Chapter LXXXVI: Eighth Plague

March 2, 2543 (UNSC Calendar)/

Highbay, New Moskva, Ursa Tertio System

"Not even God himself could've sent anything worse than this." - soldier from the 4th Platoon, 3rd Batallion, 18th NMDD

"It's coming around!"

"I got it," Bumblebee confirmed, doing a highly unnecessary combat roll and bringing his M41 SSR around. He moved it to track the enemy aircraft for a few seconds and then fired one rocket. The M19 102mm surface-to-surface missile flew straight for a few meters before veering to the side in a seemingly impossible angle. The fast-flying rocket caught up with a banshee that was desperately trying to outrun it. As soon as it collided the banshee blew up in a massive multi-colored fireball.

"Over th-"
Before I could point out the other banshee to Bumblebee said craft started a long strafing run through the building's roof. The plasma bolts hit the polycrete inches away from me and went on, leaving me unharmed. The soldier behind me wasn't as lucky. One of the rounds hit him in the leg, vaporizing almost everything below his knee and leaving nothing but a bloody mess and exposed bones. The unfortunate soldier cried out in pain just as Bumblebee's second rocket screamed a few feet from the floor. The second M19 suddenly shot up and hit the offending banshee in the wing, knocking it to the floor, where it blew up in an unnaturally large fireball.

"Medic!" I called out, "Oh shit," I cursed as a plasma grenade fell a few feet from me. I ran and jumped away from the blue orb before it detonated, burning a perfect circle through the roof.

Ah, a window of opportunity.

"You, over there!" I yelled at a shaking soldier. "Help me drag your buddy."

"What?"

Even as he said that I moved towards the wounded marksman. I grabbed him by the armpit as his colleague did the same. We dragged him across the roof towards the hole that the plasma grenade had burnt in the floor. His wounded leg was leaving a trail of blood and bits of gore, even though the sheer heat of the explosion had cauterized most of his wound. I called out for someone to help us out and then dumped the screaming soldier into the arms of his comrades.

"So much blood…" his friend said, looking at his bloody hands.

"Yeah, and soon you'll be looking like that soon enough if you don't shoot some covvies!" I yelled at him, picking up his rifle from the floor and shoving it into his hands.

The man seemed to snap back a little bit and moved towards the edge of the roof once again. There were so many targets to pick from that I barely had to bother with aiming. Grunts fell by the dozens nd jackals did their best to ward off the immense rain of bullets. Brutes were holding on better with their thick hides and the help of some deployable covers. They were beginning to form something ressembling a real front line.

We couldn't allow that to happen.

"Lieutenant, we've got a group of friendlies coming from the southeast!"

"Rooftop, provide cover from them, let's see if they can make it through," the lieutenant ordered.

I fired at a brute major, hitting him in he chest and neck. The alien jerked backwards right before it received another impact in the chest and lower face, instantly killing it.

Most of the people on the roof save for Snark moved towards the southern and eastern sides of the building, aiming to cover the soldiers that wanted security in this building. The densely packed houses and small business didn't allow us to see them yet, but if I tried hard I could hear gunshots a short distance away. Instead of waiting for the friendlies to appear I started shooting everything that moved. A couple of eager jackal sharpshooters fell with three bullet holes each before they even noticed that they had been spotted. This side of the building seemed to have less aliens moving around, only a few brutes with brute shots were in here, and most were firing blindly from behind cover.

"There," I called out, seeing silhouettes moving through battle smoke.

"I see 'em," the army marksman said. She shot a couple of times from Snarks EMR, killing a brute that had decided to peek out of cover.

Ten marines were running through the battlefield, ignoring every alien that wasn't near them or wasn't an immediate threat. Grunts looked at them as if wondering if what they were seeing was real. The ones that actually bothered to fire at the eight marines were promptly shot down by bursts of MA5 fire. I have to admit that I was shocked by their lack of fear. Not that I wasn't brave or anything, but a little amount of fear is never really a bad thing.

The marines were doing a full sprinting now.

"Marines, idnentify yourselves!"

