Chapter LXXXV: Preamble
March 2, 2543 (UNSC Calendar)/
Highbay, New Moskva, Ursa Tertio System
"Sometimes it's just better to run away, you know? Sometimes, as a Helljumper, you can't. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is?"
"Oi sarge," someone shook me, "wake up."
"I'm awake," I mumbled, reaching for my rifle. "What's up?"
"Recon drones are down?"
"So?" I asked, letting go of my BR55.
"All of 'em," Bumblebee said.
I instantly sat up, my rifle once again in my grip while my other hand searched for my helmet in the darkness. Drone down, bad. Drones down, very bad. "When?" I asked.
"Six minutes ago," the man said, already moving to wake up Pavel. "We were informed through wireless."
"Finally set up inter-service communication," I noted. "That's good."
"I guess," he replied as he awoke Pavel.
"Who's doing watch?" I asked him.
"Snark, Scarecrow, and Grass," Bumblebee said. "Little punk woke me up."
"Grass, Scarecrow, what do you see?"
"So far I can't make out anything, Sarge," Scarecrow replied.
"Yup, too much mist right now," Grass added. "If they are staging an attack, now is the worst possible time for them to do it."
"Shit," I muttered to myself. I started climbing up the stairs while fixing my helmet and turning on the HUD.
"Want some stims?" Schitzo asked me. He was standing in the middle of the stairwell.
Fuck off. I thought to him, I walked right through the hallucination, and no matter how hard I tried, I still felt myself shuddering.
"Snark," I called out, not wanting to frighten the team sniper. The little guy just looked towards me and nodded in acknowledgement before returning to scanning the area in front of the house with his scope. He was peeking through a comparatively small hole in the attic of the house, allowing him a wide field of vision without really being exposed to enemy fire or prying eyes. "See anything?"
"Humidity isn't really doing wonders for my scope," he replied quietly.
"Even with the cold you don't get any heat signatures?"
"Didn't I already say no the first time?"
"Smart ass."
I grabbed my rifle and peeked through the hole, the mist was very thick, in fact, it was so dense that I couldn't see anything across the street except for the faint light of some car that was still burning even after hours of inactivity. My rifle didn't have thermal capabilities, so I didn't catch anything of notice when I peeked through the scope. I then tried using my helmet's thermal vision but the results proved less than forthcoming. It was in the negatives inside of the house. I don't even want to think how cold it was outside.
"Shiiiiiit," I muttered again. "Grass, anything of note?"
"Nah, sometimes I think I can make out either a jackal or a grunt patrolling across the street."
"Jackal," Pavel said. "Probably looting for goodies."
"Scarecrow?"
"All I can see is a gray wall."
"It's more like muted white, don't you think?" Grass suggested from across the block.
"What the hell is muted white?"
"A girl thing," Caboose said, evidently, he had just woken up. "Just smile and nod at her."
"I see you're awake sleeping beauty," she snapped back irritably.
"You," Caboose said in a fake excited voice, "you think I'm a beauty?"
"Shhh," I said. I was getting nervous. "All drones are down, how long till they get replacements up and running?"
No one answered.
"Grass?" Pavel asked.
"What?"
"Oh, come on, you know all this kind of stupid stuff."
"Twelve and a half minutes under optimal circumstances. Maybe fifteen in the current predicament."
"You use big words," Caboose noted. "It's almost like-"
"Thanks," I replied, interrupting the other man before he got wound up.
"Grass, contact the army platoon to our left, Scarecrow, do the same thing with our right, ask them about their defense plans and we'll adapt ours to theirs."
"Aye, aye."
"On it."
I went back downstairs and to the basement, only stopping to stifle a curse once I saw that Schitzo was waiting for me right where I left him. He said nothing as I went through him once more. In the basement the rest of the squad was checking their weapons and strapping any additional pieces of armor that they took off to their bodies. I looked at them and slung a bandolier belt across my chest while I strapped my standard utility belt to my waist. I secured it to my armor and smiled at the comfortable weight of it.
"Angel, Caboose, head over to Grass's house," Pavel ordered. "Bumblebee, you come with me too. Frank."
"I love it when you order me around," I said. "Move along people." As soon as I said that my squad started moving out of the basement, grabbing various boxes of grenades and ammunition as they left. I turned to look at Pavel and gave him a 'you see' look as he climbed up last. He shook his head and chuckled slightly. I don't know if he did that because I thought myself to be cool or because everyone else actually acted when I told them to.
