Chapter CXIX: Coitus Interruptus
February 9, 2544 (UNSC Calendar)/
UNSC Inconvenience, in orbit above Wolff, Zeta Lupus System
It's not that I felt guilty, I had no reason to feel like that? Right? I mean, why should I? We hadn't been going out or anything, we weren't in any kind of relationship.
Right?
Well, I probably should explain what I'm talking about.
Ever since Emily asked me to jump in bed with her a couple of days ago I've been having feelings of guilt. Yes, I know, sex is sex, but for some reason I felt like I was betraying the trust of a certain person. That person happened to be a Corpsman and had a set of lovely brown eyes and blonde hair. Fine, fine, I'm talking about Hanna Lockley. I mean, I like her, not like her like her, but still. For some reason engaging in casual sex with Hardwick seemed like something akin to cheating.
"You're a complete idiot," Pavel told me when I asked him about it.
"Why?" I replied calmly.
"For any of the two reasons. One: you're getting worried over nothing, you had absolutely no commitment to Lockley or, two: you really like her and mentally cheated on her, causing mental guilt."
"What?"
"I don't know why I even bother trying," Pavel said under his breath, returning to his datapad. "Talk to Grass."
"This is guy stuff," I countered. "Why would I talk to her, she'll probably tell me something like get in touch with your feelings…or sumthin'."
"Fine, then don't."
"You just said-"
"Frank," he interrupted. "You're one of the most talented men I know, you're intelligent and display an impressive level of awareness."
"Thank you?"
"But sometimes you have the emotional maturity of a thirteen year-old."
"Thanks." This time the tone in my voice left absolutely no doubt as to the sarcasm.
Despite my response, I forced myself to think about that. While calling me a thirteen year-old emotionally might've been a bit of a stretch, Pavel might've had a point. Ever since the accident and moving to Jericho VII, I had been out of touch with a lot of things. My uncle wasn't a father, he only ever saw me during family dinners or breakfasts, and even then he only interacted with me in the way of telling me exaggerated stories of his time in boot camp. I knew that he had done his best to raise me, but he was a soldier at heart, not a parent. At least not a very good one.
I never talked to him about the birds and the bees, never talked to him about my first girlfriend or anything along those lines. The only lessons that he ever gave me that a regular parent would were related to drugs and alcohol.
Even then he did it his own way. He had me wear off hangovers by running around the track even in the rain. He could always tell how drunk I was and punish me appropriately. It didn't stop me from drinking, it just gained me an incredible alcohol tolerance level.
Drugs, well, let's just say that I had only ever done them once.
The point is that I didn't talk about those things, I barely had friends, I was always something of an outsider in school. Being known as 'that earth-born who lost his parents' isn't really an incentive for people to approach me. I was lonely most of my early life and now I didn't know how to deal with things that people normally took for granted.
I just wished it wasn't something as stupid as this. I had just found myself emotionally conflicted once before and it had been a relatively simple choice even then. Breaking up with Marina was tough, but it was the right thing to do, at least for me.
But this…
Do I fucking sound like the protagonist of a young adult novel who also happens to be a girl? Please, be honest with me.
Wait, don't answer that.
Moving on.
You see, there were a grand total four sections from which you were able to see space on board this ship. The first one was the bridge, although that one could retract into the ship for protection during combat, but if you had to do that then you were pretty much screwed already. Two others were small window sections in the starboard and port escape pod sections of the ship, they were really just there as an aesthetic addition to the ship. The fourth and last section was the Observation Room, it was basically a room with the floor and walls made out of glass. Usually reserved for officers, right now I found myself standing on it.
"How did you manage to get us in here?" I asked Pavel.
"There are two rules to succeeding in life," he started. "One: never tell anything you know."
"And two?"
He just stared at me.
"Oh, I see, nice one."
"Opening blast panels," Eliza warned, appearing in a holotube near the entrance of the Observation Room.
"Why'd you bring me here?" I asked my friend as the metal plates retracted.
"Well, for starters, you've been whining about pretty corpsman and pretty pilot for two days, ever since Hardwick came asking for you. I think you just needed something to calm you the fuck down." He took a deep breath. "And Eliza is concerned for your well-being."
