Chapter CXXV: Welcome To Asilon
September 17, 2544 (UNSC Calendar)/
Catamaran Peninsula, Asilon, Omicron Ebur System
"Welcome to Asilon."- Lieutenant General Jon Yule
"Welcome to Asilon."
"Thank you, sir," I replied in kind. I had barely gotten off of the Pelican when the General in charge of UNSC forces groundside came up to my squad and me. "Um, I got snippets of information, but didn't really get what happened on the planet…"
The general, Brigadier General Yule, was an older man. He looked very much like you'd imagine a general to look like, he was rather tall, had broad shoulders and a face that reminded me of one of my trainers back on Mars, and in turn, bulldogs. He was wearing the standard Marine fatigues with only a flak vest for cover. He was even sporting the short-sleeved shirt, allowing the world, what little was left of it, to see that he could still dish out as good as he got.
"To make the story short Gunny, the Covenant came in large numbers, knocked down all of our relays before we could react and then started the invasion proper. They immediately set up jamming facilities at key points on the planet. Our ground-to-space weapons shot down some of them spaceships, our nukes did the rest."
"So you took out all the ships?"
"That's right," Yule confirmed. I could see that he smiled despite himself.
"That's…impressive," Grass noted. "How many ships?"
"Twelve," Yule said, turning around and gesturing for us to follow him. Bee patted the Pelican as he hopped off, giving the pilot the signal to lift off. "We had two Battle Stars, obsolete as canned food, but they dished out some dirt. A cargo freighter was used as a battering ram, nuclear version."
I chuckled at that.
"Then it became hell, we did our best to hide our WMDs, using them when the covvies started glassing," Yule went on. "They did a damn thorough job too…over ninety percent of the population clusters were glassed. Most of them still had people inside."
"Shit, I'm sorry to hear that, sir."
He sighed. "Nothing that can be done about it. It's been two months of hell."
"Two months!" Snark exclaimed. "You've lasted two months?!"
"It hasn't been easy, as I said, we've lost over eighty percent of our people, the Army and my Marines got lucky though, most of the planets military assets managed to avoid the destruction. And that brings us here."
I looked around, it wasn't exactly a nice firebase, a fancy hotel had been commandeered by the Marines and Army blokes from Asilon, and was being used as a command post. The hotel was built into the side of a mountain range, not particularly tall, especially when you put them next to Reach's massive rock formations, but still rather impressive at, according to my helmet, five thousand meters over sea level. The windows overlooked plains that reached as far as the eye could see.
"Once they lost their ships the Covenant were at a disadvantage, we drove them back from most of our cities, the remnant of their forces occupy the peninsula."
"What's the estimate on their numbers?" Caboose asked. "Sir."
"Most of our satellites were shot down, we don't have any reliable orbital imagery, all of our recon is done with high altitude craft and high-res stills. The fog doesn't help matters much."
"Won't it clear up soon?" I asked, overlooking the vast white blanket that covered everything on the plains. I could spot a couple of hilltops and the skeleton of a building in the distance, but nothing else.
"Not on this planet son," Yule muttered with more than a little bit of annoyance in his tone. "Asilon has this weird thing where fog banks just don't go away, something related to humidity and pressure. It can rain for months at a time too."
"Is the rain a major disadvantage here?" I asked.
"Actually, it helps us more than it does them," the general admitted. "Or at least it doesn't damage us much."
A young lieutenant appeared from a side door and saluted the general, shooting us a quick glance before returning her attention to Yule. "Sir, you are needed in the war room, the captain of the Inconvenience is online."
"Good," he coughed out. "Please explain the situation down on the…front to Reaper Squad, send them in as soon as you're done."
"Yessir."
"And Lieutenant?"
"Yes?"
"Make it brief."
"Of course General."
Yule looked at us and gave us a parting nod before disappearing through the door that the lieutenant had jumped through. She looked to be around her early twenties, had a professional look to her, crew cut and all.
"I'll make it brief," she started. "Calling the…thing down there a front is an insult to military theory. We have definitive control of Hills 1 through 4," as she said that she pointed at the hilltops. "The Covenant have control of 5, 6, 7, 12, 17, and 21. There is only one major settlement in the peninsula, it is currently the enemy base of operations. In addition to Catamaran City, we have two small villages and various scattered smaller settlements."
"What's wrong with calling the 'thing' a front?"
"There is none. Sure, there's a point where land becomes safer for us, but if I drew the frontlines it would look like a seismograph during the mother of all earthquakes."
"Seismographs are obsolete," Grass muttered under her breath. It was quiet enough that the lieutenant didn't hear it, but I certainly did.
"We have units scattered all over the peninsula, most of them have dug in and fortified themselves, pushing back assaults until the main assault force reaches them."
"Trench warfare." Angel sounded like he already knew the answer and didn't want to hear it. It was the only thing that would work in this situation, good old fashioned trench warfare. But with aliens and plasma instead of Krauts and Frogs.
"Logistics is a mess, we're doing our best to organize a main push, but a stable front is needed for that, if we attack now, we could have as many as ten thousand enemy aliens behind our lines. We don't want that."
"Ok," Pavel nodded. "So, in layman's terms, this shit be fucked?"
