Chapter CX: Taunts
February 10, 2544 (UNSC Calendar)/
somewhere near Wilk Waste Disposal Facility, Wilk Outskirts, Wolff, Zetta Lupus System
"Did you know that war-crime rates all but disappeared after 2525?"- Lance Corporal Camilla Lilja Seppa
I had been hoping that I had only been out for a minute or two, but the timer on my HUD indicated otherwise. It had been some time since we had crash-landed into the stony surface of the planet again, this time the landing was not nearly as gentle as that of our Human Entry Vehicles. I groaned in annoyance more than in pain and unbuckled myself, slamming into the Pelican's ceiling for my trouble. This time I groaned in pain.
"Grass would make a terrible pilot," Schitzo noted.
"Agreed."
"Yeah, I thought she was an expert pilot in a million different vehicles."
"No, that's not what I meant," I explained. "She wasn't nearly calm enough as she should've been. Pilots are supposed to keep calm voices even under overwhelming circumstances."
Schitzo walked on the floor. That's right upside down in relation to me and the entire planet's gravitational center. "I guess you're right," he admitted. "That's a new one."
"Fuck off."
"Are you talking to yourself?" Grass asked suddenly, her voice sounded pained and forced.
"Depends, how long have you been listening for?"
"Just now."
"Then you probably hallucinated whatever I said."
Grass moaned in pain. I heard the sound of a body hitting metal and knew that she had unbuckled herself, landing hard on the cockpits ceiling. "I'm good. How's the rest of the team."
"Vitals check out," I told her. "Let's see about waking them up."
"Yeah, you do that," Grass agreed. "I'll just lay here and…die."
"Don't think so. You'll rest when you die, and you're not dead yet."
"Buzzkill," she muttered.
The first person that I reached towards was Pavel. He was hanging upside down, his straps keeping him in place. I stumbled a little bit on the short walk, evidence of the hard landing. Pavel seemed to be in fine condition, his helmet was still on and his M247 was in fine working order at his feet. Or head, whatever.
"Pavs, wake up," I said. When I got no reply I slapped his helmet, eliciting a groan. Since Pavel didn't move I slapped him again, this time he answered with a string of colorful curses in Polish. At least I assumed they were curses, because what else could you say in a situation like that. "Rise and shine bro," I repeated.
"Shit," was all he said.
I moved onto the next unlucky Helljumper, Snark. I shook him by the shoulder, watching him wake up and try to push me away defensively. "Come on," I pressed him."We need to get a move on."
"Y-Yes, Sarge."
Grass had already woken up Angel, Bumblebee, and Caboose. We were all still a little bit shaken up from the hard landing, but nobody seemed any worse for wear. We'd have to be scanned for internal bleeding or concussions as soon as we could though, those things could sneak up on you if you weren't careful.
"Everyone ok?" I asked.
"Yeah, yeah," Pavel grumbled, "let's get a move on."
"You heard the man," I said, "grab your gear and let's go. I want everyone carrying extra oxygen tanks."
I grabbed another pair of tanks and slung them over my shoulder, sagging a little as I felt the weight. I was lucky for the lower gravity of the planet, had I been carrying so much gear on reach I would've been hard-pressed to walk more than five miles without collapsing of exhaustion. Right now I was comfortable enough to walk and run with little to no trouble. I actually felt some pity for the local soldiers, they would be used to the gravity and would have a hard time carrying as much gear as the ones from the Inconvenience.
The Pelican had crashed upside down on a flat stretch of land. Rocks and dirt were covering half of the hatch, but it wasn't too much of a hassle for us to climb through it. As soon as I emerged I cursed at the sight.
"Shit," Pavel voiced beside me.
"Indeed," Angel agreed as soon as he emerged.
In front of us I could see the Covenant frigate inching closer to the city. Little specks strafed the huge ship with gunfire and explosives while land-based AA systems pounded away at it. Seraphs and Banshees did their best to keep the UNSC craft at bay, but so far they needn't have bothered, the frigate's shields were holding strong. Nothing short of a nuclear explosion or a MAC round would crack the energy shields open.
Or a mass driver.