She's an AI, what would she know?
"She's an AI, what would she know?" I voiced out loud.
"Francisco, I have several psychological subroutines embedded into my software, I make use of the ship's cameras and microphones to determine whether any person on board could be at risk."
"Yeah, we've been over that, apparently you don't have any joke processing programs either."
"I do."
"You're usually pretty quick catching up on those," Pavel pointed out.
"Oh," the AI said simply.
"Now, look," Pavel instructed, beckoning at the space with his arm.
I have to admit that I was impressed. The sight was unlike anything I had ever seen. I could see Wolff on my left and the massive planet gas giant it orbited on the right. Zeta Lupus VI was a gas giant not unlike Jupiter, the color was different of course, same as the 'patterns', but it had the same rings. We were orbiting the moon at a position where the light coming from the distant Zeta Lupus hit the dust and particles forming the rings at just the right angle, lighting them up in a multitude of colors. Wolff itself was also a breathtaking view, with light blue water bodies scattered over much of its surface, covering the mostly gray ground.
"Wow," I commented appropriately. "Still, how is this going to help my allegedly fragile psyche?"
"I don't know," Pavel shrugged. "But once Eliza suggested it I jumped at the chance."
Knowing Liz, I knew that the AI had probably run simulations taking into account everything that I had gone through coupled with my recent experiences and put the results against several different outcomes of whatever else she was planning. While right now this seemed stupid, Eliza probably had ulterior motives or a very well-planned series of events to help me back into my regular state of mind.
It would've been almost sweet had I not been in my regular state of mind already.
Regardless, the AI's insistence did cause some concern on my part. It was, after all, an artificial construct with intelligence shy of that of a god.
But for now, I decided to enjoy the view.
The Observation Room had several micro-cameras embedded in the glass itself, those served as magnifying glasses when coupled with the photo-reactive screen that covered the inside section of the floor itself. Pavel and I took turns commanding the software program controlling the cameras to zoom into different directions of space, ranging from a bird's-eye view of Wilk, Wolff's capital, to an uncomfortably close view of Zeta Lupus itself. The yellow dwarf seemed nothing less than impressive even this many astronomical units away from it.
After over an hour and a half of just messing around like kids who had just gotten their first pair of binoculars we decided it was time to call it quits. It was getting late, at least by the ship's clock standards, and things were getting tense all over the sector. Luckily, Paris IV hadn't been compromised yet. A couple of outposts and automated colonies had been attacked, but nothing serious yet. If anything happened on our watch, I wanted to be well rested.
"So, pretty sweet huh?" Pavel asked.
"Yeah, but don't you think it might be more appropriate to spend the money on bigger guns?"
"In the grand scheme of things, talking about the ship, the Inconvenience, I think that the price of that room was minuscule."
"Well, that was a poorly-worded sentence," I observed.
"English is not my first language," he cried in defense.
"Well, neither is it mine," I countered.
"Whatever," he grumbled, "you lived in Jericho VII, might as well have lived in Los Angeles or Cabo."
"They speak Spanish there," I let him know.
"That's right, you stupid Mexican immigrants, swarming over the border."
"Really, you're going to play that stereotype?"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, Mexico and the United States stopped being separate countries over a century ago and all that. The URNA has no ethnical barriers or something like that."
"Fuck you Pavel."
"It's not so nice when somebody else wins."
Must be getting sloppy, I thought to myself.
Our room was quiet and messy as per the norm. Pavel returned to his datapad to catch up on some vids or series while I pulled out all three of my knives. I could see that the largest one was beginning to dent at the edges from use, the smallest one looked surprisingly well, while the Damascus steel one looked as immaculate as it had when Tenare had first given it to me as a parting present all those years ago. I grabbed the knife in question and twisted it in my hand, feeling the balance and weight that I was all too familiar with.
After spinning it twice I threw it to the wooden block hanging by the wall, a dull thud was heard as the point collided with the wood and the knife embedded itself in it, adding yet another scar to the piece of hard wood.
"You know, if you keep doing that, you're going to need to buy a new piece of wood."
"Should've ordered more," I agreed.
"Where do you buy those anyways?"
I shrugged. "Home Depot."