"An accurate statement," she agreed. "You can go inside the war room now."
"Thanks El-tee," I told her once my team had walked through the door.
The war room was actually the buffet room. Without tables or buffet, regrettably. Well, there were several terminals and servers in addition to a holotable so I assume that it was an even match. The holotable was displaying a life-size hologram of Captain Brooks, he was standing at ease, hands clasped behind his back. The holotable also displayed a holographic holotube which in turn displayed a holographic Eliza. Kind of redundant if you ask me.
"Sirs," I saluted, being the last to do so.
"At ease Castillo," Brooks dismissed me.
"Good to see you alive and well Francisco," Eliza noted.
"Feeling's mutual Liz," I smiled in return. I could feel the eyes of both officers on me. That and the 'what the fuck are you doing?' look that my squad gave me collectively snapped me back to attention. Literally. I clicked my hills together and then slid my left leg to the side, clasping my hands behind my back much like Brooks was doing.
"General, pleasure making your acquaintance," Brooks started. "I just got all the information related to the enemy invasion. Two months? That's an impressive feat."
"Thank you Captain, it was a collective effort."
"Where is General Staunton?"
"Ah, he is up in one of our FOBs, I insisted that he staye back here, but he refused."
Brooks nodded. "I agree, if he's in charge of the Army he should be in a safe place."
"That's what I said, but I can respect what he's doing, he's popular with the troops, his presence boosts morale."
"Well, nothing I can do. What I can do is provide orbital support and intelligence."
"Excellent, that is what we're lacking right now."
"There is, however, a small little problem."
"Nothing is ever that simple, is it?" I smiled.
"Unfortunately, no," Brooks affirmed. "One of the cruisers that you shot down still has a working turret, we found out the hard way, shot grazed our starboard side, ripped out two of the point-defense guns and destroyed the plating on that side."
"You need a team to shut down that cannon," Yule said understandingly. "It isn't that simple on this side, I know what ship you're talking about, the remains of the cruiser serve as a major base of operations, it is fortified against air and ground assault, we'd need a massive force to succeed in that task."
I felt my lips curl upwards in that cocky smile that got me in trouble more often than not. I stopped myself and shot a quick glance to Pavel, he was trying to keep from smiling as well.
"Um, excuse me General," he interrupted politely. "I doubt that the ship is defended against a small-scale orbital assault."
Yule looked at him with a raised eyebrow before he realized what he was talking about. This time it was Yule who smiled. "You just gave me a great idea Staff."
"Do tell," Brooks pressed.
"Your men do a drop, fog should be enough visual cover for them. We can start an artillery barrage to mask the noise too. Once your men are down there they paint some targets for one of your drones or my guns."
"Sounds good," I agreed. "We can drop whenever you want us to."
"Wait," Bumblebee interrupted. "There's still the matter of extraction."
"Half of the enemy ship landed on the coast, what scarce intel we have on it shows that it is the most lightly protected section, we would've mounted an assault from the sea if we only had the necessary equipment."
"Underwater exfil?" I said to myself.
"We have all the necessary equipment," Eliza put out. "It can be remotely inserted there for your evacuation."
"Excellent," I said. "Just give the word."
Two hours later I found myself free falling to a white blanket. I don't think that our HEVs are rated for doing drops in such quick succession, but we best get moving, at least that's what General Yule said. Our pods were falling almost sideways, the Inconvenience had dropped us as close to the ship as it dared, but we still needed to use some heavy maneuvering to arrive there. The crashed battlecruiser spotted our beloved frigate and let out to quick plasma pulses. One passed about a hundred meters from my pod. The second one literally blocked my squad from view. The second beam was longer and more intense, I maneuvered my pod to avoid the deadly plasma the beam must've been less than a dozen meters away from my pod. That alone was enough to raise the temperature inside my egg by several degrees. I imagine it would've been an incredible sight, seven little pods falling at terminal velocity with a huge fucking laser in between them.
"Reaper! Report!" I yelled as soon as the pulse disappeared. At first I got static from them, the heat must've damaged the radios on the pods. Still, I did catch a couple of my men reporting in and sighed. I set myself to counting pods. I made out five before orange flashes caught my sight. The artillery men were already having a bit of fun, the Rhinos must've been using some type of HE ammunition, because the flashes were fucking huge.
"We're landing," I yelled frantically into my helmet. "Stop the guns!"
My pod stopped dead in its tracks right in front of a machine gun nest. I blasted my door open, startling a pair of grunts as several kilos of solid titanium flew over their ugly little heads. The frightened noises were the last that they made, two quick shots put them down.
"Reaper, we meet on Alpha point!" I screamed. "Setting up waypoint."
I hopped over the machine gun nest, checking for hostiles, once cleared I started getting a move on. Unfortunately, several explosions rocked me from my feet and forced me to dive to the ground. I sunk in the mud as explosions rained all around me. I am pretty sure that the artillery batteries got my message, but I sent it too late and shells took time to travel, this was probably their last barrage. I stood up quickly and sprinted to Alpha. There were several dead aliens on my way, I bypassed them all, only stopping to finish one off. Alpha was a piece of hull from the battlecruiser that had broken off. The grey armor was buried deep in the mud. Two dead grunts and a brute adorned the land around it. There was some machine gun fire coming from behind my field of vision.
