Chapter CXVII: 117
March 7, 2544 (UNSC Calendar)/
Port Zaria, Miridem, Zeta Lupus System
"We finished the fight in Miridem with his help, he finished the fight without ours."- Captain Francisco Castillo, Retired
"You'd think we'd be out of here by now," Grass mumbled.
"You're just pissed because you don't get to go on easy HK missions," Angel teased. "I mean, we've been having a blast for the past week, simply shooting everything from a high vantage point while the Army and Marines provide humanitarian aid."
I smiled. It was true, we had been having lots and lots of fun, killing stragglers and pushing back the covvies towards the ocean. Without operations base here, we had to come back after every mission, but it could've been worse, we could've been stuck in a city with whining civilians instead of a mostly-deserted one.
"Who won last time?" Pavel suddenly asked.
"Me," Bee quickly said. "By five kills."
"Just because you had the grenade launcher on the Falcon doesn't mean you earned that win," Angel replied.
"I still got it," Bee retorted happily. "That ties it up at one with Sarge, Pavel, and Caboose on top."
"You really haven't won anything?" Snark asked. "Seriously? You have the machine gun."
"I tried, but they won't let me," Angel replied, making a crying voice. "It's so hard to please them."
"Not at all," I started. "A bottle of vodka and a quick b-"
"Ok!" Pavel interrupted. "While we all know that Frank is a whore, we have other things to worry about, ain't that right?"
"Yes, of course," I said. "Bee, Angel, Caboose, command wants us one more mission. This is the big one, so don't expect a field day. I haven't gotten all the info yet, but I know that we're taking out the last of the covvies on this planet. We're leaving at midnight, so grab some zees and get ready."
"Understood," Bee nodded.
"Snark and Grass…" I said slowly. "I guess you can cheer us on after we leave."
"I think I can find a cheerleading outfit somewhere," Bumblebee murmured thoughtfully.
"I bet it will look lovely on Snark," Caboose added.
We all laughed at that. Even though we laughed, I could tell that all the male members of the squad were picturing Grass wearing a cheerleading outfit related to our respective high-schools. Personally I thought that orange and black weren't her colors, but she could certainly pull off the mini-skirt and pompons thing. Grass being Grass, she could probably pull-off a set of armor. Wait, she did. On a regular basis.
We all chatted for a little while longer before Grass and Snark returned to their quarters. Snark limped all the way back, Grass simply holding her hand out at a slightly awkward angle. I could tell that she was in better shape than he was in case of a fight, but the way things were going, they were both out of this campaign for good. Not that that's a bad thing.
"So now what Francisco?" Schitzo asked me. "What do you want to do? You know, Hardwick is still around somewhere."
I hated to agree with him, but I actually agreed with him.
"And I think I saw this memo saying that Echo was redeployed here to aid in cleanup."
Goodamit.
"Yeah," Schitzo went on. "That's a me fucking with your brain right there."
Ok, so doing the nasty with Emily having Hanna so close sounded like a pretty bad idea to me. I would be the first to admit that I was a whore, ok, the second, right after Pavel, but I was still somewhat conflicted about this.
How could I solve the problem?
Avoid it.
"We got a new mission," I announced loudly, rousing my team to attention.
"Finally," Kelly said. "I was starting to think that they'd forgotten about us."
The comment stung a little, not because she meant it or because they'd actually forget about us, but because nobody would ever know the men and women that had sacrificed themselves for them, men like Solomon and Arthur.
"What do we have?" Fred asked me.
"Search and destroy mission," I told them. "The last of the Covenant have been eradicated by spec-ops teams already, leaving only one last enemy contingent. We'll be eliminating the last of them."
"That's hardly specific," Fred noted with a raised eyebrow, the expression made him look weird in account of the scar above his right eye, but I barely noticed after all this time.
I restrained the urge to shrug. Despite having trained all my life to become detached, to keep my opinions to myself, and to be unreadable to anyone, an expression as basic as a shrug still came naturally to me. "Enemy numbers are approximately eleven thousand, mostly elites and grunts, but there are jackals and hunters present as well."
"Wait, is this a retaliation mission?" Kelly suddenly blurted. "I mean-"
"Negative."
"It just seems awfully similar to that thing back in Jericho VII."
I remembered Jericho VII. It wasn't the first glassing I witnessed, it was only the first I witnessed in full. It had been a lovely planet before the invasion, but the Covenant left nothing behind but glass and death.
"Actually, the mission is quite similar," I told her. "We'll go in hard, bait out the brunt of the enemy forces, serve as a distraction, while another team goes through the other side and leaves a HAVOK tactical nuclear weapon behind."
"Last I heard there's no other team in the sector," Fred said. "Helljumpers."
"That's correct," I confirmed.
Kelly scoffed. "Well that's going to be fun."
Honestly, I disliked Helljumpers. I didn't hate them by any means, but I'd rather work with another Spartan team or even Force Recon or Rangers before working with them. They were the best of the best right after us, but they were stuck up, self-centered, disrespectful, and worst of all, ungrateful. What made it worse was that I was personally to blame them for their hatred of us. Had we just appeared as another elite unit they'd probably have just disliked us. But those three ODSTs back in the Atlas…
Enough, back to business…
"Helljumpers or no, they're still our support and we'll work with them accordingly."
Kelly actually smiled as she stretched her neck and stood up, her Mark IV armor barely making any noise as she did. Her helmet was safely tucked under her arm, propped against her waist. "Now why would you expect anything else?"
I allowed myself a small smile at that. My expression prompted Kelly to break into a small grin before composing herself.
"Any additional intelligence?" Fred prompted.
"Of course," I replied quickly. "Command sent us topographical maps of the area and in-depth information about the enemy. They also sent us the dossier of the team we'll be working with."
Kelly wasted no time opening the files. "Reaper, I like it. Better than colors at least."