"Angel, contact command, try to set up a secure connection, Caboose, take point, we're walking the rest of the way, everybody else spread out. Bumblebe, I want your eyes in the ski, no surprises. Snark, same thing on the ground."
They all acknowledged my orders and started walking in the direction of a cliff. It was perhaps three miles away, it would take about forty-five minutes to reach at our current pace. It didn't seem like such a long amount of time, and judging from the speed of the frigate, it would probably be more than enough to reach the mass driver and pound a hole inside it.
"I got something," Angel said after fifteen minutes. "It's full of static and not secure."
"It'll do," I shrugged.
"You know, the communication network on this planet is grievously outdated," Caboose pointed out. "Covenant interference is not helping at all."
"This is Delta-Charlie-Victor, anybody read us."
"…copy Delta-Charlie-Victor, th…s command."
"Command, we were en route to defend a mass driver when we were shot down. I repeat, we were en route to defend a mass driver when we were shot down. Pilot is KIA, the rest of us are fine."
"Roger that," command replied, most of the static gone from the conversation. "We read you clearly…Reaper."
"Is our mission parameters still the same?" I queried. "We're currently walking towards the objective, but things seemed to have gotten a little out of hand."
"That's an understatement Reaper," the radio jockey replied irritably. "Mission parameters are the same, you are-" There was a noticeable pause. "Disregard that last statement, mission parameters have changed, you are to use the mass driver to attack the Covenant frigate in conjunction with other ground assets."
"Copy that," I acknowledged. "I doubt that any of us can man the cannon."
"It's a simple process Reaper Actual, you shouldn't have too much trouble with that."
"I'll take you up on that. Any intel regarding enemy forces?"
"There is a small number of Covenant forces in your grid, but none of them are of immediate concern."
"I'll take you up on that as well," I sternly said. "Reaper out."
Grass looked over at me. "I can man the cannon."
"Go figure," Angel said. "Leave it to you to drive a glorified garbage truck."
"Actually, this series of cannons are used to break up asteroids for mining," Grass informed him.
"The only reason this one would be groundside is because it can shoot radioactive waste into the sun," Angel countered. "Besides, it can do both things."
"That's your opinion," she shrugged, obviously beaten.
We arrived at a cliff wall that seemed to explode upwards suddenly. The waypoint in my HUD marked the cannon's position as directly in front of me and slightly above, so I assumed that the cannon was lowered below ground or the cliff broke off on the other side. The point of direct concern was that we couldn't get to it from this point.
"Caboose, Bumblebee, take point and look for an entrance, contact us when you do."
"On it Sarge," Caboose nodded at me before taking off with the Scottish rocket-toting Helljumper in his wake.
The rest of us found a group of large rocks and took cover behind them. I could only stare at the cliff face in front of me, studying it in case we needed to climb it. There was a small slope that had a bunch of rocks and crevasses followed by the cliffs forming the plateau's walls themselves. It looked to be about one hundred and fifty meters high from where I was standing. The walls themselves had plenty of handholds even if they were almost completely vertical. If we needed to climb it could be done, but I wasn't willing to attempt it unless absolutely necessary.
"Sarge, we found a way in," Caboose informed me.
It seemed like we wouldn't need to.
"Roger, we're moving to your position."
The entrance in question was an elevator built into the side of the cliff face. It looked like it had seen better days, but it was large enough to hold an Elephant inside. The vehicle, not the animal, hence the capitalized word.
"Ok, hop on," I said for what seemed like the tenth time in the day. "Let's go."
The elevator whirred as we were pushed upwards. The shaft consisted of several metal beams attached to the elevator itself. It climbed up at an incredibly slow pace before finally stopping. A huge metal door opened up to show us the top of the plateau. It was a relatively small stretch of land, the ground was concave, with several small buildings and walkways connecting to each other and with a set of blast doors right in the middle. The mass driver was probably there.
"Pavel and Angel, you two set up guard here," I ordered. "Snark and Bumblebee, I want you to find a high point and keep watch for covvies. Caboose, Grass, with me."
I walked at a brisk pace towards a small control panel near the blast doors, my battle rifle loosely held across my chest in case it was needed. The panel looked simple enough to work out, with only three buttons on it.
