Chapter LXXXVIII: Cueva del Oso
March 3, 2543 (UNSC Calendar)/
Bear Bunker Complex, Mt. Vizery, New Moskva, Ursa Tertio System
"Spartans and Helljumpers? Fuck 'em, we don't need no help." – Anonymous UNSC serviceman.
We landed right in the middle of the enemy encampment. The pods hit the ground and we were literally surrounded because, as I said, we landed right in the middle of the enemy encampment. You get my point? My HEV hit the ground cleanly, unfortunately, that meant that no covvie was crushed under my meteorite vehicle. I think Caboose's might've squished a grunt, but everyone else landed clean.
"Go, go!" Carlos ordered. I might've technically been of higher rank than he was but I knew that this was his op. You have no idea how hard it is to take orders from a teenager.
I let my door fall to the ground gently, the same as the rest of my squad. If we blew it away it could hit another pod, seriously harming any friendly near or inside it. The Spartans apparently didn't have the same reservations. Mijai's door flew right towards Catherine's pod. The female Spartan dodged just in time as the metal door collided with her own pod, knocking it sideways.
"Watch it!" she yelled.
"Hey, no harm, no foul," Mijai replied playfully.
My squad ignored the Spartan's flamboyance and got to work. My first victim was a stunned skirmisher, one bullet was enough to bring it down. I stepped over its body just as my squad killed their own targets. We were already on the move towards Bear Bunker's entrance, stunned covvies were falling like flies. Zulu Team's precise fire thinned out the crowd enough for us to take the survivors out even as the IIIs walked through the covvies.
"Brute shot!" Grass called out. I ignored her and let someone else take care of the problem. Three different weapons opening fire at the same time told me that the gorilla had been taken care of.
I moved through the snow with my rifle raised and ready. My boots were sinking all the way to the knee in the heavy snow, but it was as much a hindrance for the enemy as it was for us. I fired at a jackal sharpshooter, missing my shot and hitting it in the outside of the arm. The jackal recoiled and jumped behind cover, with my following shot being fired too late. I stopped my advance and shuffled sideways with my rifle trained on the same position that the jackal had disappeared. I stayed there for a few moments until a carbine shot grazed my lower ribs.
"Fucker," I said as I jumped to the side, avoiding two follow-up shots. The jackal had repaid its injury in kind. I raised my rifle from the ground and instantly spotted the offending jackal, it had climbed a small pile of rocks despite its injury to get a good shot at me. I squeezed off a burst, hitting the rocks in front of it and forcing it to take cover again. I instantly got up, wincing from pain in my ribs.
"Jackal sharpshooter, rock outcropping, this one's good," I said as I moved away from his field of fire.
"I'll take it," the Spartan named James said. "Get to cover Staff."
"Don't have to tell me twice," I muttered, pressing my hand against my wound to prevent blood from flowing out.
I kept on moving towards the door as my team and the Spartans killed everyone and everything that didn't have red blood. I was lagging a little behind now and my injury wasn't helping. I slung my rifle across my back and pulled out my sidearm. I refrained from firing one-handed, but had to take out two grunts that got uncomfortably close to me, the rest of the joint task force took out the rest of the aliens.
"Got the jackal," James informed.
"Good," Carlos said. "Zulu, regroup at the entrance. Reaper-6, come with us."
"Wish me luck guys," Angel said. "Don't miss me too much."
"I don't think that'll be a problem," Grass said.
The conversation ended there, as the Spartans blew up the barricade that the Covenant had set up and Carlos typed in a passcode on the door. The enormous double blast doors opened slowly and with a lot of noise, Carlos typed in another command on the console and the doors stopped opening abruptly. From my angle I could see that they were at least five meters thick, probably made out of Titanium-A.
"Listen up, start piling up bodies or covvie barricades," I ordered. "Caboose, I need some help with the biofoam."
"On it Sarge," Scarecrow said. He and the rest of the team started pushing up enemy equipment and barricades in a semi-circle protecting the door while Caboose shook a can of biofoam that I tossed him.
"Raise your arm," he told me.
I did as he said and he emptied a little bit of the can on my wound. The carbine round had grazed me in between two ribs. It had gone deep enough to leave a furrow in my torso. Blood was flowing out freely, staining my armor and clothing. The white biofoam turned slightly pink as it covered the wound. It felt like a thousand hot needles jabbed at my wound. I managed to keep myself steady and then Caboose rubbed the excess biofoam out of the wound. As soon as the pain from the medical compound receded the pain that the carbine round had caused did too.