"About colors, are we still Blue Team?" Fred asked.
"Yes," I confirmed.
"They're two- three members down," Kelly went on. "Lost a man back in Lambari."
"Heard it was tough back there," Fred shrugged. "What about the other two?"
"Wounded in action, hand and leg by the looks of it. Their medic and their marksman."
"Well, hopefully they won't be needing them," Fred said. He actually meant it. Many others would've said that as a light-hearted joke, but I knew that Fred actually hoped that the ODSTs wouldn't need a marksman and especially not a medic.
"My, my, so much black ink," Kelly chuckled.
"Kelly, enough," I ordered calmly. I nodded in approval as she put down the datapad and stood at ease, her eyes looking expectantly at me. I sighed, she always was the most emotional of us, the most…human.
"The Covenant are holed up in this basin, awful position by any standards, but they have heavy turrets, here, here, and here. We'll draw their fire and take them out as our first order of business. After the turrets we draw the retaliation force in this direction, mines will be planted in advance, we turn the ridge into a killzone."
Before I could go any further Kelly interrupted with a laugh. "You almost sounded scary for a moment there John."
Fred just shook his head and rolled his eyes, but I caught a small smile on his lips before he hid it. I successfully held back my own smile before going back into the plan.
"Are you avoiding me?"
She asked it in a joking tone, but there was this edge to her voice that distinctly warned me to tread carefully or I'd find myself missing a particular appendage that I was very fond of.
"Yes," I replied simply and honestly.
"W-What?"
"I am avoiding you."
"Ha-ha, very funny," Hanna deadpanned.
I smiled, I couldn't help it, her expression was just too…cute.
"I've been looking all over for you," she admitted. "We just got redeployed here, figured I'd say hi."
"That's awfully assertive of you," I noted. "What happened to that girl who'd blush at the slightest thing and insult me for the slightest flirt."
Corpsman Lockley glanced away and blushed a heavy shade of red. "I did not insult you at the slightest flirtatious comment," she said defensively.
Well, at least she didn't try denying her easy blushing.
"Fine, if you say so."
She just coughed and brought her hand up to her face, scratching her forehead to hide away that she was redder than a tomato. "I still have some insta-noodles left," she told me. "Want some?"
"I'd be delighted," I said in a British accent. I don't know why, but for some reason doing a British accent made everything sound fun. Try it. "Shrimp and chicken?"
"I'm down to onions and carrots."
I shrugged theatrically. "Well, I guess it's better than nothing."
By this point a regular guy in a regular situation would've grabbed the girl's hand and they would both smile secretly, happy with the road that the friendship had taken. Unfortunately, this wasn't a regular situation I was in, even despite me being way better than any regular guy that you could think of, my sheer awesomeness couldn't just poof problems away. If that were truth the war would be over and I would be living in a repurposed assault carrier while banging both Hanna and Emily on a regular basis. At the same time.
Sorry. Moving on.
"How do you even keep these things with you?" I asked.
"Have you tasted the crap that they give us?"
"I live on that crap," I laughed. "They say it's healthy."
"Something that tastes that bad can't possibly be healthy."
She had a point.
I said hi to a couple of Hanna's squad/platoon mates. Some I knew from other operations where I had worked with them, others I just knew by sight, most I just said hi because it would've been pretty damn awkward just standing there with my hands down my pockets in a scavenged flannel shirt with black and white plaid pattern. Well, the shirt itself was awkward enough, but it was a pretty funny story when it came to how I got it.
"…then the elite tried firing a burst through a rack of these things," I told one corporal whose life I had saved a couple of years back. "Don't ask me why, but the round didn't punch through. This was the only one that survived."
He laughed loudly. "Ok, how did you really get it? You can't expect me to believe that the only shirt that survived was a perfect fit for you."
Smart man," I conceded.
"Hey Frank," Hanna waved me over.
"Duty calls," I told the corporal. "I'll tell you the story some other day."
Hanna had two styrofoam cups and was walking towards me. It was funny how they had set up the operations base. There was the standard large firebase set up in the most debris-free strip of land and several other tents and structures had been set up in stable points all around it. Echo company had set up a couple of long barrack tents next to their own independent war room. The rest of the firebase was held by special operations doing pretty much the same thing that Reaper was doing. The only weird thing is that they had actually granted Grass' and Snark's request to transfer here, normally they would've kept them behind enemy lines, not in an FOB.
"Got some hot water?" she asked as she handed me my food.
"I thought you were supposed to be the host," I complained. "How do you not have the most important ingredient? I mean, if you invite someone over for noodles you've got to have water, and I don't think you've got any forks or anything to eat with. What the hell kind of host are you?"
"Do you have hot water?"
"Sure, just follow me."
Last time I had lunch with Hanna we used a destroyed tabletop for a table and folding chairs for chairs. This time we used blocks of polycrete for sitting and the ground for a table. And we were even on the same planet.
"Things good on the rear?" I asked.
"Is that a double-entendre?" she returned teasingly.
I shuffled uncomfortably. "It is now."
"Smooth bro," Schitzo said, giving me a thumbs up.
"So," I said quickly. "You've been helping with relief, how are things looking? In that regard."
"Well enough I guess, they had plenty of warning with the invasion on Wolff, plus, the Colonial Administration withdrew most of the civilians into refugee camps in the outback. Casualties were light…well, considering what casualties are usually like I'd say that they got out easy. Most deaths were from people that refused to leave their homes."
"Ah, the conspiracy theorists," I chuckled.
"They've been saying that the government hid the presence of aliens for their whole lives, when the government suddenly tells them to run from the aliens they think they aren't real. Sounds reasonable."
"Some people just want something to protest against," I said matter-of-factly. "There'll always be someone complaining about something."
Hanna made an oooing noise. "Wow, that's pretty deep for you."