"Open doors," I muttered as I clicked the button.
The blast doors started opening smoothly, making almost no noise as they slid along their rails and disappeared into the floor.
"Raise mass driver," I called out cheerily, hearing a mechanical whirring as the mass driver emerged from the hole in the ground. It had a similar look to the Sledgehammer railgun that ONI had given to us during that last stand back in Lambari.
"Grass, what is it?" Caboose asked, almost as if he was daring her to answer.
"It has the body of a Mark 2488 Onager," Grass pointed out, "but that's a planetary defense gun, they told us it was to get rid of toxic waste."
"They didn't tell us anything," Caboose reminded her.
"It was inferred," she replied.
During this war a lot of technology had been adapted from civilian use to military use in desperate situations. I had seen cannons similar to this one, used to fire radioactive waste outside of the planet, being used to pound Covenant dropships into submission, but I had never seen military technology modified into civilian use. Doing that was simply too dangerous, the URF could use them against the UNSC. It had happened before.
"Can you use it?" I asked Grass as the cannon stopped coming up.
"Yes, as soon as we have a power source and ammunition I can use it."
"Good, I'll contact command." I did just that. "Command, Reaper Squad here, we have control of the mass driver, do you copy?"
"We copy, do you have a clear angle on the enemy frigate?"
"We do," Grass confirmed as she rotated the cannon.
"Affirmative."
"Good, we're setting a countdown, you'll fire in conjunction with three other mass drivers when it hits zero."
"Rog- wait. Three? The hell? This colony is only supposed to have one."
"Command out."
"Hey don't you-"
The line was cut and I was left yelling at thin air. My brain started working the information and little cogs and gears started spinning as I processed what I just heard. It took perhaps five seconds for me to come to a conclusions.
"We're helping Insurrectionists," Pavel muttered.
"Goddamit!" Bumblebee yelled. "The colony went rogue."
"They didn't," Caboose said.
"Well, they were about to."
"What do you want to do?" Grass asked.
I thought about it for a second. "Fuck it, we follow orders and leave this bullshit to the brass."
"You sure?" Grass asked.
"Yes damn it."
I waited a few seconds for the countdown to reach zero, activating my helmet's sound mufflers as I backed off from the cannon itself. I saw the energy panels light up as electricity flowed through them and then was forced to close my eyes as the projectile flew outside at .04 the speed of light, 12,000 kilometers per second. Two other white flashes appeared from different points on the horizon and converged on the Covenant frigate.
Its shields flickered and lit up as a combined 3.3 gigajoules of kinetic energy hammered into it. The ship actually seemed to stumble as its anti-gravity generators were shaken up by the impact.
"Five seconds!" Grass called out.
That amount of time later the cannon fired again. This time it fired slightly before the two others did, but the shields made themselves visible again as they tried to dissipate the energy.
"Sarge, we got a banshee closing in on our position."
"Shoot it down," I ordered Bumblebee. "As soon as things get difficult I want you to use that cannon as an AA gun, ok Grass?"
She fired again.
"Copy."
It took seven more shots from the cannon as well as the other two locally-built mass drivers before the ship stopped abruptly. Its shields were dead and it was smoking from several places, but its anti-gravity generators were still in working order, keeping the craft hovering on the city outskirts. It seemed like it was out of comisssion, even if just for now.
"Cease fire," command's voice came in.
"Grass, fire two more shots at it, try and bring it down."
She complied, hitting the frigate's center twice and eliciting the desired effect.
"I said cease fire!"
"Uh, sorry, didn't catch you on that," I lied. "Why?"
"If it falls down it could damage the city!"
"Uh, no, it's too far away from the city proper," I said, using the same ignorant tone as before. "Best kill it now before it can do some more damage."
I cut the channel before anything else could be said.
"Sarge, what the hell? You just went against orders!" Caboose snapped. "We could be court martialed for this. All of us!"
I was slightly surprised at his outburst, the man was normally impassive under all but the most unfavorable circumstances. "I disobeyed innie orders," I said. "And just between the two of us, I'm in charge here, you follow my orders."