"Just cover us!" the leader replied through the channel. "There are-"

The marine was abruptly cut off at the same time that one of the sprinting men was blown apart by a brute shot. Eight different sets of wepons moved towards the offending brute and left it twitching in the floor in a matter of instants. The remaining marines kept on sprinting while the covvies got over their shock and started shooting at them. Two other marines were hit with plasma fire while running to safety. One of them turned around and went down on one knee, firing a long burst from his rifle. The guy managed to kill two grunts before eight needler rounds lodged in his chest and blew his midsection apart.

The four remaining marines made it to the door and entered. They turned around to stop a pair of brutes that were sprinting towards the building and killed them as they tried to go through the door. Just as they were about to enter, one of the army men that had gone out to help them in was hit through the head with a beam rifle. The body of the soldier slumped to the floor with a good chunk of his head missing.

I redirected my aim to hwile tracking the trail of overeheated air particles that the beam rifle shot left behind it. The track stopped right in the window of a house. I couldn't see any kind of movement in the window, so instead I switched to full automatic on my rifle and emptied it on the window and the walls to its sides. I wasn't sure that I hit anything, but I think I spotted a little bit of blood spatter.

"Gotcha," I smiled.

"That'll come back to haunt your ass Frank, make sure," Schitzo said.

I nodded, he was right. I was right. Whatever. I'm confused. Short sentences.

"Scarecrow, see that window," I said, sending him a feed from my rifle's scope camera. "Blow it up."

"On it Sarge."

I waited for a 40mm grenade to detonate inside the window and then resumed firing at everything. I was halfway through my supply of ammunition and only half an hour had gone by.

"Who's on the bottom floor?" I asked.

"Me!" at least half a dozen people replied.

"Who's on the bottom floor and is a Helljumper?" I asked, slapping my helmet with my palm.

"Grass and me," Caboose said. "So far we're not even bothering to aim Sarge, too many targets."

"That's not necessarily a good thing," Angel said.

"I know, smartass," Caboose replied.

"It's called sarcasm," Grass chimed in.

"Badly used sarcasm," Snark muttered. "Besides, why are you even bothering to defend Caboose?"

"I am not!" she snapped.

"Geesh," Angel said. "You don't have to blush."

"I am not blushing!"

"Sure you're not," Angel said smugly.

"Grass, keep firing, Caboose, defrief one of the three marines," I ordered. "Tell me everything that he says."

"Yes Sarge," the man replied. His dossier said that he was good at extracting information. I knew exactly what that meant, but if you're a toture specialist you need to have some previous knowledge about how to ask nicely. Hey, sometimes it works.

"Staff Sergeant," Caboose came in, "bad news, we've got-"

"Ah shit," I said. The visor in my helmet was melting off, the sheer heat of the plasma cannon had done all that damage without even touching me. I grabbed my helmet and tossed it away. I wasn't prepared for the heat. I was expecting the air around me to be cold since it was wintertime and the past few days had been marked by a never-ending snowstorm. The sheer heat from the residual energy forced me to cover my face.

"-custs! They're locusts!" Caboose's voice came from my dropped helmet. "Sarge, Sarge! Dammit, come in!"

"Ah shit," I repeated, shaking my head once again.

"Earpiece," Schitzo reminded me.

"Right," I said, reaching for one of my pockets, I just hoped that the heat hadn't destroyed my backup earpiece. I rummaged through one of the packs and grabbed what I was looking for. I pulled the mic out and slung the radio over my ear. The small glass that went over my right eye functioned as a rudimentary HUD, but it was better than nothing.

"I'm fine," I said, pushing myself from the ground whilst reaching for my rifle. "I'm fine. I'm fine."

"Sarge!" Caboose yelled. "It's locusts."

"You don't say," I muttered.

"He's fine," Pavel said, trying to hide the relief in his voice.

"Rocket that asshole," I yelled. "How many walkers?"

"Three we can see, at least that many further back."