"Hey, I can be sensitive!" I complained. "I've got feelin-Ow!"
"Yeah, you're manly as well as sensitive," she muttered. "A real catch."
I laughed at that. "I can't believe you actually made physical contact with me. A year ago you would've been disgusted by that."
"I do feel the need to wash my hands thoroughly."
"There's water over there," I pointed at a tap.
"Water that only comes out at boiling temperature."
"Nothing kills germs like third degree burns."
"Ha-ha."
You know, this was nice, having a normal lunch with a friend. I mean, even if most of the conversation pertained to the war and most of our jokes would've seriously offended people who had lost friends and family the conversation was pretty good. I laughed at her funny comments and she struggled not to laugh with my signature deadpan sarcasm. It was fun, it was cute. I know I've said this many times before, but it felt good to do something normal. I made a living out of killing aliens and watching people die. I didn't bat an eyelash at anything but the most gruesome violence. I had executed aliens and humans alike and felt no remorse in leaving a planet to its death. This made me feel like I was still worth saving.
Halfway through my noodles I noticed that I knew nothing about Hanna's past, I mean, if I wanted something with her I might as well get started on her background.
"Think she's as good in the sack as Emily?" Schitzo asked casually.
Honestly, I doubted it, but I wasn't going to let Schitzo have the satisfaction of knowing that.
"Where are you from?" I blurted out.
"What?"
"Where are you from?" I repeated. "I mean, I know nothing about you before the Inconvenience, I'm just a little curious."
"Well, I was born on Harvest," she admitted.
Way to go, Frank.
"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean-"
"No, it's ok," she sighed. "I've dealt with it. I was only five years old when it happened, so I barely remember the evacuation or the initial skirmishes."
I was too tempted, I had to ask. "What do you remember then?"
Hanna sighed, sadness evident in her expression. "I was at school, I remember having heard on the news that there were rumors about an alien race. They were still rumors then, and nobody took them seriously. Even after first contact and the opening skirmish people weren't willing to believe that we had finally found another intelligent race. I mean, four hundred years of being alone, why should we have changed that?"
I nodded, I understood what she meant.
"Well, when things got really bad they yanked me from school. I don't remember who, but it wasn't my parents. Me and hundreds of other kids got shoved into some container and put onto a ship for evacuation."
"Your parents?" I asked tentatively.
She shook her head lightly. "My two older sisters and mom didn't evacuate as early as I did. They got to the orbital elevator and even got spots inside one of the cargo freighters." She took a long pause and steeled herself. "Three hundred and sixty freighters left the ground, all of them packed with refugees. Only two hundred and fifteen made it. That's almost sixty percent odds, over half of Utgard's population made it out safe. That's better odds than most people get, but it still wasn't good enough for my family." Hanna was visibly crying now, tears were leaving roads on her cheeks, wiping away all the dust that had landed on her face.
Hanna had always been somewhat weird, she gave the impression of being soft but you could just tell that it wasn't true. I had seen her patch up Marines under fire while barely batting an eyelash at the gunfire around her. She tended to panic a bit more when she wasn't actually helping someone, but whenever she was, I could just tell that she was a rock, nothing could faze her. If the world came to an end in front of her eyes she would be the one to cheer you on and give you hope.
This completely shattered my perception of her. Corpsman Hanna Lockley was just a human being. Same as the rest of us.
I might've not been Mr. Smooth when it came to social interactions not involving sexual encounters (yes, I just had to drop a hint that I'm great in the sack), but I knew what I had to do.
I placed my cup on the ground and stood up, walking across the space between us and sat next to her. I put my arm around her and let her press her head against my chest. I made circling motions with my hand, rubbing her back gently, trying to calm her down while she sobbed. It's exactly the same thing that my uncle had done for me when he told me about my parents. I was younger back then, I didn't know what it meant for my mother to be in a coma, but I did know what it meant for my dad to be dead. The role reversal didn't make the situation feel any better for me. It just made me feel like a jerk-ass for asking.
Hanna stopped sobbing after a while and sniffled a little bit. She let out a quick laugh, that classic laugh that you try to do to calm yourself down. You know the one, the one that never works. "You know, my dad didn't make it out. He was stuck down on Harvest."
"I'm sorry," I said, not wanting to make things worse.
"He lived through all five years of the Harvest Campaign, at first he just hid and looted food, then he met up with a group of Marines. He helped them with the city's layout, letting them know where they could hide, which areas were safer and how they could ambush enemies. He was the closest thing to an expert that they had with them."
"Sounds like he was a great man."
She actually looked up and smiled at me, the black stains on her cheeks made it look forced and fake, but I smiled back at her regardless.
"He was," she confirmed. "Best man I ever knew."
"What happened to him?" I knew the answer already, or at least I think I knew, but for some reason it made more sense to ask her now and let her push everything out sooner rather than later.
"When the campaign was over he finally snagged a ride out. You know, he never stopped writing, sending me vids and trying his best to cheer me up, telling me that we'd be together soon. The last thing he sent me was a quick vid telling me how he managed to get a ride off of the planet and would be seeing me in a couple of months." The next words she spat out almost bitterly. "I believed that he was still on his way until I got the box with the medal."
"That-that must've been terrible."
"One of the guys had known my father, he told me that he was a great man, that he had saved many lives and helped win the war. He told me that my daddy had helped Earth and its colonies, that it was a great honor to be awarded the UEG Medal of Valor. To me my daddy was just dead, and no piece of metal could bring him back."
I hugged her tighter as she started crying again. "I know how you feel," I told her.
"Do you?" she asked angrily, pushing herself away from me. "Do you really?"
"Yes," I replied calmly. "Just…just let it all out."
She started crying again, in fact, she cried so much that I could feel my chest starting to get damp even through the thick flannel shirt. I know that maybe I should've felt a little bit of satisfaction at being the guy that she trusted enough to say this to, but I really just felt bad for making her feel this bad. I just stared into nothing while Hanna shuddered and shook from her crying. I never would've expected this from her, never.