"You have no proof that they are Insurrectionists!"
"Two illegal magnetic accelerator weapons," I told him. "That would be enough evidence to warrant a military intervention."
"I'm with Sarge on this one," Snark said, talking for the first time in a while. "You don't build two cannons unless you plan on using them."
"They could use them against the Covenant!" Caboose snapped angrily.
"They would've asked for them if they believed they were under threat," Angel said, joining the discussion.
"Either the leadership or the entire planet sympathized with the URF, the point is that we killed a frigate, we probably saved this entire colony while at it. If I hear anything from you again, I'll have you returned to your original unit. You read me?"
"Yes Gunnery Sergeant," he spat out angrily before storming away.
Pavel opened up a private communications channel with me. "What's wrong with him?"
"I dunno."
"Was he born here?" he furthered.
"No, he's an Outer Colony kid, not sure which planet."
"Maybe he has family here," Pavel suggested.
"Maybe he's pissed the ship landed so close to the city."
"Maybe he's just angry you disobeyed direct orders."
"Maybe," I agreed. "We'll get back to that later."
"Your call."
"Reaper, just what the hell do you think you are doing!" the local general's voice boomed in my loudspeakers. "You were clearly ordered to stop firing."
"Yes, sir, I am aware of that, I didn't hear the order the first time."
"You fired two more times Sergeant!"
"The second warning didn't come until after the second shot," I said. "As soon as I heard the order I relayed it to my gunner."
"You brought a kilometer long ship down upon vital portions of our infrastructure!"
"It was a simple misunderstanding."
"A misunderstanding that just might cause this colony to fail!"
I smiled to myself, these Insurrectionist bastards were screwed regardless. "General, with all due respect, this colony is already failed, we are under attack by less than half of the enemy fleet present in the system, a scouting group by Covenant standards. If the UNSC fleet arrives here the Covenant fleet will do the same." I waited for him to reply, but the general was silent. "I've fought in countless campaigns just like this one, the best we'll be able to do is delay them until we cannot evacuate anymore."
There was a moment of stunned silence as the reality of the situation sunk in to the general. He stammered a bit before dismissing me and cutting the channel. I turned around to face Grass and erupted in laughter.
"What?" she asked, annoyed, but I could tell that she was probably smiling at my antics.
"As far as most campaigns go this is a pretty tame one. The Inconvenience can probably hold its own or run away for a while until the rest of the local fleet can catch the three ships in the crossfire."
"Unless…" Pavel said.
My good mood was instantly ruined. "Unless," I agreed, almost bitterly.
"Sarge, I see dropships inbound," Snark warned.
"Grass, you see 'em?"
"Not within cannon's firing angle yet, but I'll give those Spirits a scare once they get in my sights."
"You do that, Snark and Bumblebee, I want you to kill targets of opportunity, Pavel mount your gun in a place with a decent vantage point and strafe grunts and jackals when they get close."
"Aye aye."
"Angel?"
"Planting charges in the elevator, should I put them on the rails?"
"Yes, go down and then come back up, plant them about three-quarters of the way up."
"I like how you think Sarge."
My squad shot in different directions, Caboose went up to the edge of the plateau and placed himself on his belly, pulling out a pair of binoculars from his rucksack to scan the enemies. I remained where I was, watching all of them spring to action while Grass waited for a Spirit to emerge into her firing angle. It took all of ten seconds for a dropship to commit that fatal mistake.
"Boom," I said after I saw the thing go down in flames.
"And I'm just getting started," Grass murmured, an almost psychopathic tone creeping into her voice. "Let's see how they feel when they're outgunned."
Three more Spirits were shot down before they pinpointed the exact location of the mass driver. They fired a couple of shots that went wide at it, but they did stick to the ground as much as possible, preventing Grass from getting a bead on them.
"Darn, they figured me out."
"Hop off," I ordered her, "they'll start strafing that gun as soon as they get large enough numbers. And stop saying darn."
"Got it, got it, and no."
I shrugged and climbed all the way up, leaving my rucksack behind for ease of movement.
"Sarge, they're dropping troops, platoon strength," Snark informed me.