"You'll need some radiation medicine," Caboose warned.
"Tell me about it," I said, rolling my arm back and forth and moving sideways to confirm that I was fine. "Now, get to work, those enemy reinforcements will be getting here any minute."
I strapped my pistol to my thigh and helped grass roll a barricade towards the little wall that we were creating. She nodded in thanks and kept pushing the barricade. We placed it at an angle against the wall surrounding the door. I went inside the complex and checked the lobby for anything that we could use. There was a couple of mobile barricades that I took outside with Scarecrow's help. By the time we were done with our improvised wall we had one hell of a barricade protecting us from incoming fire.
"Enemy dropship," Snark called out. He had climbed a few feet above us into a small rock overhang that rested just above the door. It was large enough that he could go prone and avoid enemy weapon fire. With an SRS and his EMR the little Indian guy would be able to cause a lot of damage.
"I see it," Bumblebee said. "Shit, they're dropping off hunters."
I stopped Bumblebee just as he started raising his rocket launcher. "We might need that later," I cautioned him. The man just grunted but complied, instead drawing an MA5B, he had picked it up instead of his pistol carbine, I was glad he had made that choice. The phantom dropship finished dropping off a group of grunts commanded by an Unggoy in black armor and the little aliens formed a defensive perimeter around the hunters.
The first one to fall was the black-armored grunt. The rest of his small unit seemed to squeal and panic but the hunter's presence managed to keep them in check. The two large aliens hulked down and pressed themselves together to protect the grunts from our fire. I fired a couple of rounds at the aliens, but they were too far away for me to hit vital spots. Snark refrained from firing.
We held our position and our fire while the Covenant group did the same. It wasn't long before three other dropships arrived. One of them happened to have a wraith clamped below it. I sighed in annoyance and ordered Bumblebee to take it out before it touched the ground. He fired one missile at the phantom, it detonated right above the tank and below the ship. The wraith fell down almost in slow motioned and flipped sideways, taking itself out of the action.
"Nice," Caboose complimented.
"I know that," Bumblebee said, quite immodestly I might add.
The dropships dropped down sixteen passengers each, amounting to a grand total of forty-eight additional covvies plus the ones already groundside. One dropship dropped two brutes and grunts, another dropped two more brutes as well as seven grunts and seven jackals. The third dropship decided to deliver sixteen jackals, two of them sharpshooters, one of them a sniper, and a skirmisher for a leader. It could've been worse for the first wave, but not by much.
"Snark, take out the sniper and sharpshooters, kill the hunters as soon as you see openings, hold your fire on anything else, everyone else, you know the drill."
Three shots from an EMR rang out and the three jackals that I had told Snark to take out fell to the ground dead. He didn't bother with headshots, instead shooting them in the chest, at this range it was still an impressive shot. An impressive three shots. In a row.
"Zulu, enemy reinforcements have just landed, what's your status?" I asked while I waited for the covvies to get within range of my BR55.
"We copy Reaper-Actual-" Catherine started.
"Actually Sarge, I've run into a little bit of trouble here," Angel cut in.
"Explain," I said, still waiting for the brutes to reach the nine hundred meter mark.
"Some jackass decided to lock this place down completely," I can't just break through the firewalls or the doors will be unbreachable, need to navigate around them so that the system-"
"Ok, I get it," I interrupted, just hurry it along." No need to bore me with the details.
"Got it," Angel said. I was pretty damn sure that he had just stretched his knuckles before he started tapping away in his fancy portable computer.
The first alien to reach my nine hundred meter mark was a brute, those had a tendency to be the first ones charging in, they didn't even bother using grunts as cannon fodder. I took a moment to make sure that my rifle setting was single-fire and took a deep breath. My weapon wasn't a sniper rifle, but it was a marksman's rifle, and it had a damned good range and impressive accuracy as well. I let go a single shot. The whole place rang with the echo of the small explosion and I waited for results. My bullet hit the brute in the gut after a second, forcing it to double over and stagger. I then emptied half my magazine on the big alien while it was still stunned. I managed to knock it down and out of the fight with several shots to the chest and arms, but I could still see it struggling as it bled.