I climbed up the stairs and met Schitzo on my way to a nice window that I could use as a firing position. I rolled my eyes at him and moved a table towards the window, I tilted it sideways and placed it so that it covered my flank, it wouldn't stop a spiker round or a needle explosion, but it would burst to fire before highly unstable plasma went through it. I grabbed the last remaining box of ammunition for my rifle and placed it next to me, I really hoped that I wouldn't need to use it.
"Snark, you've got me covered right?"
"I pretty much have to Sarge, if they overwhelm you I'm pretty much screwed."
"Good boy."
After that there was nothing in our squad channel for what seemed like an hour. No one said anything, everyone was trying to see through the dense mist that prevented us from seeing what the covvies were doing. The drones weren't up yet and the two adjoining platoons couldn't see any better than we could. Without eyes in the sky we would be effectively blind for as long as this fog lasted.
"It's snowing," Caboose observed.
"Your observation powers never cease to astound me," Snark quickly commented, giving his call sign some credibility.
"Shhh," I said. "You hear that?" I asked.
"Hear what?"
"They can't hear it just yet Frank, you're better, remember?"
"Everyone quiet," I said, ignoring my hallucination but following its advice and giving my teammates a couple of seconds.
"I hear it." Scarecrow said.
"Fire a shot."
"What?" he asked. "Now? I'll be giving myself away!"
"Cover your muzzle with something, trust me."
"Frank…"
"Hey, we can deal with anything they throw at us," I said smugly. "Ain't that right Reaper?"
I received several unenthusiastic affirmations from my team, they were evidently nervous that we were missing all of our recon. If the covvies were behind the loss of the drones or had any sense at all they would attack en masse right now. We, on the other hand, would have to go all World War II on those bastards, not even bothering with motion sensors and all that. How primitive.
"Firing one."
There was a loud bang, you know, the characteristic sound that gunshots usually make. The bang echoed several times off the buildings to the front and sides before there was any kind of reaction. I immediately wished that I hadn't ordered Scarecrow to fire, no matter how necessary it had been for him to do so.
The entire area ahead of me lit up with plasma fire immediately. Most of it was directed towards Scarecrow's house, but as soon as everybody else opened fire the entire world lit up in a blaze of gunfire, plasma, needles, and spikers. It would have really been something beautiful to see if half those projectiles weren't out to vaporize half your head.
"Fire, fire, fire," Pavel said as he set an example.
From that point on everything became a chorus of screaming, yelling, and firing. The Covenant infiltrators on the street without any cover emitted a different type of music, their screaming was caused more by pain than by pointing out our positions. I know, a poorly worded statement, but I believe you are smart enough to understand what I meant by it.
Directly in front of me were several covvies, most of them were grunts but at least half a dozen of them were jackals with shields and another three were skirmishers with carbines or needle rifles. There were also three brutes, a major and two minors. If you read the previous statement you will realize that there was a shitload of enemies directly ahead of me. A shitload.
"Snark, you focus on the big guys, I'll-"
The brute major's head blew up in a spray of blood and brains.
"Yeah, just keep doing that," I said.
I started taking aim at the skirmishers, those were the most immediately dangerous since they had long-ranged weapons with telescopic sights. Since there was only four of them I only had to fire four bursts. Surprisingly, I hit them all in the throat instead of the head. It was still a killshot but easier to make than a headshot because missing meant that you would hit either head, shoulders, or chest. It makes me slightly angry that Schitzo was the one that told me that.
"Look for any covvies in the back," I told the sniper, "the mist is clearing up."
From all the goddamned heat from their weapons…
"Take out the jackals Francisco," Schitzo suggested.
Thanks Sherlock, I'm not that stupid.
I did what I recommended to myself and took out three of the six jackals before the other three packed their shields together and made an impenetrable wall. I fired the rest of my magazine into them before I realized that their overlapping shields wouldn't really budge with rifle rounds. I unloaded the rifle's magazine and reached for a grenade at the same time. I was semi-prone so I had to crouch to get a good angle for my grenade. I activated it and tossed it. It was a beautiful throw, you should've seen it. The grenade went up and down in a beautiful arc and landed right at the jackals feet, going in between a small gap of the two shields and sliding behind the covvies.
Then the three jackals received one headshot each, dying an instant before my grenade detonated.
"Fuck man," I told Snark, "we need to communicate some more, else I'm just wasting perfectly fine grenades."
"Sarge, you're messing with my zen thing," the guy replied.
"Oh, just shut the hell up and take every single alien on the right side of that dead brute, all the ones on the left are mine, got it?"
"Wait, does that include-"
"I will fucking end you," I warned.
"Fine, fine," the usually quiet sniper said.