"Same here," Caboose joined. "Two Spirit's worth, that's 'bout sixty."
"Angel?"
"I'm almost done," he came in. "I see troops on this side too."
"Ok, so we're surrounded then."
"And without support," Pavel added. "You shouldn't have pissed off the ranking officer on the planet."
"He's a fucking innie," I reminded him.
"Allegedly," Caboose muttered.
"He's an innie with power," Pavel said. "Shouldn't have pissed him off."
"You rooted for me."
"I changed my mind."
"One day you'll stab me in the back."
"Maybe," Pavel agreed. "If you keep pissing me off I probably will."
I sighed exaggeratedly. "I am so sorry I piss you off."
"I am glad that you have apologized," Pavel replied in the same robotic tone.
"Snark, range?"
"Under two kilometers."
"You brought the EMR, right?"
"Yeah."
Think you can pull of some elite kills from here?"
"Doubt it, I'd end up wasting too much ammo."
"You shoot targets at three clicks with that thing," Bumblebee argued.
"Stationary targets."
"Touché."
"Just shoot a couple of the little ones," I groaned. "Keep them on their toes, stall their advance."
"You're not even going to call for help?" Grass asked.
"I will, when we need it."
The Covenant could've been facing a whole platoon for the success that they were having. I mean, once they were within range of our weapons they were easy pickings. The few that dropped energy covers were safe, but the rest could only run in our direction as fast as possible. We had the high ground and better cover. They couldn't even climb up to meet us because the cliff was just that, a fucking cliff.
I took a few shots at grunts and jackals, Snark focused on taking out the sharpshooters and elite leaders. We only had so much success, they learned quickly to stick behind their shields once they saw their numbers halved by a small squad of seven members. Elites stood behind a wall of deployable covers chatting with one another, no doubt discussing strategy with one another. The grunts and jackals cowered behind their superiors. A few aliens had been left behind, those had tried to find cover in small rocks or holes, they usually gave themselves away to Snark or me when they tried to make a run for it.
"Ok, now what?" Grass asked after a particularly long lull in the fighting.
"I want you on standby on the cannon," I said. "Shoot down any ships that decide to make a flyby."
"Understood," she acknowledged, winking her status lights green.
"Pavel, I don't want you firing unless absolutely necessary, Bee, I just want you to save your rockets for when Banshees show up, don't give away your position. Everybody else, stay where you are, Caboose, move to compensate for Grass."
I received a wave of green lights on my HUD as acknowledgement and my team moved all around the small plateau, following my orders.
The plateau itself was simple, it was about one hundred and twenty meters in diameter, almost as tall as it was wide. As I already said, the surface was concave, bending inwards slightly, with the cannon placed right in the middle. When the cannon was in a firing position it was about ten meters above the ground, giving it a decent angle for firing in most directions. The concaveness of the top gave us a degree of cover that a regular plateau wouldn't have given us. I had no doubt that this little hilltop had been modified for human uses, no natural surface was so perfectly symmetrical.
"Sarge, I've got four Shadow troop transports incoming," Snark warned us. "No ghosts, but that means more infantry."
"Understood, leave them alone, but inform me of their movements and give me numbers ASAP."
He winked his green acknowledgement light. I guess he didn't feel like talking anymore than necessary.
"Pavel, Caboose, use thermal, I don't want anyone sneaking up on us."
After a few minutes I got the answer. "Nothing here," Pavel said.
"Same," Caboose grumbled.
"Keep watch, something's off, normally they'd be throwing themselves at us by this point."
It was about midday by this time. Days went fast in Wolff, that was an oddity in itself, a moon orbiting a gas giant normally had tidally locked moons, at least that's how it worked back in Sol. Or Jupiter. Regardless, Wolff spun around its axis in just under thirteen hours, it went fully around Zeta Lupus VI in just over a standard day. That meant that a Wolffian month was about two Wolffian days long. Unusual enough for a moon like this one, but not unheard off. With its low gravity, beautiful skies, and relaxed lifestyle it was a prime target for long sabbaticals. Well, except that it was apparently planning on going rogue.