"One out," I said.
"A bunch to go," Caboose completed.
"You pessimist bastard," Scarecrow said.
The next shot I fired was a whole lot more accurate in account to me getting used to sniping. It had been a long time since I had had a firefight at this range. Lately it seemed that every single shot I fired hit its mark at a distance of less than ten meters. I think I preferred it this way. The unlucky alien that got hit was a grunt. It wasn't precisely my best shot, but the rifle round hit one of the hoses that transported gas from the backpack it was carrying to its mask. The grunt died a long and painful death from asphyxiation. I felt a slight rush at seeing it suffer.
The next person to open fire was Scarecrow, he fired one of his grenades and it collided with a hunter in a beautiful explosion, the large alien came out relatively unscathed from the explosion, although it started leaking some orange blood.
"No holding your fire bullshit," I said, glancing around at my squad. "As soon as they are within range you go full automatic on those sons of bitches."
"I like it," Grass said. "Simple and easy to remember."
"Well darling," Caboose said, "you just missed the mark." Having insulted her he promptly opened fire with his assault rifle in short bursts of two or three rounds. At the same time Scarecrow and Bumblebee did the same thing, leaving Grass the only one not firing.
"Oh," she muttered. "Oh well."
Then all six of us were blowing apart any grunt that came close enough. I was very satisfied with how things were going so far, although I could see more dropships in the distance. None of them were carrying vehicles so far, and the wraith was still upside down. The phantoms dropped more infantry and another hunter pair, we would be in for a tough time.
"Snark, take out those hunters," I ordered as soon as they fired the first rounds from their fuel rods. The green energy impacted right below our barricade, melting all the snow and producing water vapor that would make it hard for us to see. That gave me a brilliant idea, but I required a plasma rifle to make it work, and those aren't usually handy.
"We just broke through, Sarge," Angel said, his transmissions were getting sketchy now. "Just an… …ree …o go."
"Well, that sounds like it's gonna take a while," Snark noted.
"You don't say," Bumblebee snapped.
"Nice comeback," Caboose said. "No, really, very original."
"Fuck you."
At that point the battle became too complicated for not-so-friendly banter. Snark started pummeling the hunters with his SRS while Bumblebee placed his SPANKr within easy reach. I dedicated myself to taking out lesser-ranking brutes while the rest of the squad sprayed grunts and jackals with their assault rifles. The little guys fell by the score while the brutes took more wearing out. Snark was making slow progress with the lead hunter.
"Get down!" Scarecrow warned.
I dropped to the floor just in time for a flow of superheated plasma to fly above me. The hunter's fuel rod melted the outer layers of some of the covvie barriers and scorched the blast door behind us.
"Take it out already," Grass cried out.
"Wait for it," Snark said. I heard three shots being fired and the hunter that was closest to us collapsed. The three shots went through its throat right before it let out a burst from its hand cannon. The alien fell to the floor and twitched once before staying still. No one even seemed to notice, not even the grunts that were standing nearby didn't even flinch, and that's a hell of an accomplishment for a grunt. Definitely not good news for us, though.
The Covenant was getting closer, they were now about one hundred meters away from us, this meant that they were easier targets, and if they had been humans or grunts we would've had a field day killing them, but the jackals' shields and the brute powered armor made our lives a lot harder. We were forced to target those first because they were the more dangerous of the races. If a single brute got through the six of us would be forced to concentrate our fire on it to prevent it from ripping someone's arm and beating the rest of us to death with it. Jackals were more manageable, but they were clever bastards and could take a couple of slashes or shots at you before retreating behind their shields. Thos two races could certainly go all medieval up on our ass.
"Fuel rod!"
I shifted my body so that I could aim at whichever alien was carrying the rocket launcher. Unfortunately, it happened to be a brute chieftain with an ornate headdress. Snark's SRS cracked loudly and the brute's head jerked backward. I cannot fathom how the alien's neck managed to withstand the impact, but the brute simply snarled at being shot in the head with a sniper rifle. His helmet absorbed most of the impact, but a large chunk of it fell off. I took advantage of the opportunity and fired three bursts into its head. Two of them landed but were stopped by the helmet, the other one was fired into the air as I ducked for cover.
"Shit, take the sunnuva bitch out," Caboose complained.