From that point on the fields of fire became much more organized, without their leadership and with their shields gone the grunts were starting to panickpanic, there must've been some really imposing forces behind them, because not a single one of them turned tail and ran away. I dedicated myself to killing the Unggoy with darker armor and the ones that sported some sort of launcher over their shoulders. Once those fell with a headshot or neck shot I dedicated myself to taking out the lesser ranks. It wasn't really much of a fight, because their puny plasma pistols couldn't break through anything or be aimed properly. I always wonder why the hell they just don't give them plasma rifles and multiply their firepower to the fourteenth power.
"They are dying out," Grass said.
"We're still getting fired upon," Bumblebee noted.
"Yeah, but from where?" Angel asked.
"They're firing from in front of us," I helpfully put out.
"You beat me to it Sarge," Snark complimented me with a chuckle.
"I aim to please."
"Sarge…"
"Oh, just aim for the muzzle flashes, or whatever the covvie equivalent for that is."
Everyone was too annoyed by the combat and me being an annoying asshole so they simply winked green lights in my HUD. There was sporadic gunfire until we heard the worst noise that we could possibly hear in this situation. A huge explosion. When I realized where it was coming from it only got worse. There had just been a detonation just shy of nuclear in power behind our frontline. Behind our frontline.
"The fuck…"
"Fall back to the office building," I said. "Now."
"I would've phrased it more urgently," Schitzo suggested, "but the idea itself is sound. Nice going Frank."
I ignored the guy (or myself) and picked up my rifle and the box of ammunition. The covvie fire was receding a little bit while they got organized and launched a larger attack. They had lots and lots of manpower and we were outnumbered even though they were on a human planet. The irony is just delicious. I'm kidding, it's not, it means that we could die.
I turned on the channel that communicated all the squads or units in the area and tried to listen for something related to the explosion while hopping across craters and piles of debris to the two-story office building. There were a few people asking around what the hell just happened. I changed the channel to a more general one and paled at what I heard. It was mostly marines and soldiers screaming that they were about to be overrun, that was a bad omen all by itself, but a couple of calm NCO's transmitting to HICHCOMM caught my attention. I isolated those frequencies and listened to them.
"…Kilo-Two-Three, Kilo-Two-Three, huge explosion right under Frontline Operating Post, Hammer Actual and Checkmate Actual are KIA, I repeat Major General Akers and Brigadier Miztla are KIA, most of their staff are either KIA or MIA, we've got unconfirmed reports of Covenant combat platforms, scarabs and locusts have been reported by some units. We need reinforcements now…. Gunships would be nice, or an airstrike, Overlord, anything will… mother of g-"
That channel went silent and the marine's lifeline and picture were replaced by a flashing KIA sign that disappeared after a second or two.
"Pavel…"
"I heard it."
"Fuck."
"You said it," he acknowledged it. "Caboose, get the army blokes to get to our building, we're gonna be making a stand."
"On it," the man replied.
"What, Pavel, how do you even-" Bumblebee started.
"Trust him," I said. "We're not joking about this."
"Sarge, they're heading towards the building as we speak," Caboose reported.
"Good to know, I'm already here, haul ass now."
I entered the building through the door and took cover to the side while I waited for the rest of my squad to get in here. Snark was the first one to do so, he quickly went past the door, barely noticing me and promptly climbed up the stairs towards the roof, he would be needing a good vantage point. Pavel, Scarecrow, and Bumblebee were the next to arrive, quickly followed by Grass, Angel, and Caboose. Once they arrived members from that platoon on our left started arriving, they immediately took positions to defend the house while I headed towards their lieutenant. The guy in charge of the unit was in his mid-thirties, looked competent enough and carried himself with an air of confidence.
"Lieutenant," I said in greeting, "Status on your platoon?"
"We're down to twenty-three men, the other seven are all KIAs, we're good on ammo."
"Rockets?" I asked.
"Three dozen," the lieutenant replied. His IFF tag identified him as Ugur Matarci, 4th Platoon, 3rd Batallion, 18th New Moskva Defense Division.
"Snipers?"
"One of our sharpshooters is dead, we managed to rescue his DMR and some spare ammunition, our platoon sniper is good."
"Excellent," I told Matarci, "have him head to the roof and give his SRS to our squad marksman."
"Staff Sergeant," Matarci said sternly. "I don't appreciate you ordering me or my men around."
"Ugh," Schitzo disgustedly said. "Even under the threat of certain death inter-service rivalry beats everything."
Agreed, I thought. For once, I could relate to myself. Now that's ironic.
"Our marksman was ranked twelfth best in the UNSC," I deadpanned.
"Twelfth?" Lieutenant Matarci asked after a moment of hesitation.
"Between ten and fifteen," I admitted. "I forget."
"Iheri give the Helljumper your SRS."