So we settled into our usual routine. I'd play with my knives for a while while Pavel watched something or other in his fancy datapad. Once I got tired I would start sharpening my knives before putting them away in their respective sheaths. After that I would grab my own datapad and start watching some vid or other. Lately it seemed that I was watching more and more of those crappy twentieth and twenty-first century flicks that Robert seemed so fond of. I couldn't help it, they were just too damned addictive.
I was halfway through the final battle of some superhero flick, laughing my way through it as it went even despite the lame special effects when the room's doorbell ringed.
I looked up from my datapad eagerly, hoping it was Emily looking for some…let's call it stress release. Pavel called out for whoever was outside to come in. As the door slid open it revealed Lieutenant Emily Hardwick standing at the doorframe.
Yes!
I raised an eyebrow at her.
She rolled her eyes. "Evening Pavel."
"Lieutenant," he returned. "Don't stay up too late."
"As if," I huffed, pausing the vid and putting down my datapad, heading for the door.
"Well, at least don't return him too late."
"As if," Emily echoed.
I stuck my elbow out to her, waiting for her to put her hand through it. As she did that I kept thinking that it was my last chance to back out with some flimsy excuse. If I did that I might be able to get something going on with Hanna, who seemed like more solid relationship material.
Come on Frank, you know you're not going to let go, the metaphorical devil on my shoulder whispered in my ear.
He's right, his angelic counterpart said. You are not to blame for this, it's not like you had anything serious with Corpsman Lockley. Besides, she shot you. She didn't hurt you, but she still shot you. So much for two different viewpoints.
Not for the first time and not for the last, I didn't think with the right head.
The full emergency alarm started blaring halfway through.
"Fuck me!" I cried in anger.
"I thought I was doing just that," my partner quipped as she jumped up from bed and made a dash for clothing.
Sure, it was simple for her, slap on a fresh pair of underwear and she'd be as good as new. Me, on the other hand, I had to maneuver the position of my pants and underwear in relation to my crotch, not to mention the lingering pain and depressing feeling that would stay with me afterwards. I squeezed, literally squeezed into my pants while struggling to put on my shirt. I put on my boots and tightened the laces before sticking them inside, if things went down badly, I'd probably need to take them off quickly.
We burst out the room, scrambling for our battle stations. Before I made my way to mine I felt a hand grabbing my arm. I turned to receive a quick kiss from Emily.
"Stay safe."
"You too," I replied.
With that, we separated and made our way towards our battle stations. I had to elbow my way through the rest of the crew. The marines and soldiers were headed towards the cargo bay, ready to hop inside pelicans. A few of them headed towards key points in the ship in case we were boarded. The swabbies simply ran for their regular stations, be it at the Med Bay or helping Eliza with fire solutions.
The alarms stopped blaring for Eliza's voice to come through and boom out the loudspeakers.
"A Covenant battle-group had made a jump to the system, they are currently orbiting Zeta Lupus V. We are within scanning range and it is a certainty that they will jump in our direction."
"This is Captain Brooks speaking, we've hailed for help, but the rest of the ships in the system will take their time to get here, the rest of the fleet probably won't get here until tomorrow at the earliest. Wolff is a target, the infantry complement will deploy there to defend the colony. Company XOs, you have your orders, carry them out."
His voice cut off and was replaced by the alarms again, occasionally interspaced with a warning telling us that this wasn't an exercise.
I finally made it past the flowing ocean of people and into my room, Pavel had already left, leaving his movie still playing and the room in disarray. I grabbed my knives and shoved them in my pockets before grabbing my sidearm and stashing it down my waistband. I took a moment to look back and make sure that I hadn't forgotten anything. Once I was satisfied I turned around and ran all the way down to the drop bay.
"Sarge! What's the plan?" Lamberti asked, putting on his leg armor.
"No idea, know about as much as you do. Snark!"
"Sarge?"
"Take the EMR."
"Got it."
"Pavel, I want you to pack armor-piercing, Angel, you grab shredders instead."
"Understood," the Italian said while my friend just nodded.
"I want you to grab a grenade launcher," I ordered Grass. I turned to Bumblebee. "Grab an AR, I don't want you messing around with the M6J carbine."