Zeta Lupus VI's other two large moons were visible, one behind the other, much like Reach's on occasion. Coupled with the transparency of the sky it was an impressive sight. Not to mention that Zeta Lupus VI itself was always on the horizon, constantly getting bigger and bigger until it blocked out the sun. The one thing that this planet did have, was long nights. Not extremely long, but long enough to throw you off. Although I guess that depends on where you come from.
"The sun is setting," Pavel said. "Or the planet is blocking it, I dunno."
"Right, that means a twenty-six hour night."
"We can manage," Grass asserted. "Right?"
I said nothing, instead focusing on scanning the area with my scope. The sun was about to disappear, and it was getting dark fast.
"Grass, Bumblebee, get some sleep," I ordered. "Angel, you too, but stay near the elevator."
"Thanks."
"They're up to something," Snark murmured. "They turned on their vehicles, heat signals are getting mixed up."
"Wake everyone up," I ordered Caboose.
I crawled away from my position so as to not give myself away and then jogged all the way to Snark's, going prone right beside him. He looked to be concentrating fairly hard while staring through the scope of his Enhanced Marksman Rifle. I did the same thing with my own weapon, looking at the same direction that Snark was. The two Shadows had been placed next to one another and their plasma reserves left open or something, they were emitting an unhealthy amount of heat, and probably radiation as well.
"What do you think?"
"Maybe they're massing behind the transports and will use them as cover, try and storm the castle?" Bee suggested.
"No, that seems like a stupid strategy, even for them. They're elites, not brutes."
"Right," Bee admitted. "Maybe they simply wanted some heat."
It was a possibility, the night was cold, the thin atmosphere of Wolff had been bolstered by terraforming that was still ongoing, but we were still quite far from this system's sun and the atmosphere wasn't quite as good at maintaining heat inside it as the one on Reach or Jericho VII.
"All the troops?" I asked.
"Yeah, elites would never sleep near grunts," Snark agreed. "Too damned proud."
"Damn," Grass corrected, her voice drowsy. "It's too damn proud."
"Shut up," Angel said, "you just woke up and you're already being you."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked with indignation.
"Shut up," Caboose snapped. "Both of you."
"You heard him," I agreed. "Everyone quiet."
"So, what's the problem?" Pavel asked after a while. "Why are they keeping their plasma vents open."
"At first I just thought they were doing that, venting plasma," Snark said, "but it was taking them too long, so I called you Sarge."
"Wait, how long have they been giving away so much heat? How long before you warned me?"
"I dunno, ten, fifteen minutes?"
I turned around and activated my VISR while looking through my scope. The sight was not a pretty one.
"Cloaks!" I warned as I let out a burst at the nearest heat signature.
The rounds collided with an elite, distorting its cloak and giving it a jelly-like look. Two more bursts knocked its shields out before I put three rounds in its chest. The elite fired wildly with its plasma rifle, hitting the rock next to me. A fifth burst was what it took to put it down, hitting it in the chins and neck. The other nine heat signatures were obviously not amused.
"Shoot the fuckers damn it!" I ordered as I stood up and ran for the nearest piece of cover that I could find.
Plasma rounds did their best to hit me as I sprinted along the edge of the plateau. My goal was a watchtower planted just on the edge. Literally, just on the edge. I jumped at it, my feet leaving the ground, nothing in between me and the ground a hundred meters below but thin, nigh-un-breathable air. The low gravity almost made me overshoot my target, I managed to reach out a hand and hold on to a ladder, slamming hard into the tower itself before hanging down, almost dislocating my shoulder in the process.
It was a curious situation I found myself in, I was hanging down a literal cliff, a very old tower protecting me from nine highly-trained elites all out to kill me. It might've been a curious situation, but it was one that I had lived through more than one time. And yet I had never had a single job interview other than filling up a sheet so that I could join the ODSTs. Life's funny like that.
"Suppressive fire!" Pavel ordered. "Grass, there's two on your right!"
I heard bursts of gunfire intermingled with plasma and needle rifles. I used all my strength to pull myself up and reach to the next ladder step with my other arm. At this point I would take Nezarian's thirty rangers, well-rested and fresh.
Well, maybe not.