Another SRS rifle shot rang out. "Got it," Snark said. "Wait." He fired another shot. "Got it."
Awesome, one less angry brute to worry about and a dozen more still out there. Oh, the bodguards were probably going apeshit right now and would be charging towards us. Not a good thing either with a thirteen feet tall piece of angry meat impervious to pain charging at you.
"Grass, frag 'em!" I ordered. The woman complied and tossed a couple of her fragmentation grenades in quick succession. The first one exploded too early, but the second one ripped one of the enraged brutes in half, that left only three. "Scarecrow…" I suggested.
The huge man didn't even bother with a reply, simply firing one of his 40mm grenades. The round collided with one of the enraged brutes. The following explosion left the unlucky recipient an unrecognizable mess and caught a jackal in its wake, tossing it sideways like a rag doll. The other two brutes stumbled and were quickly cut down by sustained fire from Caboose and Bumblebee. I, on the other hand, took the time to fix my backup knife to the bayonet lugs on my rifle.
"Angel, you ready?" I asked.
"I'm going as fast as I can," he said. "Nah, I kid ya, we're securing the package, give us about five minutes and we'll be there."
"We won't have five minutes if things keep going like this," Caboose observed.
"You heard him."
"Sorry Sarge," Angel apologized. "For being superhuman, these guys move pretty slowly."
"Hey," one of the Spartans complained, Mijai by the sound of it.
"I'll tell 'em to hurry it along," Angel said, even though all four Spartan-IIIs could hear the conversation.
"Ok Reaper, how about we brace ourselves?" I suggested.
"Amen," Scarecrow hummed.
From that point on the battle degenerated into chaos. The large amount of infantry that the covvies had with them plus our indiscriminate use of firepower and explosives made it easy for us to get tons of kills. Not to mention that it was actually getting crowded down there, something that was good for us, because some eager squads were getting caught in the crossfire, saving us half the work. Some grunts were getting shot in the back with plasma cannons, the brutes leading those grunts actually turned around and fired back at their confused allies.
"Well that's a new one," Grass observed.
"Tell me about it," Caboose agreed with a chuckle, he seemed to enjoy himself in these sort of situations. The enemy stupidity kind, not the desperately overwhelmed kind.
"Bumblebee?" I called out.
"Yeah," he answered, there was still a disrespectful tone in his voice that I didn't like.
"Now you can use your SPANKr."
The Scottish ODST actually dropped his MA5 and grabbed his rocket launcher. He had two HEAT missiles already loaded plus eight others strapped around his body, how he managed to carry that comfortably, I know not. Bumblebee fired his two rockets in a span of two seconds, taking an instant to shift his aim as soon as the first rocket left the tube. His first rocket blew up right in another hunter's midsection, the explosion blew through the armor plating like it was paper, and the hunter suddenly found itself turned into a blue and orange mess. The second missile blew up at the feet of two brutes, propelling them sideways and removing their lower halves.
"Nice job," Snark said, his tone made it evident that he was mocking Bumblebee.
None of them had time to reply to the little guy's insult, because half a second after he was done, three green explosive munitions flew at our direction. Actually, they flew above us, straight towards Snark's rocky outcropping.
"Jump!" Scarecrow cried out, his throat raw.
Snark didn't jump down as much as roll down, he grabbed his two rifles and in one swift movement turned himself belly up. His momentum carried him over the edge and down to the floor. It was a pretty long drop to land on your side. A pretty long drop by any measurement. The three explosives blew up mere instants after Snark let himself fall. The entire cliff face turned a bright green and then flashed red as the plasma heated the rock.
My eyes barely caught a glimpse of the spectacular chain of explosions, instead I started rushing towards the spot where Snark would fall. I wasn't going to make it. The little guy fell to the floor and I felt a sickly crack as more than one of his bones snapped clean. I winced even as I slid to him. The fall had knocked him unconscious, but his vitals were stable, at least according to his helmet and suit stats.
"Shit," I cursed. "Snark?"
"No use," Caboose said, turning his head back partially to say it to me. "He's unconscious!"
I knew that he was right, so I decided to leave Snark as he was, he might've gotten a neck injury and you never really knew with those. I simply gripped my rifle tighter and yelled at Carlos to start moving his ass or the only thing that he would return home was going to be a pile of corpses.