Finally she sniffled and wiped her nose with her sleeve before looking at me with a small smile. It was a sad smile, but at least it was an honest one.
"You're the first person I've ever told about this," she confided. "I've never even-" Her voice broke and she looked like she was about to cry once more.
"Hey," I stopped her. "Just breathe a little bit and eat your noodles." As I said this I grabbed a sizeable bunch of yellow noodles with my fork and shoved them into her mouth not-to-gently. She spat out before actually taking a bit and glaring at me. "Now there's the Hanna we all love," I smiled at her. "Come on, let's talk about something else."
"Where are you from?" she asked, wiping her cheeks and trying to smile.
"Earth."
She stopped and raised an eyebrow. "Really? I was under the impression that everyone from Earth was a rich kid."
"With over ten billion people? I doubt it," I replied in a friendly tone. "Still, I only lived there until I was ten."
"What happened then?" she asked, I could tell that she was eager to change the topic.
"Car accident," I told her. "My dad was killed and my mom was left in persistent vegetative state. I didn't have any immediate family other than my uncle. He was in the military; requested a transfer to Jericho VII and took me with him."
"You don't sound very broken up about it…"
I shrugged lightly. "I'm not, at least not anymore." I looked up from my so-called ramen and straight into those brown eyes of hers. "I talked about it to my uncle and eventually we both came to terms with it. It's in the past now, nothing I can do about it."
"Yes. In the past…"
"Is everything clear?"
"We went through it five times," Kelly complained. "Of course it's clear, who do you think you're dealing with?"
"I'm actually siding with Kelly on this one," Fred voiced. "We've gone through this five times already."
"Three," I corrected.
"And they said you didn't have a sense of humor…" Kelly huffed.
All three of us were walking towards the armory. The UNSC had set up a smaller base apart from the brunt of their forces. Despite our use as moral boosters we also had secrecy and ONI regulations to comply with. We had a nice little set up here; our own barracks were separate from the rest of the base. The rest of the base itself consisted of a large hangar-like temporal construction that housed several vehicles, mostly used by us, and another set of barracks which engineers and aircraft pilots slept in. The only other building was a rather large armory. Large by regular standards that is.
A few of the support personnel were out tossing around an egg-shaped football. It wasn't a typical American Football ball, and not rugby either. It was probably a local variant. With so many colonies it was pretty hard to keep track of all the local sports or variants, let alone all the dialects. Very few people could boast knowledge of the Zulu language in the central-outer colonies. Luckily enough, most people spoke English or Spanish, sometimes Hungarian, in addition to their native language, those two I was fluent with.
The men and women passing the ball stopped briefly to look at us. I knew what an imposing sight three Spartans in full armor could be, but the stares were something that I had never completely gotten used to. Halfway through to the armory the servicemen snapped out of it and kept on their game of ball. None of us three even spared them as much as a glance. Well, Fred did, he was the type of guy that wished that he could join them, even if just for a little while.
The armory door opened up to reveal as many guns as we could possibly need. There were racks of MA5s, MA37s, BR55s, DMRs, SRSs, and pretty much every other rifle that you could think of. We had M7s and M6s of most models. Rocket launchers abounded and right on the back wall we had the crown jewel, an M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle, short name M6 G/GNR, better known as the Spartan Rifle.
"Pack up on hard-hitting weapons," I ordered. "Fred, do you want the Spartan Rifle?"
"Sure, you and Kelly take the M41s."
I nodded. "Sounds good."
I moved up towards the weapon racks and grabbed an MA5B, the weapon felt comfortable in my hands, familiar. The rifle went over my shoulder as usual. I put it back down and placed it on one of the tables, there I put several boxes of ammunition and a bunch of magazines for the weapon. A sidearm was a default, so I grabbed an M6G pistol, after confirming that the magazine was full I shoved it down a holster across my back. I was going to be taking the assault rifle, a sidearm, and a rocket launcher, which meant that I still had a little bit of available space for something else. The M7S looked very alluring hung up on the wall like that. I grabbed a pair of them and attached them to my upper legs. The weapons made a clicking noise as they attacked themselves to the magnetic clamps on my armor.
I had plenty of ammunition for my MA5 and two spare mags for my M7s. Now I had to figure out where to strap on the additional missiles. I could slap on two boxes on my lower back directly below my assault rifle. I could carry one more box of missiles in one hand and perhaps strap another somewhere onto my chest.
"Wow Fred, just grab the biggest one you can find," Kelly burst out. I never quite understood her jokes, but for some reason her tone made them funny.
She had called out Fred on taking his time in picking his combat knife. Fred was the resident knife-nut. He had an uncanny ability to carve through elites and brutes alike with near impunity, shield or not. He was currently facing the dilemma of which knife in particular he should pick. You had the standard combat knife, the serrated edge, the double-edged, the balanced for throwing, the new machete, and so on.
"I feel like I'm in heaven," Fred replied flatly. He looked at the large collection of knives and grabbed two, the standard version and the one with a serrated edge. He balanced both of them and spun them a couple of times before opting to take the one with the serrated edge. "I can just see the elite intestines getting stuck on the teeth," he said with a decidedly macabre tone.
"And what about you John?" Kelly asked me. "Can you carry anything else?"
"No," I replied, "hence the box of rockets in one hand."
"You got me on that one," she said in defeat.
Got her on what? It doesn't matter.
Fred had grabbed a BR55 with plenty of ammunition to go around. In addition to that he had packed a single SMG and a pistol for a sidearm. The Spartan Rifle was strapped across his back. He could've taken a second set of batteries, but the thing was heavy and he probably wouldn't need them if everything went according to plan. Kelly had packed lightly when compared to both of us, she had her own rocket launcher and an MA5B just like my own, she grabbed two M6 pistols for sidearms just in case and strapped them on her waist.