"Umm, sir?" the sniper replied in confusion.
"Just do as I say." He added, "You can take his DMR."
"Yes, lieutenant," Iheri replied in annoyance. For some reason her voice reminded me of that lieutenant back in Aztlan, I never did find out her name. Or if she survived.
"Lieutenant, you got any medics?"
"One, she can do her job well enough."
"Well enough?" I asked nervously.
"Rookie," Matarci explained.
"Shit," I muttered. "Well, arrange your men in a defensive position, the line is broken and there are walkers behind us."
"Not to mention an army in front of us," Pavel said while he trotted by.
"Aye, that too."
"Aye?"
"Aye."
"No, I mean who the hell says aye anymore."
"Aye do."
"Funny."
"I try," I smiled. "Just distribute your men along the building."
"Will do Staff Sergeant, just don't get to used to ordering me around," the lieutenant warned.
"Noted. Angel, come downstairs, I need a little help."
I waited while the soldiers from the 4th platoon stumbled around, carrying deployable machine guns and boxes of ammunition. So far the only shots that had rang out had been from DMRs, no covvies were close enough to be a serious threat. Yet.
"Staff Sergeant?"
"Angel, come with me," I ordered. "We're gonna blow up those three houses, or at least the walls facing us, make our lives a little easier."
"Good idea," he complimented me.
"Damn right, now hand me some of that C7 and let's blow some shit up."
"Just what I like to hear," Angel said excitedly as he reached towards his pack and handed me two blocks of plastic explosive and the detonators.
"No detonators, we'll blow up the walls when they're being used for cover."
"How did I not think of that?"
"I dunno," I said. "But you should've."
"Yeah, maybe I'm-"
"Just come with me." I ran out of the building, the sun was already starting to rise up and the mist was now almost completely gone. Greater visibility for us, but the same thing goes for them. "Snark, cover us," I ordered.
I got the usual green acknowledgement light and kept on running. Angel and I split up. I went to the righter most house while the explosives expert took the one in the left and in the middle. Some stray shots were fired at me as I hopped in between houses, but the covvies were still massing themselves for a decisive attack. I reached my goal and stuck one of the two blocks of plastic explosive on one edge of the house before I went to the other side.
Two grunts carrying a deployable plasma machine gun appeared out of the corner and I shot them down even as they screamed in fright. I looked around the corner and sprayed a group of grunts with my rifle, sending them backwards and looking for cover. I returned to the wall and placed the other block of C7 there, leaving it nice and ready to blow up.
I hopped across the space in between the two houses and this time a lot of plasma rounds flew in that direction. There were some cracks from an EMR and a shot from an SRS before the enemy grunts went quietly for a minute. I looked to my left and caught a block of C7 that Angel had tossed me. He was done with the house on the left and was planting another explosive on one side of this wall. I did the same thing and gestured for him to wait a moment.
I reached out of over for the Covenant deployable turret and dragged it towards me. I didn't really know how to load the thing, but I wasn't about to let the covvies use it. Normally I would've booby-trapped the weapon, but I didn't have the time or means to do so at the moment. Instead I slung it over my shoulder and jogged as fast as I could back to the building. I closed the metallic side door just before a burst of needles pierced through the thick metal.
"Cutting it a bit close, aren't we Sarge?"
"We're good," I said, throwing the plasma machine gun to the ground.
In front of me were two soldiers with their rifles trained on the door, they were shaking.
Oh shit…
"Ask the lieutenant where he could use your gun," I told Angel. "Now, quick!" The ODST promptly sprinted towards the stairs, looking for Lieutenant Matarci. "You two," I said, gesturing to the two soldiers. "Where's your radio operator?"
"He was shot down, sir," one of them said.
"Radio gear?" I asked.
"Umm… Ruiz has it doesn't he?"
"Yeah, he's serving as replacement," the other soldier confirmed.
"Where can I find Ruiz?" I asked.
"Second floor," the first soldier said, "probably with our medic."
"Thanks," I said as I moved away. Plasma was starting to hammer our walls already.
I climbed up the stairs to see soldiers running towards the windows to fire their rifles. I rolled my eyes at them. The army never lacked for ammunition, especially when their soldiers carried ten boxes each. I swear, they looked like they were in a fat suit with all the bandoliers strapped around them. I looked around until I found someone with a radio backpack.
"You, radioman! Ruiz!"
"¿Qué quieres?"
"El radio," I said. "Dame el radio."
The man did as I said and handed me the phone-like radio. I took off my helmet and sat down while Ruiz turned to talk to the medic.
"UNSC Inconvenience," I spoke out.
"Connecting… connecting…" a recording said.