"Three brutes, seven grunts!" Scarecrow warned. "Three o'clock."
The entire squad, what was left of it, shifted their aim sideways and fired at the Covenant group. The concentrated fire wiped out the lesser aliens in three seconds, the brutes dropped to their bellies and brought their weapons to bear, they managed a few shots each before our concentrated fire overwhelmed them. The covvies didn't give us a moment's rest. As soon as that group was dead, there was twice as many aliens standing over them.
"Frag out!" Agnarsson warned. The device detonated a whole lot closer than I was comfortable with.
"Bayonets!" I ordered as soon as I thought it was necessary, my rifle already had a knife attached to its barrel, but the others didn't. The MA5 series rifles had a retractable pig-sticker bayonet, the blades barely made a sound as they slid from inside the foregrip, something of an anti-climax, as you almost expected them to be audibly sharp.
"Almost there, Sarge!" Angel yelled into his helmet radio. He sounded as tired as I felt overwhelmed.
"Hold! The! Line!" I ordered, standing up from cover and switching my rifle to full automatic. I sprayed the aliens closest to me, bringing a brute and a jackal to the ground before the rest managed to hop over our barricade.
A brute landed right next to me, the moment of hesitation right after it landed on the floor allowed me to drive my bayonet into its knees. The alien snarled in anger and turned around to face me, almost ripping my weapon from my hands. The brute lifted its spiker over its head but suddenly stopped. The stop in its motioned coincided with half its face blowing outwards in a mess of brain, blood, and skull bits. The ape fell to the floor slowly, allowing me to remove my bayonet from its leg. Grass was standing behind where the alien had been, holding up a smoking rifle.
She didn't even bother waiting for a nod of gratitude, instead choosing to turn around and dig her bayonet completely through a jackals neck.
"My kind of girl," Schitzo observed. He was in full winter gear. Civilian winter gear. Don't ask me why.
Scarecrow kicked at a brute, managing to knock it backwards for an instant. The alien looked surprised that something so much smaller than it could beat it when it came to strength. It didn't have time to prove its superiority in that aspect, as the Helljumper emptied at least seven rounds into its unprotected face, killing it.
I swung my rifle in a wide arc at three jackals. Two of them saw my move and jumped backwards just in time, but the third alien's foot slid in the icy floor and got its throat slashed as a result of his clumsiness. I slammed my shoulder into one of the other jackal's shields, knocking it off its feet and to the floor. I kicked at the remaining jackal from the ground and nicked its waist, turning it sideways and stunning it. That gave me enough time to bash the other jackal's head in with a well-placed punch.
"Sarge, duck!" Grass warned.
I didn't really have anywhere to duck to, but I pushed myself harder into the ground as Bumblebee shot the jackal I had kicked in the head twice. He now had his sidearm in one hand and his rifle in the other. I turned around and fired thrice, hitting a grunt behind him in the chest and killing it. Bumblebee turned around and sprayed two brutes with his rifle before dropping it and placing three rounds inside their skulls with his sidearm.
"Angel!" I yelled.
I didn't get a reply, instead a brute chieftain blocked out half the world as it jumped higher than any being its size should've been able to. I caught a glimpse of its raised warhammer and jumped backwards. The bladed end of the weapon descended towards me. The world seemed to almost stop for just an instant, with the brute warhammer right above my belly, me backwards on the air. Then, the entire world actually stopped. The entire world except for Schitzo.
"Now Frank, you're gonna land hard on your back, get the wind knocked outta you, don't let that stop you. Jump backwards as soon as you land and-"
The help didn't last forever, as everything snapped back to its normal speed. I landed on my back and got the wind knocked out of me, I immediately propelled myself further backwards and the bladed end of the warhammer crashed into the floor between my legs, inches away from my codpiece. The brute was not as amused as I was, and I wasn't particularly happy with the situation.
The alien raised its front leg and brought it down on my chest, I managed to get my rifle up, but the sheer strength of the brute's stomp was enough to crack a couple of ribs.
"That's gonna hurt tomorrow," I huffed. Don't ask me why I bothered saying that.
The brute raised its leg again, but this time I rolled sideways as its leg stomped inches away from my head. I looked back up and found out the bad way that brutes don't wear any underwear under their powered armor.
Ironically enough, that wasn't my biggest realization in that moment.