"Ready?" I asked them.
Fred nodded and Kelly did the same. "As ready as I'll ever be," she boasted.
The three of us headed towards the Hangar, where a Falcon gunship was already doing its pre-flight check. I had never been a fan of the rotor craft, but it was sturdy and reliable and could get the work done. I guess it would have to do.
Well that went well.
"Hey, you got her to talk about a traumatic experience from the past, that's a good thing."
Thanks bud.
"No problem."
"Oh, him you talk to!" Schitzo complained. "I liked it better when it was just the two of us."
Scarecrow smirked slightly before disappearing, no poof, no flash, just gone. Schitzo groaned in annoyance before waiting for my blink and doing the same thing. I swear to god, my mind is so fucked up.
The sun was beginning to set over the horizon, the orange light gave the ruins of Port Zaria a beautiful look, even despite the sheer amount of chaos and destruction. The skeletons of buildings let light pass through their interiors while standing as dark silhouettes against the background. It was really something.
"Beautiful sunset, huh?" Caboose said, he was standing behind me. I hadn't heard him approach me.
"Yeah," I admitted.
"Wait until you see one in a binary star system," he said. "Now that's something worth seeing."
I nodded to myself but said nothing. The sun slowly made its way down the horizon until it disappeared completely, only leaving rays of light illuminating one side of the dust-covered sky. After sitting there for a while I stood up and realized that Caboose had disappeared just as silently as he had arrived. I shrugged to myself and walked back towards my quarters, I might get some nap time.
"Frank! I've been looking for you."
"Hey Em," I said without much feeling.
"What's wrong?" Hardwick asked.
"Nothing, I'm just really tired and I'm going out on a mission at midnight."
Hardwick let her hand trace the outline of my jaw before cupping my cheek softly. "I know what I can do to cheer you up," she said seductively.
I smiled, I couldn't help it. "I'm sorry, I really need to catch some sleep, rain check?"
"Oh, ok." While she didn't exactly seem disappointed, she did have a mild look of surprise on her face. I wasn't famous around the fleet for turning down sex, just ask anyone. "I guess it'll be another time."
"Another time," I confirmed.
"Ok, good luck Frank, stay safe." With that Emily planted a small kiss on my cheek before turning around and walking away. Actually, that was quite tame by her standards.
What the fuck did I just do?
While still trying to go over the fact that I had just turned down sex I walked inside our barracks. The tent was empty at the time, so I didn't have to engage in pointless conversation with any of my squad mates. I set up my alarm to wake me up after an hour and a half and let myself fall into the sweet comfort of a hard mattress and scratchy sheets. For some reason the bed seemed to be awfully comfortable this time.
"Let us down here," I ordered. "We'll walk the rest of the way."
"That's two miles sir," the pilot informed me, confused.
"I am aware of that, soldier," Kelly said in a voice that came dangerously close to threatening.
"Aye, aye, right away then."
The Falcon stopped moving forward and hovered for a second before lightly setting down. We had been flying close to the ground to avoid any sort of radar that the Covenant might still have active, so it just took a moment for the ship to touch down. As soon as the Falcon did that we all jumped down.
"Should we take one of the machine guns?" Kelly asked.
I nodded. "Yes, Blue-Three, you carry the weapon, Blue-Two, you haul the ammunition."
They winked their acknowledgement lights at me. We were now officially in combat mode.
The annoying noises that my alarm clock made sure woke me up. The annoying noise rang all around the room, bouncing off the walls and into my ears. I jerked slightly at being woken up so suddenly, but I was immediately alert. I stood up from my bed and groaned at the obligatory headache and dizziness. The first thing I did was make me some coffee, while the machine poured the liquid in a cup I popped a couple of headache pills. The coffee didn't exactly snap me back to the world of the living, but it helped a little bit.
The rest of my squad was also awake now, all of them had done some groaning and light complaining but were now up. All save for Grass and Snark, that is. Those two simply complained about the rest of us being loud and placed their pillows over their heads. The rest of us simply ignored them but were actually polite and didn't make as much noise as we could've.
"Everyone ready?" I asked after everyone had dressed up in their fatigues and put on a t-shirt.
"We're good to go," Pavel said.
"Good luck," Snark mumbled from underneath his pillow.
We chuckled at that and left the barracks.
Inside the armory we all dressed a lot more quickly than we usually did since we didn't have to turn around to see Grass wiggle into her undersuit. I put on my own undersuit and armor on before reaching for my battle rifle. I suddenly realized that we hadn't been given our mission parameters.
"Sidearms only," I said, "Let's head to the debriefing room."
The debriefing room, more commonly known as the war room, the armory, and the vehicle depot were all close to one another, it was usually that way to facilitate movement within the base. You'd be briefed on your mission before heading straight for the armory and then taking a short walk towards the vehicle depot, where you would grab a ride. It was all just a matter of convenience.
"Ah, Gunnery Sergeant, you're early."
"Well, you know what they say," I replied. The colonel in charge of this firebase was a no-nonsense kind of man. He was the head of the Marine Regiment on this planet. It was an oversized regiment, sporting a little bit over four thousand men. Normally a regiment would be composed of two or three battalions, each sporting around eight hundred marines each. This regiment in particular consisted of four battalions of a thousand men each. I guess that people in Miridem were deeply patriotic or the job offers weren't that tempting. The colonel in charge of this unit was born, raised, and trained on Reach. Rumor had it that he had left the big planet after a botched marriage, her fault if rumors were to be believed. Still, I hardly believe that it mattered to the mission or this tale.
"At ease Gunnery Sergeant," he said dismissively. "I assume that you have no information on the mission."
"Negative, sir."