I turned to see Bumblebee fire two of his rockets at the nearest locust. There were two detonations second from each other. There was a metallic groaning and the sound of debris falling on the floor. I moved next to Agnarsson and saw the locust emerge unscathed from the explosion, its shields flickering until they went off.

"Pound that motherfucker!"

A dozen soldiers, marines, and Helljumpers opened fire on the Locust walker. I could see yellow tracer fly at the mechanic spider from the floor below and the ground floor. I emptied my magazine on the locust, focusing my fire in its cockpit. Everyone else did the same, and eventually the strong armor gave way to the concentrated fire. The walker slumped sideways and its legs gave way to the weight of the cockpit. It fell to the floor and stayed there for a brief instant before blowing up.

"Good one boys!" Lieutenant Matarci congratulated us, "Now let's focus on those other two!"

We spent all of our rockets killing the second locust, by the time the third one was on the floor we had less than half our machine gun rounds. The lone AIE-486 HMG that the guys from the 4th platoon had brought with them was destroyed by the last locust, leaving us with little less than a thousand unusable rounds. Well, granted, we could load them individually into spare magazines, but that wouldn't really keep up with our requirements.

"Lieutenant," I called out, "tell your wounded to load those machine gun rounds into empty magazines," I said regardless.

Green acknowledgement light. Tiny light in my tiny earpiece HUD. So tiny that I requested acknowledgement, at which point lieutenant Matarci snapped at me to shut the hell up and keep shooting.

Half the building was down in ruins and nien out of the twenty soldiers were dead. The three marines were still all alive, but one of them was injured. Not to mention the other wounded soldiers.

"More of 'em!"

Two locusts were climbing over a destroyed house, their legs clinging to the debris and allowing them to bypass the wreackage. They looked smug to me for some reason. Like they knew that they could kill all of us and they knew it. One of them stopped and its cannon started glowing. I moved out of the way and a purple energy beam burned the north edge of the roof completely, a few bits of polycrete fell down to the floor below, but no one was harmed by the powerful shot.

"Focus on the nearby one," I said. "Fire everything at it."
For some reason all the men present in the building obeyed my order and emptied they magazines at the advancing walker while the other locust cooled off its cannon. Rounds pinged and bounced off its powerful shields. It looked like our weapons weren't having any effect, but I knew that we were slowly eating through its shields.

"Snark, hit the right forward leg joint as soon as the shields go down!" I said while firing my rifle.

"Yessir!"

"Seregant, Staff Sergeant," I said angrily.

Just as I said that the locust glowed yellow and its shields went down. Snark emptied four SRS rounds into the place where I had told him to while I fired three bursts at the opposite joint. My rounds didn't have nearly as much effect as Snark's, but they succeeded in hitting something vital. The forward right leg that Snark had targeted buckled slightly and the other three had to take the weight while it fixed itself. The rounds that I had fired to the other leg succeeded in damaging it and forced the walker down to the floor. It wouldn't be long before it self repaired, but at least it bought us some time.

"The other one!" I yelled. "The other one! Same strategy."
The remnants of the 4th and of the marine unit that had seeked refuge here fired alongside Reaper Squad. The other locust advanced, impervious to our fire. A couple of rifle grenades detonated on its shield, but the explosions seemed to barely registere as the locust fired its main cannon again. The purple energy beam hit the building head on. That was bound to have killed something.

"Pavel!" I called out. "You all right,, everyone ok?"

Pavel coughed a couple of times. "I'm good, so is Reaper, another of the marines got vaporized and a soldier lost some limbs."

"Shit," I muttered for what seemed like the eleventh time. "Keep firing, we might be able to stop it."

"Got it."

I heard Pavel's machine gun ringing from below and a couple of other small arms joining it, but everyone else was either too stunned or too dead to join the Polish Helljumper.

"It's not working…" Schitzo pointed out calmly.

"Shut the fuck up!" I exploded, doing my best to kill the locust.

My gun clicked empty just as the walker stopped. It raised its turret a little bit and its cannon started glowing as it charged. I stood there in shock for one second. Even if I tried to run I would die, there was no point it was over.

If it had been over I wouldn't be writing this, now would I?