The chieftain once again raised its warhammer. With one meaty leg on each side there was nowhere I could run to. I dropped my rifle and brought my hands up in anticipation of the impact, not that it would do anything to stop the deadly blow. A blow that seemed to be taking its time.
I opened my eyes and saw sparks flying of the brute's chest plate even as it jerked backwards ever so slightly.
"About goddamned time," I said as I slid backwards and reached for Snark's SRS, an arm's length away.
The brute roared in anger, letting the whole world that it had gone completely bezerk. I took advantage of the moment and raised the rifle as fast as I could. Easier said than done when you're raising a weapon as heavy as an SRS in such a tightly cramped space. The weapon was almost as long as I was tall, and with the added length from my arms it was about ten inches below the chieftain's jaw. I squeezed the trigger, suddenly realizing that the rifle was probably unloaded.
It wasn't. The brute's headdress flew three feet into the air, a beautiful trail of blood and brain matter in its wake. It was one of the most beautiful things that I had ever seen. Sometimes you just gotta appreciate the little things.
And then I had half a metric ton worth of dead alien land on my broken ribs.
"Gettitofme!" I cried through the pain.
"Hold on, Sarge!" Angel called out. "Scarecrow, help me out."
"On it," the man replied.
I felt some of the pressure lifted off from my body and took a deep breath. Bad choice. My expanding lungs pushed against my broken ribs, the amount of pain and the sensation pretty much confirmed that my one of the ribs had punctured the lung.
"Can't breathe!" I wheezed.
"Move away," Grass said.
Scarecrow and Angel both moved to the side and took firing positions while I saw Grass get something out of one of her pouches. She raised the item to her head and told me not to move. She hesitated for a second before taking off the frontal part of my chest armor with her spare hand, leaving me exposed to the cold and the deadlier plasma fire. She then brought down whatever she was holding in her other hand as my vision started going out at the edges.
The pain brought me back up. I heard air whistling and saw that she had stabbed me with a breathing device. My chest was moving up and down in exaggerated motions as I started taking in as much oxygen as I could. I forced myself to stop lest the rib that was currently inside my lung did anymore damage.
"Hold on sarge, this one's gonna hurt," Grass warned.
"What? No-" was all I could say before she connected a can of biofoam to the breathing device and poured the gel into my lungs. It stung like hell and I screamed in pain. The medical compound wouldn't fix my lungs, but it would stall the bleeding some until I got to a real hospital.
"You're bleeding," I told Gass through my pain. "You ok?"
"This?" she asked, gesturing at her hands. "It's nothing, don't worry about it."
"Don't look like nothing to me," I said. In fact, the amount of blood spilling from her hands was worrisome.
"Stopped a brute spiker," she shrugged, "adrenaline doesn't let me feel anything."
"Huh, good."
"Yeah, good," Grass said bitterly. "Now hold still."
"There's more?"
The Helljumper stabbed me (again) with a needle as large as my index finger right in the heart. I screamed once again at the pain of being stabbed (again) and then started hyperventilating as my heart started beating faster. I don't know if I should've been given adrenaline with a punctured lung, but we had more serious concerns at the time right now.
"Woo!" I said excitedly. "I'm good. Give Snark a quick check and let's kick some ass!"
"Yes, Staff Sergeant!" Grass said happily as she moved away from me and knelt beside our sniper.
I stood up, in fact, I jumped up. I realized my mistake and promptly reached down to grab my rifle, completely ignoring, Snark's SRS. I hopped towards the semi-destroyed barricade and used it to support my rifle. The four Spartan-IIIs had managed to push back the covvies back a long way in just a few seconds. I fired three shots, hitting a brute, a grunt, and a jackal. My hyper-senses, coupled with the adrenaline flowing through my body allowed me to hit them all in the right eye, flamboyant, I know, but it gets the job done.
The four Spartans were working through the leading covvies like a hot knife through butter, none of them lasted more than five seconds under fire, and within thirty minutes they were falling back to the front line that the remainder of the forces had established. Zulu team was incredibly effective, but I couldn't help noticing that Catherine did as much damage with her pistol and flashy gymnastics as the rest of the team did combined. If only she spent as much time practicing her hacking we wouldn't have been forced to lend them Angel and a few of my ribs wouldn't be broken. Probably.
"Oh," I realized as I killed a jackal. "Disproportionate Retribution come in, this is Reaper Actual."