"Reaper! Report!" I snapped again.
"Two good!" Pavel yelled.
"Three!"
"Shaken up but intact," Snark grunted. "On my way."
"Grass is green," Grass replied. I don't know why she felt the need to do that. "As per usual."
"Angel good."
"Eight fine," Caboose grunted.
I allowed myself a small sigh of relief, I was glad that all of them were alive.
"Anyone see any high value targets?"
"That's a negative Frank," Pavel replied. "Still it'd be good to do some cleaning on the area ahead."
"Agreed," Angel stated. "I've got a decent view of enemy positions, they're still stunned, good time to strike."
"Ok, call it in, Snark, rush it."
"I'm here," he said from behind me. He sounded like he was out of breath. "Made it."
"Good."
We were all inside/below the piece of hull when it started raining. The HE shells made a shitload of noise, shaking everything and making the plating protecting us groan. After the barrage stopped I looked at my tacpad. The drone flying overhead was doing some IR mapping of the area, its sensors couldn't push through the ship's hull, but it did give us a pretty good idea of where we could breach in.
"See this spot?" I asked of no one in particular. "It's pretty damaged, we should be able to punch it. We head there, Snark, I want you taking out brutes with your IR scope."
"That's what I get paid for," he quipped. "Ok, I've got you covered, they still don't know exactly where we are."
"Well, let them know, will ya?" Bumblebee urged.
Three snaps in quick succession from his SRS-99 made me smile. I could picture the three brutes with holes where their heads were supposed to be. I dashed form cover as plasma and spikes rained on Snark's position, Pavel and Angel were running close behind me with the rest of Reaper giving us a little bit of berth. I couldn't see the aliens that were firing at us, the heavy mist took care of it, but that also meant that we were invisible, in fact, their sensors would probably scare them shitless. Imagine seeing movement from several directions but not seeing what caused it. I had never looked at it that way, but to the grunts and jackals we could look like stuff straight out of a nightmare. I guess that being a monster goes both ways.
We arrived at the side of the cruiser, slamming into its hull to stop our sprint. Angel and Pavel immediately went prone, setting up their weapon's bipods on the muddy floor. I waited for Bee to arrive and had him give me a boost to a ledge on the side of the ship. The ledge itself was the bent barrel of a plasma cannon. I took a knee and switched to VISR mode. Several brutes and jackals were outlined in red on my HUD. The rest of my squad's HUDs immediately showed the aliens' positions.
"Snark, hold your fire," I ordered.
"MGs, fire."
Pavel and Angel let out a stream of bullets. I waited for their rounds to hit the brutes, weakening their power armor and shields. When I saw them recoil from the impact I let out bursts of three into their ugly heads, popping them like watermelons. Our combined fire quickly brought down ten brutes. Pavel and Angel then mowed through twenty startled jackals, the ones that had shields didn't even know where to take cover, that happens when you don't use tracers. I jumped down to the mud and tapped Grass and Caboose on the shoulders. They immediately moved forward, skirting the Covenant ship's hull as they went. Three seconds later I did the same to Bee and moved to tap Angel. They went after their squad mates while Pavel laid out the pain.
"I'm here," Snark announced.
"Good, catch up with Bumblebee and Caboose, go."
I fired a couple of shots in the direction that Pavel was shooting before dragging him to his feet. We both sprinted along the hull, plasma hitting the space in front of us and behind us. I tripped when a grenade from a Brute Shot impacted three meters from Pavel and me. The concussive force sent us to the ground and looking for cover. It was three seconds before I heard the familiar boom that signaled for safety. You can trust Snark to take care of business in tight situations. If he kept going he'd knock out every high-ranking brute near this ship before we even entered. And he'd also run out of ammunition.
"Sarge, I got a sniper tower, three jackals on top."
"Send in the drone," I ordered. "Quick."
If someone understands the meaning of quick, it is certainly the computers and AIs. It took all of ten seconds for the UCAV spinning above us to let out an air-to-ground missile. The explosion was followed by a crashing noise. I wasn't able to see the results of the AG missile, but Grass' squeal of excitement was enough of a giveaway.
"Squealing?" Angel asked. "Next thing I know you'll be wearing a schoolgirl uniform."
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"Not particularly, but I'm sure that Lieutenant Nezarian would enjoy the idea."
"Fuck off."
Whoa, swearing, from Grass. That meant that Angel hit a nerve.
Huh, go figure. Good for Yevgeny.
"Enough," I chuckled. "Caboose and Bee, put out some suppressive fire, the weak point is a short climb away. Snark, I want you to go first, I'll follow, heavy guns next, Grass will go with Caboose and Bumblebee, we'll cover from up top. Understood?"
"Got it," Caboose confirmed.
Two assault rifles started snapping away and Snark jumped up the side of the hull. This section of the ship was actually climbable without help, it was sort of steep, but you could climb with only one hand for help. I saw Snark's silhouette going up, lit up rounds flying near him but not aimed at him. I was safe behind a pile of raised dirt, the crashing ship had let out a whole lot of potential cover. I guess that worked for us well enough. I left cover, keeping my head down. Bumblebee and Caboose were taking turns with the sustained bursts, keeping themselves behind cover while the other strafed the grunts and brutes.