"Very well, I'll get to it. There is only one large enemy group left on this planet, it's twice the size of my own regiment, but it's deeply entrenched in a small basin."
"Basin?" Angel chortled. "Why don't we just nuke them again? Sir."
"As much as I would like that, we have intel that indicates powerful AA emplacements as well as pinpoint lasers. We cannot target them accurately or reliably. In addition to that, the invasion has left us without any ground-to-ground nuclear weapons and the Navy prefers that we attempt a ground mission before wasting one of their precious Shiva missiles on a measly force such as this one we're facing. Corporal."
"Of course, sir, sorry sir."
The colonel eyed Angel dangerously before returning his attention towards me. "The mission is simple, you are dropped in here," as he said that a map of the area we'd be working on appeared. I never did understand why they didn't just pop up the maps before…dramatic effect, perhaps? "Your team will be dropped in by Pelican, you'll be dropped one mile off from the meeting point."
"Meeting point?"
"Yes, you'll be working in conjunction with Blue Team."
I didn't like the way things were going. "And who exactly is Blue Team?"
"Rangers, Airborne, Helljumpers?" Pavel suggested.
"Spartans," the colonel admitted. I must've made a face at that, because immediately after he said it he glared at me. "Will that be a problem?"
"No, sir," I replied. "Of course not."
"Good, your team has done fine work, I know you don't want your reputation tarnished because of a matter of pride."
Oh, it's much more than pride…
"The Spartans will fill you in on the mission itself, they are already en route to the location. The Spartans will do some scouting and then give you the battle plan. All you need to know right now is that they'll make a diversion while you and your team plant a HAVOK nuclear device in the midst of the enemy camp."
I took in the information and managed to keep a neutral expression. "What's the yield on the weapon, sir? Standard?"
"Affirmative."
"Detonation method?"
"Timer."
This time I groaned, I couldn't help it.
"I'm sorry Gunnery Sergeant," the colonel said sincerely, "but they are jamming our frequencies and we cannot trust remote detonation to be reliable."
"Of course," I said, not really meaning it. "How much time do we have?"
"Half an hour."
I nodded. "Will that be all, Colonel?"
"Yes, dismissed."
There was an audible clack as my team clicked their heels together and saluted the man sharply. The colonel saluted us back and broke off the salute first. As soon as his hand was down we did the same thing and left the war room. We walked out of the main building in silence until Bumblebee stopped.
"Spartans, does he really expect us to work with them?"
"Yeah Sarge," Angel agreed, "can't we request another team?"
"No," Pavel said, putting his penny in, "they are already in the air, so we can't do that."
"Damn."
None of us wanted to back down, while it was technically true that we could deny the mission on certain grounds, but no self-respecting squad would refuse a mission on any grounds.
"Enough," I interrupted. "I don't like this and you don't have to like it either. We will climb on that Pelican and we will put that bomb where we're supposed to, Spartans or not."
"Yessir," Bumblebee grumbled.
"Good, now arm up, I don't want you," I pointed at Pavel, "or you taking M247s." I turned to face Bee. "No need for rocket launchers, grab a regular assault rifle. I want everyone packing a suppressed M7 as well as ammunition. If we're going in stealthy at least we ought to be quiet." I nodded when they all confirmed my orders. "All right, hurry up, we wouldn't want to give off a bad impression now would we?"
Even Pavel had to laugh at that one.
"The ODSTs are inbound," Blue-Two informed me.
I sighed quietly enough that my helmet's audio transceivers wouldn't pick it up. I stood up and moved up towards the designated landing point. It only took two minutes for the Pelican craft to appear on the edge of my HUD. I immediately zoomed in on it with my visor and confirmed that it was indeed the craft that we had been told would be sent. The dropship slowed down considerably before finally hovering one meter above ground. Three Helljumpers in full armor dropped first and eyed me cautiously before turning around. A miniature eight-track drone, the kind that were usually used to bring in medical supplies or ammunition descended from the Pelican's cargo bay with two other Helljumpers flanking it.
The one in charge of the group, Gunnery Sergeant Francisco Castillo approached me.
Why does that name seem familiar?
The man depolarized his helmet, revealing a smirking face. He eyed me up and down before doing the same thing for Blue-Two, and Blue-Three. His cocky smirk turned into a grin before he actually spoke.
"Well I'll be damned, small galaxy."
The mule-type UGCV that we'd been issued to carry the nuclear weapon clambered down the cargo bay and onto the ground. It seemed like it would tip over, but its wheels shifted position and spun until it landed down safely. The thing also had thrusters in case it really got stuck, but I doubted we would need those. I jumped behind the drone with Pavel on the opposite side.
Well, no use skirting around the issue…
I approached the Spartan with the rank of Master Chief Petty Officer, the other two were both Petty Officers First Class. Damn, their leader was two paygrades above mine, no way I could dispute leadership on this one. As I approached the olive-drab armored behemoth I suddenly realized that his armor seemed a little bit familiar. I stopped a step away from him, it was unmistakably a him, and eyed him carefully after depolarizing my helmet visor. I immediately spotted what I was looking for. I looked at the two other Spartans, one with a combat knife strapped across his chest in the rather unconventional form of Army Airborne and another with the unmistakable figure of a woman.
I looked back to the Spartan ranked as MCPO. The numbers were on his chest, white as snow, unmistakably a recent paint job.
One-one-seven
"Well I'll be damned, small galaxy," I said finally.
The Pelican had already left, and as the noise of its engines died off there was a deadly silence settled into the area.
The first person to speak was the female Spartan, Blue-Three, the one with a rabbit painted on her chest armor. "You're that ODST from…what was it?"
"Marcia," Pavel finished for her.
"Yes," she nodded. "You never thanked us for rescuing us."
I smiled. "That's right, I didn't."