"Inconvenience here, come in-"
"Eliza!" I said. "I need some intel right now."
"Staff Sergeant?" the AI replied surprised. "I thought that you had been evacuated from that sector."
"Obviously not," I replied. "What's the situation?"
"Scarabs, three of them. Locusts, twelve. Plus a whole lot of enemy infantry both behind and in front of your position."
"Our artillery?" I asked nervously.
"Some batteries are still online, but most have been bombed by Seraph fighters."
"Where the hell did they get Seraphs from?"
"They had a lot of equipment hidden from us Frank," Eliza replied.
"That much is evident." Explosions were starting to hit the walls of the building. "I need evac, two pelicans will do."
"I can't send them right now," Eliza replied.
"When?"
"Three hours, minimum."
"Five?" I asked.
"At the very least," the AI confirmed.
"If you take that long-!" I stopped myself and turned around, taking the wireless with me. "If you take that long you'll need one hornet, not two pelicans," I muttered.
"Frank, I'll do my best."
"All right," I said, giving up. If a smart AI couldn't help us right now, then no one else could.
I returned the radio to Ruiz and thanked him before heading towards the ladder and going up the roof.
"Oi Sarge, wait up!"
I looked below me just before climbing out the trap door. Bumblebee was at the bottom of the ladder and pushing his rocket launcher towards me. I grabbed it and threw it over my shoulder and onto the roof. If he was climbing up here with a rocket launcher it was probably because he would need to shoot down something. I climbed all the way up and helped the man up the last couple of steps.
"Banshees?" I asked.
"Yeah," he replied as he headed towards one corner of the building.
I looked around the roof and went to the edge that faced the three houses that we had just rigged to blow up. I managed to get three seconds worth of surveying the battlefield before a couple of green carbine bolts nearly blasted my head open. I dropped to the floor and sighed with annoyance.
"Relax Francisco, you've done this plenty of times before," Schitzo said. It really pissed me off that he didn't even bother to take cover, instead choosing to sit over the ledge.
I ignored him and waited a couple of moments before popping from cover and taking a couple of potshots at advancing grunts. As soon as the two grunts stumbled to the ground dead I switched targets and sent three bursts through a brute's head. The huge alien fell to the snow, leaving an unusual snow angel outline. I chuckled a little before return fire forced me to go back behind cover.
"Snark!" I called out. "See any MGs?"
"Negative."
"They'll pop up," I said, "you know what to do once that happens."
Green acknowledgement lights.
I fired at the biggest aliens that I could see. Most of the time I only managed to hit the brutes with two bursts in the head. Seven out of ten times the helmet held, the other three times the bullets hit either their eyes or mouth, killing them. Neck shooting wasn't an option, since these brutes could take the most insane amount of punishment before dying or even slowing down. It was quite annoying in more ways than one. I could barely take a spiker round to a limb or a plasma pistol shot without dying and they could take half a magazine of 9.5mm supersonic rounds in the chest before dying.
"Fire, fire, fire!"
"Left flank, left flank!"
"They're behind us!"
"I'm out, I'm out!"
"Shitting fuck!"
"Die, you fucking cunt!"
"Whoa! Easy on the language!"
You know, typical combat lines that everyone picked up from the latest movie they saw.
I glanced up just in time for angel to detonate the three houses in front of the building. At least fifty grunts, jackals, and brutes went up in flames. It annpyedannoyed me that I wasn't seeing any other races. No hunters or drones yet. That meant that soon enough we would meet the real force of the enemy assault. The three houses became a million of splinters and tiny pieces of obsoloeteobsolete concrete. Covvies standing nearby where instantly vaporized by the strength of the explosion while those standing further away had every organ inside their bodies turned into a paste with a consistency similar to mashed potatoes. The ones even further away were hit with fist-sized splinters or fist-sized rocks. If that didn't kill them, the precise bursts of gunfire that followed soon did.
As the three houses collapsed from the strength of the explosion and the dust plume that they had lifted up settled down I could see what we were facing against. Behind the houses were more than a few wraiths, several ghosts, and what seemed like millions of Covenant soldiers all slowly moving in our direction. From the looks of it we barely had enough ammunition to take them all out if we didn't waste a single round.
"She said five hours, didn't she?" Schitzo asked. "This looks like it's gonna be a long day."
Hey guys, sorry for the delay, I had some serious work for school last week and wasn't able to write much.
Well, as you can see this chapter has a quote at the top, those quotes are going to be heading most of the chapters i write from now on, if you don't like it then you can... tell me, I won't mind. Also, I hope you enjoyed this.
As always, thanks to Sniper Fodder for proof-reading this chapter.
-casquis