I swung sideways and placed my foot on the metal wall of the watchtower. From there it was easy, I started climbing up as fast as possible. About three-quarters of the way up I was stopped abruptly. Three needle rifle rounds hit the wall just above the next handhold, discouraging me from grabbing it and making me loose balance. I let go of both hands and struggled not to fall backwards. I spun my arms as fast as possible, and bent my upper body forward.
I succeeded, but barely.
I did my best to ignore the needles jamming themselves all around me, but always missing me by inches.
"I don't see them!" Grass yelled frantically.
"That's kind of the point," Snark replied. It was good to see that at least some of him was still there after 'Crow's death.
I slid behind the rail as soon as I climbed all the way up, breathing hard, sweat already starting to wet my undersuit in my armpits and lower back. I drove away the feeling of having just been on the edge of death and moved towards the other side of the watchtower. I immediately spotted the points of origin of the various plasma weapons that were pummeling my squad. The elites hadn't bothered checking that I was dead and had moved to a position that was easily flanked.
In fact, I was already on their flank.
My finger hovered over the trigger for a few moments before I changed my mind. I reached for one of the several grenades strapped to my armor and pushed down the button on the top after removing the safety cap.
"Catch!" I yelled loudly, both drawing their attention and coming off as a badass.
The grenade hit the metal walkway that the elites were on with a loud clanking noise. A half a second later it detonated violently, draining the shields of three of the aliens and killing one outright. Three shots later I had racked up my kill count to five. The rest of the elites hopped over the waist-high walls to avoid my fire.
Parenthesis. Think about it, what's deadlier, a highly effective, trained killer with a high-powered weapon? Or six of them?
Just making sure we're on the same page here.
"Clear," Pavel called out. "Looks like we got them all."
"Angel, out a round in their skulls, make sure. Confiscate their weapons and grenades, store them somewhere safe and within reach. Snark, snipe an elite or two as payback. Everyone else, I want you awake and sharp. Grass, back to the cannon."
Everyone nodded and started heading off in different directions.
"Pavel, wait up," I ordered.
By the time I climbed back down the watchtower he was waiting for me at the bottom of the ladder. I gestured for him to follow me and headed towards the four elites that I had killed from the tower. The one that the grenade had killed was a bloody mess, its legs were blown off and its stomach was a gory mess. An unsuitable candidate for the task that I had in mind. I made sure that Angel had already relieved this one of its valuables before pulling it up and slinging a hand over my shoulder.
"Here, help me up."
Pavel shrugged and slung the other arm of the dead elite over his shoulders. We dragged it towards the edge of the plateau and put it down. The back of my helmet was stained with purplish blood from the alien. At least it wasn't mine.
We repeated the process two more times before I ordered Angel and Caboose to join us. After five minutes of dragging and wrestling with corpses we had nine elites piled up on top of one another right before the edge of our little fortress. We were facing the largest concentration of Covenant troops.
Three shots rang out and I looked at Snark, his rifle was smoking slightly and I had absolute confidence that he had killed an elite, just like I had ordered him to do.
"Major," Snark informed us. "Saved the video, it was a pretty nice shot."
"You'll show us later," Bee said dismissively. "But good job regardless."
I stood up right on the edge of the plateau, my eyes scanning the ground in front of me for enemies. The shiny deployable covers gave away the covvies' positions. The two Shadows weren't easily spotted, but two unnatural-looking bumps in the mostly flat surface were a giveaway.
Another shot rang out.
"Jackal sniper," Snark announced again. "You're welcome."
"Thanks," I nodded. "That was kinda part of the plan."
"And the rest of the plan?" Pavel asked.
"Here, help me pull him up," I told him.
Then both of us pulled the elite up, its knees were bent backwards at an unnatural angle (for a Sangheili at least) I reached for the knife in the small of my back and drew the weapon. I used it to pry open the elite's helmet. I grabbed the armor piece in question and let it fall to the ground, where it rolled down to the edge of the cliff and fell all the way down.
"Are they looking?" I asked Snark.
"Oh, you bet they are. All of 'em."
"Good."