"DR here, we copy Reaper," the reply came almost immediately.
"DR? Nice, I like it. Also, we need evac right now, a Vulture gunship couldn't do any harm either."
"Evac is en route Reaper Actual."
"Good, they have a medic, right?"
"Affirmative, what kind of injuries will they be dealing with?"
"Broken ribs, collapsed lung, and internal bleeding."
"All right Reaper Actual, we're informi-"
"Wait, that's just me. You'll also need to deal with lacerations, a thirty foot fall."
Bumblebee cried out in pain.
"And plasma burns to the leg," I added. "Seems like that's it."
"Ok…" the communications officer said cautiously. "Good luck Reaper."
"Yeah," I huffed. "We can always use some of that."
"Hey, Sarge!" Angel asked. "Is it good luck or bad luck that we see ourselves in this situation? I mean, you're a walking crash test dummy and all, but you are alive."
"Good question," I admitted, reloading my BR55.
"My leg!" Bumblebee complained. "They shot me in the fucking leg, those bastards!" he cried out. His Scottish accent made it funny to listen to him.
"Grass," I ordered.
"On it," she said in an almost bored tone.
"Don't make me call you a bitch, Grass," Bumblebee begged.
"I'll let that pass," she replied. "Besides, you're the bitch."
"Bitch," Bumblebee said simply.
"Sarge!" Scarecrow called out. "Vulture!"
"They actually sent one! Haven't seen one of those in ages!"
The battle, which we had been losing so far (a decent accomplishment, considering how outnumbered we were) suddenly turned into what I could only call a curb stomp battle in our favor. A rain of missiles started pouring from the gunship and more ANVIL missiles joined the Vulture's fire as two pelican's flew in over the mountain. The small valley in front of us suddenly lit up like Cinco de Mayo. Snow, dirt, and ice blew skywards as the explosives shredded through the enemy infantry. Five seconds was all it took. Five seconds and five hundred aliens were gone. Sometimes I envied the flyboys and the ease with which they could rack up high kill counts.
"Reaper, Zulu," one of the pilots said in his I-just-rescued-you-and-I-want-you-to-know-that voice that every pilot seemed to practice and perfect for special occasions. "Cavalry is here."
"Ha-ha," Catherins, or Cat laughed humorlessly. "Nice one smartass, now get down here and airlift us."
"Please," James added hopefully.
"All right," the pilot said grumpily.
I watched as one of the two pelicans descended towards our position while the other one and the gunship hovered at three hundred feet, watching for any enemies. I ordered Grass and Angel to help up Bumblebee to the craft and then watched as two medics jumped down and placed Snark in a stretched. They walked back to the pelican with Scarecrow looming over their backs. I looked around to see if we were missing anything, but every weapon had been picked up already and we had no casualties.
"Sarge?" Grass said, offering me her lesser-injured hand.
"Hold on," I dismissed her.
I waited for Zulu Team, they were actually falling back in a textbook retreating pattern even though there were no covvies left that could walk. Carlos had what looked like an armored briefcase strapped to his back. I raised my eyebrow and moved towards him.
"What is it?" I asked.
"A briefcase," Catherine said, she obviously wasn't crazy about me. With looks like mine I couldn't fathom why.
"What's inside the briefcase?"
"Need to know, Staff," Carlos said as he hopped on the ship. The Spartan didn't turn to offer me his hand, obviously glad that his assignment with us was now almost over.
I grabbed Grass's hand and immediately had a medic checking me over. I tossed my frontal armor and made half-hearted attempts at pushing the medic away. He scanned me with some weird device that always succeeded in creeping me out before deciding that it was best to stab my neck with yet another gigantic syringe. That made the third time that I got stabbed this day, and I'm not even counting the other injuries from blunt trauma.
"Relax Staff," the medic said. My vision started blurring, and I felt myself slumping sideways. "Relax."
Well, I believe that was some sort of Kirrahe situation, don't you think? Happy leap day, I hope you enjoyed. I sure as hell didn't since I rushed this chapter just a little bit to give you a nice February 29th. I'm gonna have to work my ass off today and tomorrow to catch up.
Don't worry about it too much guys, I do this because I love you. Once again, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.
As always, thanks to Sniper Fodder for proof-reading this chapter.
-casquis