The Spartan in front of me moved slightly. I would've been puzzled had I been on any other unit that wasn't the Helljumpers. I knew that he was using natural body language when speaking to another person. The fact that I couldn't hear what he was saying meant that he was probably telling Rabbit to shut the hell up.
"So, what's the plan Chief?" I asked the leader.
The Spartan seemed to snap its attention back to me before he gave me the specs on the mission. "There are heavy plasma turrets all around the perimeter, we'll take them all out before starting our main attack here. As soon as we cause enough mayhem I will give your team a signal to go in."
"The covvies have jammers up, radio transmissions won't go through."
"You'll know the signal when you see it," Blue-Three said.
"No, I want to know what it is, no vagueness on these things."
"Of course," Blue-One nodded. "We'll launch a flare to alert you, short duration, low brightness, so be ready."
I nodded. "How exactly will you take out those heavy turrets?" I asked. "They can take some damage."
"Rockets to the barrel," Bee said, "it only takes one that way."
"Exactly," Blue-Three said. She was the talkative one of this group it seemed.
"Once we give you the signal you are free to go in, we'll sustain our attack for thirty minutes after we give the signal, that should be enough for you to plant the bomb. We evacuate at Rally Point Alpha and your team will evacuate at…"
"Rally Point Foxtrot," I replied after examining the map. "Ok, we're ready when you are."
"Blue Team, move out."
The three Spartans grabbed their ammunition and weapons before heading towards the ridge on top of the basin. The heavy turrets were positioned a quarter of the way down the slope, that way they had a clear view of the top of the ridge and could fire at anything that came up. It was a classic reverse slope defense. As soon as something popped over the top you shot the living hell out of it. The only downside to it was that the enemy had higher ground for the entire duration of the battle, diminishing your cover.
The Spartans went to the right while we headed to the left. There was a stretch of land relatively flat that would work to keep our drone quiet. I climbed up to the top of the ridge while my team positioned themselves in a position ready to go. Blue Team was only a hundred yards away from our position, directly in front of the closest turret. The huge purple gun stood immobile, ever watchful of the space in front of it. I shouldered my battle rifle and zoomed in on the Spartans. I positioned my crosshairs on Chief's head and then switched them to Two, examining the Spartan Laser on his back. They conferred amongst themselves before Three positioned herself on the edge of cover after handing her Spanker to Two.
Suddenly she blurred from sight as she emerged from cover in a full sprint. I had literally never seen anyone move that fast. Well, actually, I had seen her move that fast once before, but it doesn't count.
The turret immediately came to life, bursts of plasma firing at her. Every burst seemed to be just a little too slow, hitting the space where she had been a fraction of a second earlier. About two seconds into the sprint Chief popped from cover and fired a single rocket at the turret. The missile flew in a straight line and collided with the tip of the weapon's barrel. The explosion shredded the thing beyond functioning. When the turret fired again the charge detonated inside the turret, provoking a chain reaction that blew up the heavy turret.
"Say what you will about them, they sure got class," Pavel muttered.
"You can hardly say that a sledgehammer's got class," I replied dismissively.
Personally, I would've had one of my squad members wave at the turret from one direction to draw its attention while the Bumblebee hit it from the opposite side, no need for flashy theatrics.
The Spartans repeated the process with the next two turrets, by the time they reached the fourth heavy turret they had to lay out covering fire, Covenant infantry had reacted and were sending large squads of troops to try and stop the Spartans. The whole camp had lit up. From my position I could tell that the enemy was heading away from our position and towards the Spartans. It took the super soldiers about five minutes to take out six heavy turrets. They were now directly across our position.
I waited for some time, screwing on a silencer onto my BR55. A red line flashed from Blue Team's position, hitting one of the turrets that they hadn't destroyed. Another similar shot hit another one of the turrets, leaving only two in working order.
"Was that the signal?" Angel asked.
"Negative," Caboose said.
"Your with us," Bumblebee told him. "No need to use fancy jargon."
Caboose didn't say anything, but he certainly shot a glare at the Scottish man.
"There," I said, "let's go. If we manage it in less than five minutes I'm buying you all a bottle of Alt Burgundy."
"Don't make promises you can't keep Frank," Pavel warned.
"Fine, I'll give you each a glass from my own stash," I said.
"You have Alt Burgundy?" Angel asked me. "How did you get your hands on some?"
"I lived in Jericho VII my whole life," I replied simply. "I had some cases with me when I shipped out for basic."
"Oh, sorry about your home Sarge," Angel apologized.
"Doesn't matter," I told him truthfully. "It's in the past."
"Where you there when it happened?" he went on.
"We both were," Pavel replied.
I could see something clicking in Angel's brain. "Drop Jet Platoon...damn Pavel, I didn't know about that."
Pavel shrugged that exaggerated shrug of his. "Don't worry about it."
"Look," Bumblebee said, "I don't mean to interrupt…"
"Got it, let's get moving."
We climbed down the slope with our weapons raised. All attention was directed away from us and at the Spartans, so we were in the clear. Another Spartan laser shot hit something and suddenly we had radio contact with Blue Team.
"Reaper, do you copy?"
"We copy," I replied, annoyed. "What's up?"
"Nothing, just testing connection, you on the move?"
"Well, you did give the signal."
"Understood, Blue-One out."
Ok, tell me if that wasn't annoying on his part.
"Tower, dead ahead. One jackal."
I took a knee and propped my rifle on the drone before taking a shot at the jackal. The silencer dulled the noise of the rifle, making it several times quieter than it would've been otherwise. The shot hit the jackal's neck, severing its arteries and trachea. The jackal collapsed in a heap and we resumed moving, eyes scanning every direction for enemies.
"Enemy patrol," I warned. "Three grunts and one jackal, shield."
"I'll close in on them," Caboose volunteered. I nodded and waited for Caboose to go around their field of vision and position himself twenty meters away from them. "Ready."