Something went completely through the locust just before it fired, shields and all. The walker blew up instantly afterwards in a glorious explosion of the likes that I has seen way too many times. I followed a trail of vapor and saw something even more glorious.

A tank.

When you hear a tank you might say: "Oh, a tank, what's so impressive about those? I've seen many of them in my day." Perhaps you see tanks merely as a helpful aid during battle. You might even revere them as the dominant force in the battlefield. You are wrong. In here, in battle, tank beats everything. A skillfull tank driver could take a scarab by himself if he felt like it.

The scorpion's turret spun rapidly and fired at something behind a house. It started moving and fired again, this time through the house. I heard and saw an explosion behind the house in question.

"I heard you needed some help?"

"Where did you hear that?" Pavel asked.

"The sounds were kind of a giveaway," the tank driver replied. "You've got evac coming?"

"Yeah," I said, "two pelicans, they can pull you out."

"Good, cause I was kinda expecting this to be a sacrifice, you know, one for the books."

"Trust me buddy, it already is," I said gratefully. "Now, if you could only blast this motherfuckers to shreds I would be even more grateful."

"That's what I get paid for," the tankman said.

The tide of the battle didn't turn. Not by a longshot, but it sure tilted the balance until it looked somewhat even. The covvies had numbers but no vehicles while we had a fucking tank and a squad of ODSTs. Tank beats everything, but ODSTs come a close second. I took advantage of the situation and only took aim at brutes and jackal sharpshooters. I was running low, but I wasn't scraping the bottom of the barrel. If it came to the worst I would simply use an MA37 from one of the fallen soldiers.

"Shit!" one of the unfallen soldiers said. "The lieutenant's down, lieutenant's down!"

I followed beam rifle's trail and set my sights on the offending jackal right after Snark had torn it in half with a shot to the midsection. The torso of the jackal was left hanging by a thread to the two legs.

"Nice," I complimented. "Where'd you get the explosive rounds?"

"I always have one on me just in case," Snark explained. "Last magazine."

"Make those rounds count," I said.

"It's like you don't know me Sarge," Snark chuckled.

The Covenant soldiers were now being more carefull, taking potshots every no and then while trying to advance and storm our castle. Pavel and Angel did a pretty nice job at making them keep their heads down, but they'd have to switch to their sidearms soon if this kept going. As a matter of fact I would have to do the same thing if enough people ran out of ammunition. I was conserving rounds better than most, which meant that those that ran out first would get the spare weapons. I'll let you savor the irony for a few moments.

"Reaper, come in! Reaper Squad, come in!"

"Coming in," I deadpanned.

"Ha-ha, very funny."

"It's Zekalwe, rescue has arrived."

"Zekalwe… already?"

"Well, in three minutes or so, but my point remains."

"Great, I need you to pick up a tank," I said.

"A tank, with my pelican full of soldiers I doubt it could lift off."

"You'll be lifting significantly less soldiers than you thought," I informed the man. "Only you coming to the rescue."

"Nah, your girl's right behind me."

"Ouch," Schitzo said. "She's your ex, whose heart you broke, and she still comes to save you."

Just following orders.

I saw how a brute chieftain's head blew up like a watermelon, courtesy of the explosive rounds from Snark's sniper rifle. The bodyguards next to it looked shock for brief instants before going completely berserk. I killed two out of four with just six bursts and then the other two got too close to the building and a bunch of crack marksmen. Again, why the hell did this species make it through natural selection?

"Send everyone to the roof," I told Pavel. "Pelicans will be here in a minute."

"Great," Pavel said, for once, he meant it.

Soldiers started climbing up through the ladder and the half-collapsed section of the roof. The ones that weren't seriously wounded helped pull up the ones that were. Less than ten soldiers were intact, a few of the wounded were missing limbs and the marines weren't looking so hot either. Pavel climbed up while ordering everyone else in the squad to stay in the second floor and prevent anything from reaching the rooftop while we were evacuated. I could already see a pelican coming and Zekalwe was radioing us to be ready.