He nodded.
"Everyone else," I went on, "pack M7s in your pods. I want everyone taking rucksacks with them, we don't know how this'll turn out."
They nodded and went back to whatever they were doing. I took my time undressing down to my underwear and putting on my undersuit. The fabric was cold when I grabbed it, but it immediately warmed up on account of my body heat. I couldn't regulate it yet without my helmet on, but that was not of direct concern. I put on the armor that would cover my thighs before putting on my armored boots. Half my team was ready by the time I started strapping on armor onto my upper arms.
"Double-check your weapons," I ordered, it would ease tension, even if just a little bit. "Pack up heavy on ammo and grenades, Caboose, I want you with flashbangs."
I finished buckling my belt. It had three metallic plates, one on the front and two on each side. I strapped the ones on the sides to my thigh armor and the one in the front was left hanging loose, it was rigid enough that it wouldn't flap around and hit me in the balls.
Ok, ammo…
There were several boxes full of magazines for my battle rifle. I stashed as many as possible down my ammunition pouches before stashing a few extra ones in my rucksack. After loading up on the supposedly experimental 9.5x40mm ammunition I did the same with pistol ammunition. I only grabbed three magazines for my pistol in addition to the one already inside the weapon itself. For the first time in many, many deployments I grabbed four SMG magazines and put them inside my left leg's pouch.
I felt a little heavier than usual, but the combination of the armor's exoskeleton and my own strength could handle all the weight with relative ease. I would be hard pressed to run a marathon in this or sprint as fast as usual, but if I got into a position where I needed to do either of those I'd probably be almost empty on ammunition.
"Liz," I called out after I was packing enough ammo to kill a company's worth of aliens. "Sitrep."
No reply.
"Shit," Angel cursed under his breath.
I grabbed some grenades before strapping them to various places on my chest and then tossing them into my rucksack, putting more weight onto it.
"We're set," Pavel announced.
"Liz," I called out again. "Eliza."
"Sorry Francisco, I was…otherwise engaged."
"Have the covvies jumped here?" Caboose asked nonchalantly.
"Affirmative, but they jumped on the other side of Wolff. They are smart enough to know that if they jump within range of our MAC we could take one of them out. Well, in case of this ship in particular we could take two out before they knew any better."
"Yeah, yeah," I said quickly. "Numbers?"
"One CCS-class battlecruiser coupled with four frigates. A scouting force."
"Only the covvies consider that many ships a scouting force. We have battlegroups smaller than that!" Angel complained loudly.
"What's your take on this?"
"Wolff has mass drivers and anti-space defenses, as small as they might be, the Covenant will likely be unwilling to just glass the population centers. The UNSC Army is moving to defend key positions while the civilian population is moved."
"I mean in space," I informed her.
"As soon as we empty the hangars we'll boost away from here, leaving you with no support."
"You're abandoning us!" Snark voiced out suddenly.
"No."
"Makes sense," Caboose muttered. "I don't like it either, but it does. At least three ships will break off to follow the Inconvenience, leaving us with less to worry about."
"Two frigates can dish out a lot of damage," Angel pointed out. "Not to mention that your hypothetical three ships might deploy troops while passing by."
Caboose just shrugged and returned to cleaning his rifle.
"When are we being dropped?"
"Echo and B companies are being deployed already, we are waiting until they are away from your paths to avoid an incident."
"Liz, we've jumped through wrecked ships," I said. "At least Pavel and I have, we don't need to wait."
"Chain of command?" Pavel asked.
"You report directly to the highest-ranking officer on the planet, no matter what the branch. Commander Albaf's orders."
"Can we jump now?" Bumblebee pressed. "I'm tired of waiting."
"Wait is over," Eliza suddenly said. "Enemy ships incoming, prepare for jump in twenty.
My demeanor changed immediately. "You heard the lady!" I boomed. "She wants us out so we're going out. How are we going?"
"We go feet first Gunnery Sergeant!" Reaper Squad yelled back as they made their way towards the pods.
I jumped inside my own and strapped my rifle to the special holder on my right side. I cracked my knuckles as the pod's doors closed on me and stretched my neck before turning on the screens. I clicked through all of my squad's covered heads before finally grabbing my own helmet from the floor and putting it on. My HUD flickered to life and I could feel my undersuit adjusting to preferred conditions.