I squeezed off one shot at the jackal, hitting it in the neck once again. I immediately aimed at the grunts, but they were all dead from short bursts from Caboose's silence submachine gun. He waited for us to get near him and we resumed our march. We only had to take out one small patrol before reaching our destination.
We weren't in the center of the enemy camp, the bomb was a thirty megaton monster, big enough to wipe out half a city of the map. This was a clean version of the HAVOK, meaning that it had almost no radioactive fallout as a side effect. The blast and heat wave would be enough to wipe out the enemy and we would have us a nice and clean planet that we could live on afterwards.
"Here's good," I ordered. I moved towards the drone and tapped a few commands. It immediately opened itself up and revealed a black sphere with a single slot to insert the detonation key. I pulled out the key and took a deep breath before sliding it in. The key slid in and absolutely nothing happened.
"Thirty minutes," I said as a timer appeared on the top of my HUD. "Blue-One, bomb is armed and ready, declaring Code Bandersnatch."
"Understood. We're going to need a small distraction to draw some attention away from us, we don't want any enemy soldiers escaping the blast radius while chasing after us."
"Understood," I said while rolling my eyes. I cut the conversation and turned to Angel. "You've got explosives?"
"Yes, but nothing too fancy, a couple of blocks of C-12 and some C-10."
"Good, you and Caboose head out and mine some important things. If you see plasma batteries then all the better. I want you back here in three."
"Understood."
The two of them took off while I closed the UGCV, hiding the nuclear weapon once more. I tapped some other commands and the small eight-track shimmered and faded into the background. Its camouflage was similar to that on the Spartan-IIIs armor, fading from sight but not completely disappearing. It was still better than a camouflaged elite though.
"Frank, we've got company."
I turned around and saw a group of three elite coming at us. All of them clad in simple blue armor. They looked annoyed, probably wondering why the patrol that we had taken out hadn't come in.
"Shit," I said. "Soften them up with automatic fire," I ordered. "Left to right, I'll finish them off."
"All right."
"Go."
Pavel and Bumblebee each fired a long burst into the elite on the left. The silenced rounds were clearly audible but only if you were within thirty meters of the weapon. Even then you'd have a hard time identifying them as gunfire. The elite recoiled from the impact as its shields flared and spiked. I fired a burst at its chest, finishing off its shields and then one at its head, killing it. We repeated the process with the other two elites, killing them before they could fire a single shot.
"Sarge, we heard gunfire, everything fine?"
"Yes," I replied. "Nothing to worry about. Still, you'd better hurry, we might be getting some more company."
A minute later Angel and Caboose emerged from behind an empty covvie building and gave us a thumbs up.
"Ok, we're moving out," I said.
We climbed all the way to the top of the slope with relatively little trouble. Angel detonated the charges. For only having 'few' explosives he managed a masterful explosion, combining blue and orange and black and red in three different explosions.
"Thanks Reaper."
"I aim to please," I replied gruffly. For once I didn't mean it. I turned around. "Let's move out, evac point is half a click away, let's leave while we still can."
After telling the Spartans that we were heading out (we didn't have to like them, but they were still allies), we did exactly that. A Pelican was already waiting for us, there was a squad of marines set up and aiming in our direction. They were there for backup, in case we arrived with a whole bunch of covvies on our asses, screaming for blood and fire.
"Wounded?" the squad leader asked me.
"Negative corporal" I replied. "We're good to go, we have nineteen minutes until the device detonates."
That's plenty of time," he replied. "Squad, pack up, we're leaving."
I climbed inside the Pelican and sat down, taking off my helmet and putting it underneath my seat.
"That went well," Pavel noted.
"Without a hitch," Caboose added. "Not how our missions usually go."
I agreed with them. Textbook example of an infiltration mission. If we were lucky we might even get our names in future strategy books. Of course, we would be overshadowed by the goddamned Spartans. I sighed in resignation and leaned backwards, resting my head against the hard walls of the Pelican's cargo bay. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get those three numbers out of my head.
One-one-seven.
Thanks to Sniper Fodder for proof-reading this chapter and also giving some valuable insight.
Well, the MC is such a buzz-kill, Frank was all happy and giddy because he finally gets a little bit of progress with a romantic interest and MC just has to drag him to a mission with him and his robotic buddies.
Relax, I know that was a terrible joke. Well, there it is, Chapter 117. Uno-uno-siete. Pretty good, huh? There was a little "leave", a little "romance", a little "comedy", and a little "action". Both stealth and more direct.
Don't ask why I quoted everything.
Well then, I thought about writing a sizable portion narrating the events on the other side of the enemy encampment from John's POV. It would've made for great epicosity, but since the Master Chief is whoever has the controller on their hands, there is no way that I could give you a depiction of him that would be accurate to you. It wouldn't be as if you were reading about the John-117 that you all love and cherish so much. That's the main reason why I didn't expand on this chapter, that and I didn't want to go too much out of character with John. besides, a little bit of mystery is always good. At least that's what my older cousins recommend for the art of seduction. Moving on, the behavior of your favorite Helljumpers was different than expected, wasn't it? They were almost...mature and professional. *gasp!* Well, more like they weren't condescending assholes. Frank has certainly grown since he first met our favorite super-human.
As for the Hanna thing. She's certainly the right age for all the events that transpired in Harvest. Of course she is, I made the character. Everything described by her is true and doesn't deviate from canon. Well, now that I've justified myself I'll go on and say that I personally found that bit about her talking about her past a nice bit of character development, it explains why she's so socially awkward in some ways, so closed in to people she doesn't trust. Frank just thinks that it means that she's considering letting him bone her.
Yup.
That's all I've got to say. I hope that this chapter measured up to your expectations and that it contained enough Master Chief to make you squee with delight.
Stay Strong.
-casquis
PS: What's your opinion on the new fanfic summary? Better or worse?