"Tank man!" I said, "We're picking you up!"

"Wait for the second pelican," he replied. "I'll cover the first one."

"Zekalwe, you got that?" I asked, emptying the last of my rifle magazines into a pair of brute minors.

"I got it," the pilot replied. "Marina?"

"We heard," Sheppard said almost meekly.

"I don't have time for this," I cursed while slinging my rifle over my shoulder. I caught one of the MA37 rifles. I dropped the bandolier belt slung over my shoulders and grabbed another one with the ammunition for the army rifle.

It had been a while since I last handled this kind of weapon so it took a moment to remember how everything worked. I pulled back the slide and fired at a group of jackals. The inaccuracy of the weapon compared to my BR55 was obscene. Don't get me wrong, all the bullets hit their intended targets, but they bounced of their shields instead of hitting their arms and legs like I intended them to. My earpiece's HUD wasn't really functioning like I would've wanted it to, so I was forced to aim manually. Not that it bothered me, but the MA37's iron sights were pretty crappy.

"Wounded first!" someone ordered. "The rest of us will go later."

The soldiers and the remaining marines tossed (yes, they tossed) the wounded men and women into the blood tray of the aircraft while a bleeding medic tried to keep them alive. Marina's pelican circled overehead while blasting its autocannon at any enemy soldiers that hadn't decided to take cover from the big ship armed to the teeth.

"We're full!" Zekalwe yelled from the cockpit. "I'm outta here!"

"Go, go!" I yelled. "Good luck."

The pelican dusted off and flew away from the battlefield, tracer rounds flying from its opened hatch. Marina's pelican in turn descended and its magnetic clamps tried to hold on to the tank. The scorpion shook as it was lifted from the ground and the pelican struggled under the weight briefly before it went up and settled on the roof. The remaining soldiers hopped in on the pelican while my squad climbed to the roof.

"What happened to your face?" Grass asked in shock.

I hadn't really given it a lot of thought, but the right side of my face was covered with drying blood and my left cheek had most of the top layer of skin peeled off from the heat. Normally I would've worried a lot, but right now I had bigger concerns, besides, my face still looked pretty damn good despite everything that it had gone through. That's the miracle of modern medicine for you.

"Shit happened," I replied. "Now hop on the pelican."

Grass nodded at me and headed towards the pelican. Suddenly I was glad that she had taken the time to ask me if I was allright, because the top of the pelican suddenly found itself enveloped by the purple energy beam from a locust walker. The craft went up, trying to avoid the death ray. The energy beam hit the right wing and then the tank. The scorpion melted completely in a matter of instants and then blew up, the explosion threw the pelican farther up and destroyed its tail completely. I watched in complete shock as the craft tried in vain to maintain its altitude. The pelican gave one final spin and then headed to the ground.

Correction, it headed towards me.

"Get out of the way!" Angel yelled. I ran in a perpendicular line to the pelican's trajectory. Right before it crashed on the floor I did an action movie-like jump and landed on my belly. The pelican went entirely through the roof and got stuck in the second story floor. Smoke and fire were spewing from its thrusters.

"Check for survivors!" I ordered even as I got up.

"Shit, soldiers are all dead!" Bumblebee said.

"Check the cockpit," I begged him.

"On it Sarge."

"Everyone else, hold the line."

My order was greeted with a chorus of cocked guns.

"Copilot's breathing!" Bumblebee exclaimed happily. "Conscious too, not badly hurt."

"Good," I said, waiting to hear about Marina.

"Your broad is alive, she don't look so good though Sarge."

"What?" I asked, "what's wrong?"

"She's bleeding, arm is banged up, looks like its broken."

"But she's alive," Pavel said. "That's what matters."

"Yeah," Snark said. "That and getting outta here alive."

"Aye, that too," Scarecrow agreed.

I hopped inside the destroyed pelican. The sheer amount of bodies tossed around made it impossible for me not to step on a fallen comrade. I slipped in blood and slammed against a wall. My hand shot up and grabbed on to safety netting to keep myself afoot.