"There," Snark yelled. "AA gun, one of the big ones."
"Painting it."
"Call in artillery," I said. "We want to save our missiles."
Ten seconds later a barrage fell precisely where Snark had pointed at. The light from the explosions allowed me to see the silhouette of the AA gun through the thick mist. I saw the top of it falling down to the ground while large sections of the base exploded. Those Rhinos certainly pack a punch, I wish we had a couple on the Inconvenience. The artillery strike also had the side effect of killing a group of jackals. Hey, I'm not complaining.
"Frank, climb already!"
I jumped as Pavel shoved me up by the ass. It felt uncomfortably nice. I used my gloves to get some grip on the smooth gray surface of the ship and started climbing. I kept my head looking over my shoulder to see if any plasma was headed my way, sure, I wouldn't really be able to dodge, but I might see it before it hit me.
No such luck, no plasma bolts made it my way. The closest thing that I got to that was a line of spikes lodging themselves a foot away from my arm. They made for very useful handholds. I climbed the rest of the stretch and slid down a small crater from an explosion. An Archer missile by the looks of it, but then again, I'm no expert in ship-to-ship weaponry. Snark was already set up and aiming down range, he still hadn't let out a single shot.
"I got your back," I told him. I placed myself next to him, lying on my back while he was belly-down. I could potentially shoot anything that came from behind him. "Angel, you're first."
"On my way."
"Pavel, go ahead."
They arrived pretty close to one another. The crater on the hull was starting to get crowded, the four of us barely fit there, so I climbed out while keeping my rifle aimed up, I didn't catch anything until after Caboose and Bee had climbed up. I shot a pair of brutes, killing them both with well placed shots. Well, actually, they were lucky shots, the bursts hit their unprotected jaws and necks. They went down without making a noise or letting out a shot.
"Ha-ha! Did you see that?" I asked. I realized that I was covering the rear and that nobody would've seen that. "Never mind."
"Don't worry buddy, I'm sure it was great."
"I didn't even have the camera on."
"Ya know, technically speaking it should always be on, Sarge," Bee informed me.
"Leave it in the suggestion box," I replied.
"But Snark never actually made one!"
"Snark," I growled.
"I thought you were kidding, I mean who would be serious about it."
"I bet the covvies are," Grass said tiredly.
"Right, Pavel and Snark, take out the higher ups. Grass, Bee and Caboose, help out Angel, with me."
I slid out of my position and ran up the ship towards the weak point on the hull. Angel's footsteps were right behind me. I could almost smell the eagerness off of him. The man loved explosives like Pavel loved his wife. For some odd reason Angel didn't join the engineering corps. He would've had a blast blowing up bridges and all that. Something about him not being trusted with so many different types of explosives. And yet they trusted him with the most advanced prototypes that the military currently had.
Brass is a bunch of inconsistent folks.
"Angel, down here."
The so-called weak point was in fact a hole. It was what I would call a big fucking hole. I don't know exactly what hit the ship here, but I'm pretty sure that it was a round from a mass driver. The smooth silver armor plating was completely shredded, leaving the aforementioned huge fucking hole right in the middle of it. Most of the armor had been atomized from the impact, but it had held. A little bit of C-12 and we would be good to go.
"Angel, you're good to go."
He took a knee and grabbed a charge from his rucksack. Now, you know how I've told you that a 1x1x1 cube of C-12 could burn through several meters of Titanium-A plating? Angel's charge was more like 10x7x3.
"The fuck did you get that much C-12 from?" I asked as soon as I saw it. "Command never gives that much to me."
"Computer skills come pretty handy sometimes," he said, trying to sound mysterious. "A little plastic explosive won't harm anyone. On our side, that is."
"Maybe you should send the Epsilon Eridani Fleet here," I suggested. "A couple hundred cruisers and destroyers would certainly be helpful."
"I've tried breaking through those firewalls, it's pretty much impossible, no matter how hard I try."
"Do me a favor, don't ever try again."
"Sure thing Sarge." Angel went right ahead and jumped inside the hole on the ship. He used the jagged remains of the armor as handholds and footholds. I could see my squad about fifty meters away, firing away. The fog kept me from seeing anything else, but it wasn't a direct concern right now. I switched my attention between watching Angel climb down and looking around to see if I could spot anything. I was spotted first. A carbine impact hit my shoulder. The armor held and deflected the round. Thank god that it was fired at an angle.
I looked at that direction and immediately spotted a jackal. The motherfucker had the gall to shoot me, so it was only fair that I returned the favor. Unluckily for it, I was a way better shot than it was, and I returned the favor with some serious interest. The burst tore a large section of its head off, killing it instantly. Say what you say about me, whenever I kill, I kill cleanly. Perhaps when this war was over I could became that guy that killed prisoners sentenced to death. Or a cop, I dunno.
"Angel?"
"Done, help me out."