"Ten seconds!" I warned.
The lights above me went through their usual thing. Red, yellow, green.
The pod lurched forward and suddenly we were outside of the ship and in zero gee. The screen on my left displayed one member of my squad, in this case it was Reaper-8, Caboose. The other camera showed a display from several cameras around the Inconvenience.
The cameras themselves were not used for the main guidance systems for the frigate, but they did help in some accounts. The zoom showed small pinpricks of purple and gray that couldn't be anything but Covenant ships. They were holding that distance, right before we entered atmosphere I saw blurred points flying at many of the cameras. The signal filled with static as our pods entered Wolff's atmosphere. Suddenly my helmet was filled with hundreds of different conversations. From what I caught of the radio signals they were mostly from Wolff-based ground forces.
"Aim towards that ridge," I ordered as dozens of images for suitable landing locations flashed by my HUD. "Hit it at an angle."
After my drag chute separated from my pod I started sweating from the nerves. The pod seemed to halt. The only indication that it was still moving was the image of gray rock rushing up to meet me.
I closed my eyes and waited for the impact.
I opened them as soon as I felt myself lurching forward. I banged on the button that would let the door fall down and reached for my rifle even before the door separated from the SOEIV itself. I jumped out with my rifle raised just in case, my squad doing exactly the same.
"Status report."
"Two's green."
"So's three."
"Green," Snark voiced.
"Grass is green," Grass informed us. It was beginning to become a catchphrase of sorts for her.
"Six is green."
There was a lengthy pause on number seven.
"Reaper-8 is good and ready to go," Caboose said after a moment of silence.
I looked around to see the various pods belonging to my squad members strewn about the side of the ridge. The surface underneath was mostly loose rocks over hard packed dirt. It would make for terrible mountain biking terrain if you ask me. My squad was converging on my position, each of them kicking off rocks as they climbed up or down, depending on their position.
"So now what?" Pavel asked.
I thought about it for a second. "Grab as much gear as possible and climb up to the top of the ridge." It was only a hundred meters or so, so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle. "I'll hail for a bird."
"Roger that," my friend nodded as he started climbing up. The rest of the squad followed us and started struggling up the steep hillside.
"So, what do you think?" Pavel asked as we climbed.
"What am I supposed to think? We usually arrive after a place has been attacked, not just before."
He shrugged. "How do you think it'll go," he rephrased his question.
"Same ol' same ol'" I sighed. "This is a pretty small colony. At least they didn't gun for Miridem, which'll probably give them some time to react."
"Let's just hope we don't have to die to buy them that time."
"Read my mind," Bumblebee said from behind us.
The land on the other side of the ridge was mostly flat and covered with enormous greenhouses that provided most of Wolff's food. The land on this planet was filled with minerals, just not any minerals that human food needed. However, right in front of me I could see Wilk. It was a pretty small city by Reach's standards, but it was the largest on this planet.
"Right," I said, suddenly remembering something. "Seal your suits, we can't breathe out here for long without poisoning ourselves."
"We've got fifteen minutes worth of air," Grass pointed out.
"Go get the oxygen tanks from the HEVs then," I ordered. "Snark, go help her."
The rest of us spread out and formed some sort of perimeter. There was no need, but it was habit and it always paid off to be cautious.
From where I was standing I could see the flurry of activity in Wilk, several ships were leaving while the roads were covered with cars. It seemed as if the evacuation wasn't proceeding smoothly. But it usually never does. I could make out some AA batteries, missiles, looking up at the sky, they didn't look like ground-to-space, but they would bring down several dropships if a direct invasion were to be attempted. I couldn't see the mass driver, but it was most certainly hidden somewhere around here.
"Done," Grass voiced. She dropped a bunch of little oxygen bottles at my feet. "I've already grabbed three for myself."
"How much time do these have?" Angel asked as he picked one up.
"Twelve hours," Grass informed him matter-of-factly.