"Hey there Frank," Sheppard said weakly. He was leaning against a wall with a sad smile on his face. His face looked even more banged up than mine felt. I grabbed his arm and helped him out of the pelican, tossing him a rifle from the floor as soon as he was on the floor. Someone helped him up to the roof and I returned back to the cockpit.

Bumblebee was undoing the safety harness that held Marina against the pilot seat. As he undid the last strap she fell forward and grunted in pain. Bumblebee caught her and handed her to me. I placed her arm over my shoulder and her head tilted forward, forcing her helmet off of her head. Her blonde head spilled out, covering her face. She was walking with me, but just barely, dragging her feet on the floor more often than not. She cried out in pain when I jumped out of the pelican and into the second floor. I scanned the area with my rifle and shot at a passing brute, making it stumble and forcing it to dash for cover. I dropped Marina rather nonchalantly and took a knee on the floor. It wasn't long before the dumb brute decided to take a shot at me with spikers akimbo. That made it a lot easier for me to kill it with extreme prejudice.

I reached for Marina once more while Bumblebee provided cover from the aliens that were storming the building. I climbed through the pile of rubble while carrying the pilot. It was actually a lot harder than it sounds after endless hours of battle.

"Frank!" Pavel cried out to me. "We're just about overrun! Eliza said that she was getting us evac."
"Evac?" I asked. "With what? No one is gonna be crazy enough to send anything against this!"

"You're a depressing person," Caboose said. "Let's just kill as many covvies as we can, the locust can't hurt us without friendly fire. We could hold on, bottleneck and all that shit."

"Shut up," Scarecrow said. "We're about to die."

"Frank," Marina said weakly as my squad started getting into the most absurd argument imaginable. "I hate your fucking guts."

"I hate you too," I replied as I placed her down.

"Look at me, look at my face," she cried.

"It looks beautiful to me," I told her. "Same as always."

"Just not beautiful enough," Marina said bitterly.

"Wait," Angel said suddenly. "You broke up with her?"

Marina looked irritated and diverted her eyes from mine.

"Really, I don't think now's the best time to argue about-"

"Jackals!"

"Thank God," Schitzo said. "This was starting to get ridiculous."

My squad shot down the jackals with weapons that weren't theirs. The energy shields held just briefly under the lead but then flickered and died, leaving the bird-like aliens vulnerable and exposed. Their skin wasn't nearly as durable as that of brutes, and it only took two rounds to kill each of them for good. Snark didn't fire a single round at them, he still had a couple of magazines for his EMR and half a bandolier worth of DMR magazines. The marksman would keep those for more worthy targets.

"Francisco!" Eliza said into my earpiece. "You're gonna love me."

"What do you have for us?" I asked, my mood brightening.

"Look up."

I did as the artificial intelligence told me and directed my attention towards the sky. I had a hard time spotting what Eliza wanted me to because, as you know, the sky is fucking huge. I saw some flashes and smiled a little bit. By the look of it Nezarian's rangers were coming to the rescue. I kept wondering why the hell only four would come. I frowned a little bit and grabbed my BR55. I used its scope to zoom in on the jetpack flashes and was immediately annoyed as I saw the fancy armor that the men in the jetpacks were wearing.

Spartans.

Thankfully though, it wasn't those superfreaks, it was IIIs by the look of it, their armor was identical to that of Carter back in New Constantinople, no changes whatsoever.

"What's he-"

One of the Spartans fired a rocket launcher while he was still in the air, defying common sense and every instruction that he had received while training for jetpack use. Then he fired a second one. I almost facepalmed but refrained from doing so as the other Spartans fired their weapons at the locust that the two rockets had hit. The Spartan somehow managed to reload before even landing and squeezed off another shot, taking out the locust's shields. The second rocket collided directly with the walker's cockpit, blowing it up and rendering it useless.