He climbed halfway up the hole and then extended his hand, I pulled him out of the hole. Another burst from a spiker had us both ducking to the floor. My new armor was still undamaged, none of the rounds came close to me. Angel, on the other hand, almost got his hand nailed to the floor, he cursed a rapid string of Italian words and fired a long burst at the offending brute. I finished it off with a quick headshot. Angel nodded at me and pulled out the detonator.
"Wait, is the charge shaped?"
"Shaped?" Having said that he pushed down on the trigger twice.
The only noise that I could compare to the sound of a couple of pounds of high explosives at this range is that of a nuclear explosion. Or that Sledgehammer railgun, or maybe a wraith shot hitting a few feet away from me, or crashing a Pelican…
My life is a serious occupational hazard, I probably should get paid twice as much.
"It cleared," Angel told me. "Call the team, I'm going in."
"Wait," I stopped him and handed him a flashbang. "Ok, go."
He tossed the canister and waited for it to detonate before sliding down. I looked behind me and called the rest of Reaper. I remained behind while everyone slid down. Pavel sprayed the rushing grunts and kept them at bay. When they had stopped covering us the covvies had taken advantage and climbed up. I reached for a grenade and tossed, the explosion killed two grunts and ripped a jackal's shield arm off. That sent most of the aliens to the floor for cover.
"Go," I told Pavel. I fired a few shots to burn through my magazine before jumping down. I rolled as soon as I hit the floor. The tilted floor. I ended up sideways and then fell backwards, slamming on the wall. I grunted and took Pavel's hand, pulled myself up. "Cover me!" I ordered him. I grabbed a small pack of explosive from my rucksack and tossed it halfway through the hole in the ship. I set the detonator on and ran down the hall. I detonated it once I was a safe distance behind it.
My own little pack of C-12 helped out by closing off the hole.
Now we were trapped inside an enemy ship.
"We all here?" I asked.
"Looks like it," Bee said.
"Good," I sighed. "We're in the clear for now. Caboose, shotgun out. Pavel, you take point with him."
"Um, Sarge, I know that I probably should've planned ahead for this, but what should I do with this?" He gestured at his sniper rifle. "We're inside a ship, I don't think we'll get much use for it."
"Here," Angel offered, tossing him an SMG. "Brought it just in case. And here's the ammo."
"You're never going to let me live this down, are you?"
"I wanted to have Bee give it to you, but forgot about it."
"Aw man," Bumblebee groaned. "That would've been memorable."
"Quiet!" Caboose whispered. "Hear that?"
I did hear something, it was some sort of faint buzzing. "Drones." The ship had crashed, which meant that it didn't have much power on, they probably had power enough for the turret and that's it. That meant it was dark, very dark, if not for my VISR I wouldn't have been able to make out my squad mates shapes. The green outlines showed where they were, but there was barely enough ambience light for the night vision to work. "Flashlights on, low intensity. If you see, hear, or even smell something, I want you to tell me."
"Target's about a hundred meters away, straight line."
"And in a not straight line?" Angel asked.
"We don't exactly have the schematics for a CCS-class battlecuiser, idiot." Grass never did miss an opportunity to remind Angel just exactly what she thought about his mental capacity.
"Damn bastards forgot to leave them in city hall," Snark went on.
"Get a move on," I groaned, "we're not about to have a verbal showdown."
"Are you afraid of someone taking your throne Sarge?"
"One more word out of your mouth and you get point," I warned Snark. "Without the SMG."
"Fine…"
Only then did we finally start moving. Pavel and Caboose had their shotguns aimed straight, flashlights on. The ship's interiors were…purple. There's no other way to describe it, you could even describe the architectural design as purple, all curved and with strange carvings that looked ominous and foreboding. Some of the wall lighting flickered on and off, occasionally, lighting up my squad and getting us on edge a little bit.
"Buzzing's getting louder," Pavel muttered. "Just down the corner."
He turned and waved at us to stop. I moved to the front and shuffled Caboose out of the way before peeking around the corner. The entire hallway was occupied by a drone hive. Last time we were inside a drone hive we almost died, all of us. This hive looked substantially smaller, and we knew that they were there, so it was a very different situation. I dare say, this time it was us who had them threatened.
"Pavel, M247 out, I'll handle your shotgun. Ok, there's a big hive in between us and the target. They seem to be doing some hibernating or something, so we have the element of surprise."
"Where's that on the periodic table?" Snark asked.
"Dunno, but it's my favorite element," Grass shrugged in reply
"Angel and Pavel will open up with full auto. Rest of you also firing full auto when they reload, Caboose and me will keep the ones that get to close."
"Let's roll," Pavel urged.
And roll we did. He and Angel busted around the corner with their fingers on the trigger. The noise was almost deafening in the confined quarters, my helmet sealed off my ears from the outside world, only giving me subdued versions of whatever was going on. The flashes from the weapons illuminated the hall somewhat, showing me bits and pieces of drones flying around. The buzzing now had an almost frantic tone to it.
"Reloading," Pavel shouted.
"Reloading."
Both of our heavy machine gunners stopped walking and let the three squad members with assault rifles to fire. The sound was considerably quieter, but three MA5 rifles firing full-auto is still something that you don't want to be on the wrong end of. They pushed the drones back for enough time to get Pavel and Angel back in action. I know you never saw The Matrix, or any of its remakes for that matter, but it reminded me of a scene in the third movie, with the mechs and the…you know what, never mind.
