heard Pavel called out.
I looked over my shoulder briefly so that I could see what had happened. I turned just in time to see a fiery blue ball and what was left of a banshee emerging from it. The destroyed craft flew almost straight downwards and slid a couple of meters forward, coming to a halt when it hit yet another destroyed ghost. I smiled and whooped in celebration, but was promptly forced back into cover as a jackal spotted me.
"Hit the damn bird!" I called out.
"On it!" Pavel replied.
"Where are we on that support?" I asked. "Or evac, whatever."
"No word yet," Pilot muttered, she wasn't looking real good.
"Well, fuck."
Yes, I know, real elaborate, leave me alone.
"Pavel?" I asked.
"Not much time left."
Until now, we had been getting it relatively light, only a few covvies had realized what was happening, and even less of them were valiant enough to attack our position, the rest didn't even know that we were alive, and if they did they had no idea where we were in. Once they realized how incredibly idiotic they looked from our perspective they would simply launch the rest of their troops at us and overwhelm us through sheer numbers alone. Believe it or not, two Helljumpers and a pilot can't really do much against an enemy company, no matter how good they are.
"Boom HEADSHOT, bitches!" Pavel yelled. He was still manning the plasma turret, whoever was on the receiving end of that round must've been left horribly disfigured, not to mention dead.
I climbed up the shadow and fired upon a group of elites switching cover, bringing one of them down and forcing the rest to back down. We might've not been a match for so many enemies, but we could sure as hell leave their noses gushing blood and their eyes swollen to the size of apples. Metaphorically speaking of course.
"Where are we on that support?" I asked.
"Two pelicans, three minutes!" Pilot called out. She wasn't really adding to the overall effort, but she was looking like she was on the verge of fainting and she was doing a decent job of covering our rear with my pistol.
"Movement right!" I called out.
A stream of plasma scorched the street and wrecked vehicles before it made contact with the last grunt of a small squad, bringing it down after vaporizing both its legs. The grunt then exploded as the superheated plasma detonated the methane in its backpack. If we were lucky the blast killed or incapacitated a couple of the members of his squad. Still, it was hoping for too much.
"Jackal, ten o'clock!" Pavel warned me.
I shifted to aim at the location and put three rounds through the skull of a jackal sniper before it could even put its rifle to bear. We were still kicking ass, but there was now a semi-circle of covvies surrounding us and closing in. We had a turret, but they had numbers and plenty of cover available, and most importantly, we were running out of time.
"Two minutes," Pilot mumbled, she was about to pass out.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!" I muttered.
From that point on it was simply a matter of popping up from cover, shooting whatever thing happened to be moving and then jumping back down to avoid the following hail of plasma fire, Pavel had cover from his waist down because of the angle the shadow was in, but he was starting to receive tons of fire and would be forced to abandon the turret soon.
"Behind us!" Pilot called out.
There were two muffled shots coming from my pistol before I was able to turn around. Two elites materialized from thin air and aimed at pilot, I switched to full auto even as I turned around, my gun was firing before I knew what was going on. Luck was with me for those brief instants and some eight bullets hit the first elite, bringing the shield-less spec ops sangheili down. The other received four bullets to the legs and waist, knocking it to the floor. It was able to let go a single shot from its needle rifle, hitting Pilot in the knee.
I looked at her in dull surprise as her eyes went wide at the sight of a five-inch needle sticking out of her right leg. She barely had time to start screaming when the round detonated, leaving a hole the size of an orange on her leg. She now went ahead and gave out a piercing scream that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
The second elite was struggling to aim its rifle without the use of its legs. I quickly threw my knife at it, hitting it in the head. The blade just barely went through the armor and the elite roared in pain as it pierced its skin. Even as the knife was flying I was already slamming another mag into my rifle. Before the elite had finished screaming there were fie rounds inside its brain, and it was as dead as its companion.
"Oh fuck," Pavel muttered as he fell backwards from the turret. His thigh armor was smoking and scorched.
"You ok?" I asked under the noise of plasma fire.
"No."
You know that part in the movies when the good guys look like they are about to loose the battle, and the really sad music starts playing in the background while there's a montage of all the character's faces and actions during the climax of the battle? Well, I sure could've used a very dramatic soundtrack right now. It would've made my death feel a little bit more… heroic.
I dragged Pilot's limp and unconscious body towards the shadow, her knee left a trail of blood. Pavel reloaded his machinegun and started firing over the shadow without even bothering to aim. He was just buying us some time. I placed some biofoam on Pilot's wound, she barely even moved. I grabbed her hand ant took my pistol from her. It would probably be useful.
"Now what?" I asked myself.
"Never thought it would end like this," Pavel said.
"Yeah, me neither."
I grabbed all my grenades and placed them around me. If I was going down I was going to kill as many covvie motherfuckers as I possibly could, pardon my French.
I tossed my two flashbangs over the shadow and smiled a little at the screams of pain of grunts and jackals alike. Next I shoved myself with my back to the ghost and aimed at one edge of our cover.
My first victim was a grunt, eager and stupid. It looked almost comical as its entire body lurched sideways from the impact of my round. Next an elite found itself facing a hail of bullets, it managed to let off a couple of shots, one of which grazed my shoulder and gave me blisters. Not that it would matter, I was going to die right now. I could hear the screaming of wounded aliens, I could hear their cries of rage and anticipation, I could hear the plasms-fueled fires still going on, I could hear the rounds bouncing of my cover, but on top of all, I could hear my heartbeat.
My heart was beating faster than it should've been. Faster than I ever remembered it beating.
Seriously, if it keeps beating like this I'm gonna die of a heart attack before they get to me.
Then I realized it, my heart wasn't capable of beating at 900 rounds per minute, if it was then there would probably be something very wrong with me. The next elite that came around the corner was literally shredded to pieces as lead filled the air (and its body) where it was. It collapsed to the floor with a sickly squish sound. It actually made me smile a little.
"Gotta love gunships," Pave said, fatigue evident in his voice.
I simply nodded at him as I watched the pelican spew fire from its loading bay. The other craft released a hail of ANVIL-II missiles that blacked out all the other noise for the briefest of instants.
"My leg is killing me," I said.
"Pussy," Pilot muttered before she slipped back into unconsciousness, a small grin on her face.