I put the elite down gently, having Pavel hold its shoulder so that it wouldn't slump over. The elite stood there, sort of kneeling, sort of not. I walked from one side to the other of the elite and finally placed myself behind it, taking off my helmet and placing it under my arm. Pavel smirked and rolled his shoulders before letting go of the elite. I kicked the alien in between the shoulder plates, having it fall off the cliff and fly straight for the ground. Even the lesser gravity had its organs blow up as it hit the hard rocks at the bottom.
I smiled for all the aliens to see before turning around and reaching for the next dead elite.
"It usually works better with live ones," Pavel said off-handedly, taking the dead weight (ha, see what I did there) of the elite while I pried off its helmet. I was about to push it off when Caboose stopped me.
"What?"
"Wait."
The man grabbed my knife and used it to pull the elite's armor off from its chest, revealing a brown-gray skin. He stick the knife on the edge of the elite's torso before pulling it across to the other side with some effort. The alien's insides spilled out in a gory mess, blood flowing from its stomach and wetting the floor before dripping all the way down to the bottom of the cliff. I smiled at the act and nodded at Caboose before another shot rang out.
"Minor, you pissed it off Sarge," Snark said. "Exchanged words with a zealot."
I raised my eyebrows at the word zealot but said nothing, instead simply kicking the elite down the cliff, making it join the corpse already below.
"Is this really necessary?" Angel asked calmly.
"Show of force," Grass replied with an equal tone. "Scare the little ones and give the big ones second thoughts. Piss them off, make them fight angry."
"We wouldn't do this to humans."
"We would do this to Insurrectionists," Bumblebee asserted.
I could've sworn that Caboose tensed up, but then again, it was probably just my imagination.
"Maybe you're right," Pavel admitted. "But these aren't innies, don't linger on it."
I could feel the squad nodding grimly. All of them were on the edge of the plateau, our profiles no doubt were prominent to the enhanced optics of the aliens. It was the intention, we were taunting them, daring them to fire at us, we were giving the impression that we weren't concerned for our lives in the least. We were fucking with their minds.
The last body I treated with particular disrespect, shoving the knife all over the place, making a huge bloody mess of the dead elite. Its intestines spilled out along with organs that I couldn't even begin to recognize. I took the time to decapitate this one, driving my knife all the way to its spine before sawing through it quickly. I kicked the body down the cliff and then tossed the head along with it.
Another two shots rang out.
"Major this time," Snark called out. "They are pissed as hell Sarge. The zealot, on the other hand, looks pretty calm. Looks. Then again, I'm not a xenobiologist and can't read their expressions worth a damn."
"I grabbed my rifle and zoomed in on the zealot in question. It was clad in regular armor, ornamented with glyphs and signs all over. The only thing that differentiated it from a regular elite was its size and the color of its armor. The color of gold. Even from here, with the darkness encompassing everything around us, I could tell that it was that color.
I smirked on purpose and put my weapon over my shoulder before spreading both my arms and lifting my chin slightly, as if daring the elite to shoot me. No such shot came.
"It took off, went off behind one of the Shadows."
I smirked, this time it was a natural smile.
Schitzo took two steps from behind and joined me. He was wearing full Helljumper armor, it was the first time that he had manifested wearing it. He looked at me and nodded.
"Bring it on," I muttered. "We're waiting."
Thanks to Sniper Fodder for proof-reading this chapter.
Now, I know I promised more action on this chapter, but I'm doing this thing called dosing. I give you little tastes of what's to come and then suddenly blow your minds with over 10,000 words worth of epic action. It would probably work if my writing was halfway decent.
Not really much to say on this chapter. Just know that the Insurrectionist situation will be explored, expanded, and dealt with in the following couple of chapters. As for mutilating elite bodies, humans hate aliens as much as aliens hate humans. It wouldn't be considered amoral for a human to abuse an alien prisoner, in fact, it would be considered simple payment. I have a hard time believing that I wouldn't torture an elite after it had burned billions of people. Especially these guys, they've all seen the devastation that the Covenant bring and have lost someone to them.
And they're assholes.
That's it, hope you enjoyed the chapter. Stay strong.
-casquis
Hit it, write it, send it.
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