The little buggers were only just beginning to realize that they were dying by the dozens. Sure, a couple of shots were fired, but they mostly just threw themselves at us, trying to buy some time for their siblings out back. Still, whether it was five meters or ten meters, a bullet would punch through their hard exterior with no problem. The thing was that we now had to be careful not to trip on the dead drones, or get stuck on their droppings for that matter. I had to dive into action when a red-clad drone flew inside our group, I hit it with Pavel's shotgun and pressed it hard against the floor, trying to keep it from taking flight. Caboose finished it off with a well-placed shotgun blast.
"Halfway through," Bumblebee grunted. "I think…"
I blasted two drones form the ceiling and that was pretty much everything that I did for the rest of the hallway clearing. By the time we were through there must've been over a hundred dead drones behind us, there was an audible noise coming from the corpses as well, twitching never seemed like something loud to do, but when several dozen dead bugs are twitching, it does sound pretty loud.
"You know, if these had been humans, we would be facing war crimes charges," Grass pointed out. "Pretty serious ones."
"But they're not, and my conscience is clear," I said.
"Mine too!" Schitzo yelled while waving his arms frantically.
"Let's get a move on, the firing room, or whatever it's called, is probably loaded with brutes, expect a captain or chieftain."
We made our way to the doors and stopped. The lights on the triple doors were white, I assumed that it meant that they could be opened.
"There's almost no intel on enemy ships, at least about their insides," Caboose muttered.
"I think that the doors are unlocked," Grass replied, "can't be sure."
"That's a refreshing change," Angel said.
"Shotguns first then," I said, "after tossing a reasonable amount of flashbangs and frags, of course."
We started pulling out grenades from our webbing and finally we each had a flashbang in one hand and a frag in the other. Snark had been pissing me off, so he was the one that got to walk up to the door. According to Grass's 'scarce intel' the doors were opened by movement. So as soon as he was close enough, the doors opened up, he tossed his flashbang inside and a second later he threw the fragmentation grenade in his right hand. Before the grenade exploded the rest of us tossed our own stun devices and explosives. The cacophony of noise was something.
I suddenly feel like I had been hearing tons of loud shit over the day, definitely not good for my eardrums, or for the military, which had to pay for replacements.
Pavel and Caboose went in, blasting their shotguns as fast as the mechanism allowed them to, Pavel ran out of ammo before Caboose had burned through half of his, full-automatic fire tends to do that when compared to pump action. Angel walked right behind them, with me next to him. There was some leftover dust from the flashbangs and smoke from the frags, but I could see pretty well, with the room being illuminated and all. The brutes inside were grabbing their heads and rolling around, trying to make the pain go away.
That's where we came in. Most of the brutes were unarmored, you don't need armor to fire a gun behind a dozen meters of solid plating, right? Wrong, not when we're in the equation, that's us, professional badasses for when you need a tough situation solved. We could've totally had a primetime television show, and it would've won tons of awards too. Sexiest male lead would've been a given. Maybe best performance, which would've gone to Caboose for sure. Best effect's a given as well, after all, what beats the real deal?
The room was mostly cleared by the time all of us were inside. There were two brutes clad in golden armor left, one was shot down before it could let out a shot, but the other one aimed its grenade launcher at us and fired all four rounds in quick succession. I dove to the side to avoid them, as did the rest of my team. The alien had been dumb enough to fire at us instead of at our feet, and all of the explosives had detonated on the wall behind our backs, not harming anyone.
Next up it decided that throwing its gun would've been a great idea. I was barely up when I had to drop to the floor to avoid having my head sliced clean off by the bayonet from the brute shot. The captain might've not been wrong when it considered it smart to throw his weapon. It had been a pretty decent throw as well, managing to send us all diving for cover once again. The brute now found itself unarmed and defenseless. It went completely berserk and tried charging us, but it was put down like the animal that it was before it went more than ten meters.
That could've been our trailer, me ducking underneath the crude metal blade in slow motion, perhaps have me looking at it just for effect, as soon as it flew above me we could change angles to have the audience see just how close I was to getting hit. Then, when the gun cleared me we would resume normal speed and change to a different scene. Man, I totally could've been an awesome director.
"There's the firing console," Grass pointed.
"Ammunition store," Angel said, pointing to an oversized plasma container. By oversized I mean fucking huge. "Or something…"
"Angel, set a pair of charges on the container-or-something," I ordered. "Everyone cover the door."
I did a quick jog around the room and realized that we could actually leave this ship from here. I didn't want to stay on board any longer than I needed to. We would have to climb through a narrow vent that lead to the turret proper and then exit through a cooling hole, but it was certainly feasible.
"Sarge, I don't know if I should activate the magnetic plates," Angel shouted. "They could destabilize the plasma."
"Use the glue panels," I replied, "And be sure to stick it on properly."
"We wouldn't want it falling down, now would we?"
"Most certainly not dear Bumblebee," Pavel said with a small nod that he probably thought looked classy.