The IIIs hit the ground running. One of them had a sniper rifle and managed to kill every single brute that it shot at, not unlike Snark, but this guy did it while sprinting. The roket launcher Spartan had replaced his SPANKr for a more conventional MA5, his bursts were just as deadly as his colleague's sniper rounds. The third Spartan opted to use a pistol, but he used it with such talent that everything he shot at collapsed to the floor, dead. The other Spartan, presumably the leader, fired a BR55 in careful bursts at moderately dangerous targets, protecting the rest of the team from opponents that could hurt them but weren't worthy enough to die of a 14.5x114mm APFSDS round.

I watched the Spartans run through the floor and then disappear. I was surprised but then I remembered that their armor had camouflage.

"Relax people," I said almost lazily. "We're saved."

"What?" Angel asked.

"Because of those things?" Agnarsson complained.

"Those are people," Pavel said.

"Barely," the Scottsman muttered.

"...and they just saved our asses," my friend went undeterred. "Show some gratitude. Ain't that right Frank?"

"Yeah, those are IIIs," I explained. "They're all right. More or less."

Reaper squad shot a grand total of three grunts that were still in the building while the Spartan team wreacked havok along the enemy. It took perhaps ten minutes for them to push back the majority of the Covenant soldiers and then meet up with us. By meet up with us I mean suddenly appear within our perimeter, deactivating their armors' camouflage systems. I am proud to say that I kept my cool and was minimally surprised.

"Spartan," I greeted the one that seemed to be the leader. "I believe thanks are in order." I didn't put out my hand.

"You have some pretty powerfull friends Staff Sergeant," the one with the pistol said, turned out she was a girl. A girl in her teens by the sound of it.

I shrugged in reply.

"You're welcome Staff Sergeant," the lead Spartan said. "I'm Petty Officer Second Class Carlos B283, leader of Team Zulu."

"B?" I asked. "As in Beta?"

"Yeah…"

"Pavel, we met As, didn't we?"

"Correct," he nodded.

"Whoa," the girl said. "You met alphas?"

"That's what I just said," I replied.

"Ok, listen, we just saved your ass fr-"

"Easy Catherine," Carlos said.

"It's Kat!" she yelled angrily and walked off.

"That's the problem with child soldiers," Schitzo said. I was glad it was he who said it and not me.

"Alphas?" another one of the Spartans asked, depolarizing his helmet and confirming my suspicions of their age.

"Yeah, but that's another story," Pavel said. "Right now we just want to leave this place."

"Right," Carlos said. "There are some tunnels nearby that served as a bomb shelter that can lead us out of the city."

"Sarge, can you fill us in?" Angel asked. "I don't think I-"

"Angel," Pavel said. "Just leave it."

"Staff Seregant," another Spartan called out. "Why didn't you bother with helping us?" It was evident he was angry.

"Yeah, good question Mihai," the other male Spartan agreed.

"We're dry," Caboose explained. "Kinda figures if Helljumpers needed rescuing…"

"Ease up on the sarcasm buddy," the one called Mihai threatened.

"Easy," Carlos said. I could tell that the kid was annoyed, but this was his job and he was professional enough at it. For a teenager. "James, go cheer Catherine up, we're leaving."

"Petty Officer," I said, nodding and tossing my empty MA37 aside. "I assume you have medigel or biofoam, we have two wounded in here and they need immediate medical attention," I pointed at the two pilots.

"It's kinda weird that the pilots survived ain't it?" Bumblebee asked. "They always die in the movies."

"Agnarsson," Scarecrow said. "Shut the hell up."

"Ok ladies, and lady," Pavel said. "Keep it calm, follow the Spartans and we'll be home in no time, we just need to get those two up an-"

Pavel never got to finish that sentence. A single energy beam, coming from seemingly nowhere suddenly collided with his belly, going completely through him. Pavel looked at his stomach in shock and confusion before collapsing to the floor.

I bet you guys hate me right now.

Well, I'd like to remind you all that it was Sniper Fodder who proof-read this chapter, so I'm thanking him. I would also like to thank you for bearing through the 6,000 or so words that make a collective insult to literature. Now that we've got that over with I'd like to remind you that war is hell people and this story is no exception.

Love you all for reading this, I hope you enjoyed it.

-casquis