"Ought to be enough," Bumblebee pointed out as he examined the black tanks. They were as long as his forearm and about as wide. It took a few seconds for anyone to remember, but eventually we all put our tanks on our left side, above the magazine pouches and slightly behind our arms so that we could move freely. From there we pulled a small hose covered in metal and connected it to a special port on the bottom back of our helmets.
"The dev guys really do think of everything," Bumblebee mused.
"Dev team?" Caboose queried.
"Dev, development," the Scottsman explained in his usual accent.
"Shouldn't that be R&D?" Pavel interjected.
"Dunno," Bee admitted. "Probably, but you got the meaning."
"No, you had to explain the words to us," Angel reminded him, speaking slowly.
"Shut up."
This time, I was inclined to agree with Bumblebee.
It took half an hour, but a Pelican finally came to pick us up. It was from the UNSC Army, piloted by a jumpy man in his forties who had never seen any action but likely had over a million hours worth of flight in this craft. At least it meant that he knew what he was doing.
"So, Helljumpers huh?"
"Yup," I replied, watching the landscape zoom by. "I take it you produce oxygen in the greenhouses."
"Mostly, there are other methods, but that's the primary one."
"Must be tough."
"All I've known," the pilot admitted. "I was born here, so were my parents, and grandparents. And now it might all vanish with the Covenant."
"Don't think that way," Grass suggested.
"Then maybe we'll kick their asses right off of this planet," the pilot replied, only half-sarcastically. The tone of his voice made it clear that he was hopeful.
"Don't get them up either," Caboose bluntly put out.
"Then what am I supposed to think?"
"You don't," I instructed. "You do your job best you can and block everything else out."
"Roger that Gunnery Sergeant."
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence as nobody said anything.
"What have you heard?" Pavel asked suddenly. "Anything big?"
"No, just that a covvie fleet is- mother of god!"
"What?" Snark asked quickly, nervous.
I walked towards the cockpit, dodging Grass as she stood up in alarm. Once inside I had to brace myself against a wall as the Pelican started shaking. I could see a huge purple Covenant frigate in the distance. The ship itself was one kilometer in length, or so ONI files claim. It was far enough away that its bottom got a little bit mixed up with the horizon, but the fact that they were willing to jump so closely to the city meant that they meant business.
"Why aren't they shooting at it?" the pilot exclaimed. "The mass driver can kill it!"
"They can't take it out in a single shot," I explained. "Not with the shields up."
"And shooting would give away the mass driver's position."
"Damn it," the pilot exclaimed banging his hands on the controls.
"Turn on the general channel," Caboose urged.
We were greeted by a wave of panicking soldiers and evacuation orders as well as several different conversations informing command on enemy numbers and landing positions. The frigate was already dropping troops like its life depended on it.
"Sounds like another frigate made ground just around the corner," Grass pointed out after listening in closely.
"None of our concern." I turned around and faced my team. "Ok, game faces on boys and girl."
"Approaching Glówny Base," the pilot spat bitterly.
The Pelican slowly landed on an old landing pad and the rear hatch opened, prompting us to activate our oxygen tanks again. As we emerged from the Pelican I noticed the sky for the first time. It was a mix of light blue combined with the darkness of space. I could see Zeta Lupus VI covering a large portion of the sky. The light gravity of the planet made it feel almost surreal. It looked like something straight out of one of those "Most Beautiful Places in the Universe" magazines. I could understand why people would live a tough life on here. The sight alone was worth it.
"Helljumpers!" an army corporal hailed. He was wearing outdated armor coupled with a metallic mask covering his nose and mouth. It was supposed to be bullet and shrapnel resistant, but I'm pretty sure it would do almost nothing to stop a plasma shot.
"That would be us," Pavel quipped as he hopped off the ship.
"What do you need?" I asked.
"Umm." the corporal looked unsure of whom to address. "The Brigadier General wants to see you."
"Lead us to his tent then," Bumblebee ordered, further confusing the young army corporal.
"Umm, ok."
The base was burgeoning with jumpy personnel, not something unexpected since the planet was just in the process of being invaded. The vast majority of the people here belonged to the local Army branch or the militia. I did spot a couple of Marine uniforms, but didn't recognize any of them, preventing me from making out if they belonged to the Inconvenience or were simply here on deployment.