I reached for another charge on my rucksack and slapped it underneath the firing console, the holograms shifted and changed color when I neared them, but the brute bleeding on the floor next to it wasn't about to yell at me for messing with its console. The charge attached itself to the purple metal and the receiver light blinked green once. I smiled with self-satisfaction. "Snark and…Grass, climb out, set up shop."
The two of them left their posts, allowing Angel and me to take over. Grass, being the resident team lady, was the first to jump up to the vent, Snark took advantage of the situation and palmed both of her cheeks to prop her up. Yes, Snark actually copped up a feel.
"You're going to be paying for that," she growled.
Snark sighed contentedly. "I don't think I mind paying for that."
That got a chuckle from all of us. Bar Grass of course.
"Hey, maybe Nezarian will be the one to do the punishing," Angel suggested, seizing the opportunity to get Grass flustered.
"Damn, maybe I should apologize," Snark said, sounding worried.
"Nah, he's one of the bros," Pavel said. "He won't mind."
"Next person to come through this hole gets shot in the head."
"Leave her alone," I chuckled. "Snark, go."
"Now I'm, afraid," he muttered. "How about she just grabs my ass and we call it even?"
Grass chuckled loudly. "There's nothing to grab there, hon."
"Pavel and Bee, you go next." I figured that if they managed to make it through the narrow vent, then I most certainly could. Sure, I was taller than both of them, but Pavel and Bumblebee were both really into weights and stuff, having wider shoulders than I had. I probably should've done more swimming in my teens, but I was quite satisfied with the width of my shoulders.
"We're up," Bumblebee informed me. "Caboose, Angel, go."
I stayed behind, aiming down the hall and taking deep, heavy breaths. Thank god that my visor couldn't fog up under any situation, because I was letting out wet breaths. Much like I would during orgasm, but then again, you probably didn't need to know that.
"We're up."
"Just you and me now Francisco," Schitzo said, examining his nails. I kept my eye down my scope, squeezing the trigger when a grunt appeared through the corner. I heard some squealing and cursed, there were more aliens in there as well.
On a side note, it really bugged me that Schitzo called me by my full name, only three people called me by my full name on a regular basis, Eliza, my mother, and Schitzo. My dad and uncle both used to call me Paco and to everyone else I was either Frank or Frankie, it seemed insulting to be called like that by him. I bet that he knew just exactly what he was doing, knew me as well as I knew myself, perhaps even better.
"Here goes," I muttered as I threw a grenade down the hallway. I was halfway to the vent-like hole before it detonated. I climbed up and had Pavel and Caboose pull me up. I now found myself in a twelve by twelve room, feet that is. There were several metal slides that opened sideways, probably to vent out excess plasma from shots. It was a nice long drop to the shallow sea below us.
"Here, tie this," I ordered, tossing Grass a line of rope. As fate would have it, it was the same line that I had used to help her pull off that impressive stunt on that building. Where had it been? I think it was also Lambari, in Uppergap. She quickly tied it and jumped down after wrapping her foot around it. The rest of us followed in quick succession, once again, I was the last to go down. On the ground, with the sea up to my waist, I cut the rope and coiled it around my elbow quickly. I bet that Grass would like the memorabilia, since it was all but useless now. I looked at the section of it still tied up on the ship and shrugged regrettably, I liked keeping things like they were, take a look at my BR55, I've had it since bootcamp and it has never jammed on me. Well, never during critical moments, but it had never once failed me. My previous armor, it was a few years old, the armored boots even older, it had held through most of what the covenant would throw at me. Granted, my new armor, with the red chest piece, stripe down the helmet, and stripe in the front of my right boot did look pretty sweet, but it would be a good few months before I started seeing it as my armor.
"The scuba gear is that way," I pointed, "get a move on."
The water was up to my waist, the dampness was easily felt through my undersuit, I immediately switched the temperature so that it would match the air outside, not the cold water. I had trouble wading through the water, with the waves slapping against me and trying to push me against the wrecked ship. It was one of those waves that saved me. The mass of water pushed me to the side, forcing me to move sideways. My foot hit a piece of rock or of the ship and twisted sideways, I tripped and fell down just as a beam sliced through the air. The ionized ray nearly hit me, leaving a black scorch on my helmet, the first scar on my new armor.
"Where did it shoot from?" I asked, still underwater.
"The vents we used to escape," Snark replied.
"Can you hit it?" Bee asked.
"Lemme see- holy fuck, no way, it's got us pinned down."
"Ok, we've got fifteen minutes of air, what do you say about swimming underwater for a couple dozen meters before detonating the charges."
"I've seen the damage those plasma guns can do," Caboose said. "I don't think we should be remotely near the ship when they go off."
"Can we make it to the evac point without surfacing?" Angel asked.
"Negative," I replied. "There's that sand bank and a piece of ship that we have to climb over."
"Can we have our drone hit the sniper?" Pavel asked.
"Probably," Bee said. "I'll paint it."
"Ok, Grass, make some splashes away from him, give him some space."
"Fine…"
The jackal did see the distraction and went with it, firing two superheated beams of ionized particles at our resident female squad member. I couldn't see the shots through the water, but from the sounds that Grass made, they weren't so far off. This jackal sniper was good, it had been able to get the jump on us and had almost put a hole clean through my head. Still, even Snark would've been hard-pressed to escape a UCAV firing from an unseen position. I didn't see or hear the missile flying at the offending alien, but I did see the explosion damaging the exhaust ports.
"Go, go, go!" I yelled. This time I kept my eyes on the top of the ship, looking for movement that would give away a would be ambush. The fucking mist was something of a bitch, never allowing us to see what was going on. I could barely make out the top of the ship from here, and technically speaking I was about halfway up the side of it.
"Sunnova-"
"What?"
"I felt something on my leg," Bumblebee muttered.
"I hear fish can be deadly."
"Very funny Grass," he growled. "I hate it when that happens."
To be fair, I didn't enjoy that feeling either, but having lived so long on Jericho VII, near the ocean, I had spent a good portion of my life swimming in the ocean. It was a nasty feeling when your hand brushed against a discarded plastic bag, but then you realized what had happened, it was even worse when something brushed against your foot, because you had no idea what it had been. Fish were assholes like that, probably getting their revenge for me eating their fellow kin.
I reached the sandbank just in time, a pack of brutes had appeared over the top of the ship. The sandbank had several pieces of ship embedded in it, making for suitable cover. I dove behind a spiked piece of battlecruiser just as a carbine opened up on me. It was an uncomfortable position, with wet, sticky sand on my legs and butt and with water splashing around. Oh, and the pack of brutes had the high ground.
Angel immediately opened up a long burst, but from his cursing I could tell that they had forced him back behind cover before he could do any damage. The ship had broken up in many, many pieces. Every member of Reaper was behind their own individual piece of cover. Pavel popped form his and fired two short bursts before concentrated spiker fire forced him behind cover once more. We were in trouble. There was nothing but open water to our right, to our left, and to our back. To get to deep enough water we would have to risk ourselves for at least thirty meters of death trap.
I fired three bursts, hitting two brutes and having them recoil from the impacts, but their power armor held. I immediately received a retaliatory burst of plasma fire. The red blobs of the brute plasma rifles hit the water next to me, heating it enough to evaporate some of it, adding steam to the mist.
"We're pinned good," Bumblebee replied.
"Use that rocket of yours," Snark suggested, "I can't get a shot off."
"I'll try," he grumbled.
The rest of us opened fire blindly, I did see a couple of brutes duck behind cover, but the rest of them knew that the chances of us hitting them firing wildly were almost zero. Bumblebee spun from cover, lifted his Spanker, water dripping from both tubes, and fired. I kept track of the rocket until it disappeared over my shoulder. He immediately let out another HEAT missile at the brutes. I turned to see the result and saw one of the brutes being thrown off the ship from the explosion. Pavel and Caboose fired short bursts at it when it hit the ocean, making sure that it was dead. The other rocket collided with one big alien, turning it into a gory mess. The explosion also killed a brute minor standing next to it, but other than that there were still half a dozen brutes firing at us.
"You know what?" I said. "Screw this shit. Angel, blow this ship up."
He giggled to himself like a little kid and pulled out the detonator. He gave me a brief nod from his piece of cover and looked up to the sky as he double tapped the detonating stick. The explosion was pretty small.
Then all hell broke loose.
The ship ballooned upwards and a blue explosion just…exploded out of the battlecruiser. The brutes barely had time to look before the ship twisted and rumbled, throwing them off balance.
"Run!" Pavel yelled. A very sensible order if you ask me.
I stood up, firing at the brutes, killing one and keeping the others down. My squad all ran past me and wobbled through the water until it was finally deep enough to dive in. They jumped and disappeared underneath the dirty sea. I made to join them when the ship really blew up. I looked towards the plasma turret that we had detonated and saw that plasma explosions were littering that area of the ship. Another huge explosion much like the initial one lit everything up in a bluish light. I covered my eyes from the explosion, feeling the heat on my arm.
"I bet you wish you didn't give the go order," Schitzo said. "Maybe this was a bad idea."
Smaller explosions were running the length of the ship. One of those happened on the section in front of me, about fifty meters away. Little pieces of shrapnel hit the water all around me and bounced off my armor. By that time I was already running as fast as I could towards the deeper parts of the beach. The stupid sand bank was absurdly long and wide. I jumped as the ship started blowing up again. Once I was underwater I could see the water to my right lighting up with pretty colors from the explosion. Explosions.
I looked at the small compass on my HUD and swam towards the shining dot. It was hard to keep myself underwater without the proper gear, but the heavy armor did the job well enough. I used the floor to keep myself underwater and safe from the concussive blasts and the shrapnel. After what seemed like an hour of frantic swimming I finally reached our scuba gear. There were seven little propellers just floating there, my squad was already there, waiting for me, their fearless leader, to arrive. I reached my own backpack and pulled it towards me while grabbing the oxygen tank and attaching it to my helmet. I took off my rucksack and put on the UMK (read: Underwater Movement Kit). I slapped my battle rifle over it and grabbed my rucksack with my left hand.
"Time to go," I said, allowing a smile of satisfaction to adorn my face. Nothing quite like the feeling of a job well done, even with some slight complications.
Thanks to Sniper Fodder for proof-reading this chapter.
And so the epicness begins…