"Right this way," the army corporal informed us, leading us into a small building without any windows.
"Thanks corporal," Grass addressed him. This was beginning to irk the poor corporal noticeably.
The door hissed as it closed behind us and we unslung our rucksacks, placing them in a pile by the entrance before turning around to face the people waiting for us. The room we were in was much like a regular command tent except that it was bigger and actually built into the ground instead of dropped from an Albatross.
"Sir," I greeted the brigadier general. I spotted Major Hernandez and nodded to him as well before noticing another officer, a marine captain. I recognized him as the captain that had replaced Sharma, but hadn't met him yet. I kept forgetting what his name was. I still nodded at him as a sign of respect.
"Gunnery Sergeant," the brigadier said gruffly. "Glad to see you're fine."
"Likewise, sir," I replied, motioning for my team to stand a couple of steps back.
"Well, let's get down to business," the brigadier said. "The Covenant have landed here, and here." The holotable in the middle of the room synched with his voice, showing whatever he was talking about. "The most dangerous landing area is the one directly to the north of Wilk. The frigates are dropping troops through gravity lifts. Those troops will be supplemented with additional Phantoms sent from the battlecruiser.
"Probably special operations," I pointed out. "Those should be targeted."
"That's what we thought," the brigadier agreed, "some of them were shot down by missile satellites, but many dropships made it through."
"So far they have refrained from staging any direct attacks, it seems like they are massing their forces," Hernandez informed me.
"Yes, marines are already being deployed to protect important installations," the replacement captain chimed in. "Army forces are massing up before deploying."
"Yes, we'll support your men as soon as we can amass sufficient numbers," the brigadier said tiredly. "As for you…"
"Yes, sir?"
"I am sure that you are aware of this city having a mass driver."
"I've heard."
"Well, you and your team are going to defend it. Sending a larger force would probably call attention to it, and we need the best we've got to defend it."
"Understood."
"There is a team of Spartans on standby in the sector, but I don't know where they are exactly, it seems unlikely that they are in the system."
"Might come in handy," Pavel mentioned off-handedly. I had to resist the urge to turn around and slap my friend for being anti-ODST.
"Indeed," the brigadier agreed. "But we can't linger on it now. A craft is ready to deploy your team. The corporal outside the door will show you the way."
I squared my shoulders, clicked my heels and saluted. "Sir!"
I turned around and left, cursing Pavel for his fanaticism of the Spartan-IIs and thanking whichever god was up there for prohibiting Darbinian from being here. Things balanced themselves out, so I stopped being angry at my friend as soon as I realized that the universe had repaid me for it.
"This is your Pelican," the corporal said after leading us through the base. "Good luck."
"Likewise," Caboose told him, joining in the fun. The disgruntled corporal simply nodded in our general direction before turning around and leaving.
"Hop in," I ordered my team.
"So, where to?" the pilot asked us.
No one answered.
"Okaaaay," he said. "Off we go then."
The Pelican took off and the hatch doors closed, prompting us to turn off our oxygen tanks so that we wouldn't waste them. The trip was rather calm, with the ship perfectly still. It seemed like a regular flight. Of course, then things started getting worse, measuring up to the situation at hand.
"Shit Banshees," the pilot warned. "Someone man the gun."
"Dibs." Bumblebee said as he stood up.
"Gunnery Sergeant," I reminded him, pointing to myself.
"C'mon Sarge!" he complained.
I dismissed him and grabbed the weapon, sliding it across the rail on the ceiling even as the rear hatch opened. The Pelican started banking hard to either side and I saw bolts of plasma streaking by on either side. The pilot floored the accelerator and the dropship shot past the three purple fighters. I got one in my sights and started firing away. I cursed when I realized that the sights weren't calibrated, so I had to wait a moment for the weapon's targeting system to synch with my helmet, firing on the banshees all the same. As soon as the reticule in my helmet blinked twice I aimed at the nearest banshee and punched through its armor even as it banked around to face us.
"They're on our ass!" Angel warned the pilot.
"Hold on!"
I barely had time to hug the turret itself before the Pelican banked hard to the right. I lost sight of the two remaining banshees for a moment before one of them caught up with us. I fired at it, but the turning angle made it impossible for me to hit it, instead I saw tracers spraying wildly all over the place while the banshee zeroed in on us almost calmly.
I jumped to the side when it fired a burst from its plasma cannons. The blue plasma flew through the cargo bay, hitting nobody. It felt awfully close to my leg though, and it elicited a tingling sensation in my left shoulder blade, where I had been hit back on Lambari. I immediately got back up and grabbed onto the turret. I fired at the banshee even as it sprayed plasma all over the rear of the Pelican, damaging the tail engines. I managed to hit it twice in one wing, clipping it off and sending it plummeting to the ground.
"Where's the other one?" I asked the pilot. No answer came. "Shit."
"He's dead!" Snark informed us rather calmly after checking the cockpit. "Head blown clean off."
"Dammit, Grass, your dossier says you're an expert pilot."
"On it," she said as she unbuckled herself and made a dash for the cockpit. "About time you used this particular set of skills of mine."
"I hope we never have to use it again," Pavel deadpanned.
"Craft seems fine, pilot was the only thing hit," Grass called out from the cockpit right after I heard the sound of a body hitting the floor. "Oh crap."
"What?" I asked.
"You don't want to know."
The Pelican lurched, losing altitude quickly before Grass managed to pull it back up. A second later it started banking to the left ever so slightly while losing altitude. It wouldn't have been that bad had the last remaining banshee not strafed the top of our ship with its plasma autocannons. I caught sight of it and fired a couple of shots, but it shot away from sight an instant later.
"Grass! I need an angle!"
"I'm trying, the ship's controls are pretty fucked up."
Shit, she's swearing, bad news.
An explosion was heard and the ship started banking to the right instead. Hard.
"Grass!"
"Hold on!"
I kept my grip on the turret as best I could while the rest of Reaper remained surprisingly calm. The banshee decided it would be smart to bear down on our six while we fell down to the ground. Of course, I didn't lose my presence of mind and riddled the thing with holes before it could get a bead on us. The craft suddenly started moving slightly sideways as the pilot was hit by a bullet. It didn't do anything other than that for a second until it started falling back down to the ground.
"Got it!"
Our ship pulled up, its nose pointing almost to the sky. For a second I was able to see just how close we were to hitting the ground. Grass maintained some semblance of control of the ship while I returned to my designated spot and strapped myself in. I could see black smoke coming from the right side of the dropship.
"We lost the front right engine and several non-essential systems," Grass informed us, actually bothering to use the intercom.
"Like what?" Angel asked her.
"Umm, our brakes."
"You're telling me that we can't slow down?"
"Sure we can," Grass replied.
"How?" Angel asked irritably.
Snark looked at the Italian and shook his head. "Ever heard the term crash-landing?"
I sighed in resignation as I saw the ground getting closer and closer to us.
Thanks to Sniper Fodder for proof-reading this chapter.
Ooooh, a cliffhanger, it's been a while since I had one of those. I think. Has it? Well, it has also been a while since I had some latin in the chapter title. Actually, it's the first time that I've had latin in the chapter title. What can I say, if I get an opportunity to sound pretentious I will take it every time.
Well, some of you have asked me what's going to happen to this guy or that guy or this situation or the other. I try to solve every plot line that I can as quickly as possible so that you don't forget about them, but lately I've been shoving so much stuff into the story that I have a hard time tying everything up in just a couple of chapters. Worry not, I don't forget any plot lines, and if I do, please feel free to remind me as aggressively as you feel like it.
Now, as for the chapter itself, there are really only two things that I feel like talking about. First, there is Frank's fuck-buddy relationship with Lieutenant Emily Hardwick. Do you think he is mature enough to handle it? Is she? Is anyone else in the cast? If it was up to me, I'd go with probably not, but who knows. The second thing I wanted to talk about was Camilla's piloting skills. I made a big deal of them when I introduced her as a character, but for some reason didn't write a situation where she could use them. Now that she has it didn't end well. I wonder if I could make a running gag out of that one...
That's about it, thanks for all of your kind reviews and sorry for the delay in posting. I hope you enjoyed reading this. Next chapter we finally see some shit blowing up.
Stay strong.
-casquis