Chapter CXXVII: Silence is Golden

October 2, 2544 (UNSC Calendar)/two weeks later

Temporary FOB Golf, Catamaran Peninsula, Asilon, Omicron Ebur System

"Silencers are good, knives are better."

The base was abuzz with activity; it had only been set up very recently, three days ago in fact. The Inconvenience had helped set up various bases throughout recently won land. This one wasn't exactly a base, it was more like a pit stop, FOB Golf was the firebase closest to the frontlines. It served mostly to patch up wounded soldiers before sending them back and as a vehicle depot for the troop transports. It also had an artillery battery as well as several mortars. For the past couple of days my team and I had been staging our operations from there.

"Sarge," I heard.

I sighed. "Yes?"

"I've been looking all over for you," Bee told me.

"Well, you found me."

"Yeah, sorry about that."

I sat up with a groan. There was a nice little pile of dirt a hundred meters from the base. It was isolated enough from the base that I got peace and quiet but close enough that my team could find me if they needed me, like right now. You know, I probably should've found a hiding spot farther away from the base.

"What do you need?"

Bee raised an eyebrow. "Oh, me? Nothing. I just thought that maybe I should let you know that Echo Company is going to be staying here for a day or so."

I instantly started paying attention to what he was saying. "Huh, and why exactly did you think that you would let me know?"

"Pavel ordered me to," he admitted. "You know Sarge, he's a good friend and all, but I can't help but think that he has some sort of ulterior motive with this."

"Straightening me up probably," I thought out loud. "Thanks bud."

"You're not going?"

"Not immediately," I replied, lying back down. "By the way, tell Pavel that B Company is also coming trough to relieve a section of the line. Oh, and while you're at it you can tell Grass that Yev is going to be staging an operation through here."

Bee chuckled and looked at the ground, tracing something on the dirt with his boot. "I think that Lieutenant Delacroix is seeing someone else, isn't she?"

"Yeah, some bloke from Marine Aviation," I replied, wondering why I had said bloke instead of dude, or guy, or buddy, or individual. I was beginning to spend way too much time talking to Bumblebee.

"I guess we'll have the whole ship here, eh?"

"Yup," I said, pushing my cap over my eyes to block the scarce light that came through the mist.

I hadn't had a dream that wasn't a nightmare since that time I woke up from cryo, having messed up dreams about Scarecrow blaming me for his death. I tried to be reasonable about it, tell myself that while I had a little bit of fault, there wasn't anything I could've done. He was the one that insisted in hanging back and being a hero. He was the one that didn't fall back when ordered to. Even despite that it hadn't been his fault either; some alien had pulled off a lucky shot with a needle rifle and blown him apart. Still, I saw his bloodied face most nights. He wasn't the only one that I saw. I saw my uncle, dead with spikes in his chest, blood pooling around his favorite couch. I saw flashes of my parent's distorted faces, the things that I remembered about them mostly bad. I couldn't see my Mom's smile or my Dad nodding approvingly. Instead I only saw them dead or angry at me for something. In all those nightmares I was powerless to do anything, I'd be crying or yelling angrily, but otherwise couldn't move. The only thing that they all had in common was that Schitzo always hung back, looking at me like a giant looming statue. He had that perfect poker face of his on, never said anything, and never moved.

This time was no different, even though I only took a short nap, it was cut even shorter by the sight of a gravity hammer going straight towards my face. I opened my eyes to see the black of my cap and a streak of pale light coming from underneath it.

"Damn," I sighed, standing up and securing my cap on my head properly. The warzone around me would've been a suitable setting for any nightmare. Mist, craters, dead land and trees. It really said something that I felt comfortable with those surroundings when I woke up.

"You really need a shrink frank," Schitzo taunted.

"Let him be," Scarecrow disagreed. "He can handle it."

I was surprised when I saw myself agreeing with Schitzo for once. When I got back on Reach I'd probably have to see a psychologist.

The base had been full of people coming and going when I left for my nap, but now it was even worse, I recognized some Marines from Echo, they were standing outside the barracks while the previous occupiers packed their shit up and left. The previous occupiers in the barracks would now be going to the frontline to occupy a stretch of the trenches, hold back the Covenant while command planned another major push. If they were lucky they might even manage to gain some land while they were at it.

Falcon gunships were landing on the pads west of the firebase and Armadillos were rolling through, headed towards the vehicle depot. I also saw a few Hornets circling overhead. They were bringing both companies to the front with all their guns. Command was no doubt planning a major attack, it would probably happen soon. It had been two weeks since that little bit of business with the colonel's daughter. She had been returned safe and sound and we had received a gruff thank you from Pendleton. The massive gain of land that came with it was credited mostly to him, but I didn't particularly care, most of the participants knew that I had had a heavy hand in planning it.

And I had it on tape, so I wasn't too worried.

"Hey, what the hell are you doin'?" someone yelled. "Move that shit out of here, there's a squad of Scorpions coming through."

The driver of the Armadillo opened the hatch and yelled angrily at the man telling him to move. "I'm parking that thing right there, I was ordered to do that!"

"You can't, the Scorpions need to come through first!"

"They're not here yet! Just let me turn left and park the fucking thing."

"No."

"Ya know, it's not wise to go against a man driving an armored fighting vehicle."

I rolled my eyes and walked to the man trying to stop the Armadillo. The AFV in question belonged to B Company, so I'd have to side with him. "Listen," I told him, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing it lightly. Just let him pass, it'll take him ten seconds."

"I'm sorry Gunnery Sergeant, but I have strict orders to-"

"Listen," I interrupted, squeezing a little bit tighter, "these guys are very pissed and I wouldn't be too surprised if the sergeant here decide to ignore your and run you over."

The man sighed. "Fine," he waved the 'Dillo over. "You can come through, just make it quick."

"Thanks Sarge," the man in the M987 AFV thanked me. The huge vehicle roared as it turned and parked inside the vehicle depot. I recognized the driver, I think I had done a couple of missions with him, but didn't know his name. "Now I owe you one."

"No problem," I smiled. I turned to the man next to me. "See? No harm done."

"Yeah, yeah," he said. "Now, I need to coordinate the tanks coming through."

"Of course, I wouldn't keep you from your job."

I felt strangely satisfied with myself for helping a fellow Inconvenience crewmember. Well, not crewmember, but he was assigned to the ship same as I was. I was interrupted from my thoughts when I felt a gust of wind hitting me in the back. I turned to see a familiar Pelican landing right in the middle of the muddy highway that went through the middle of the street. Just like Marina to make a grand entrance. She hovered a couple of meters above ground and made a slow descent. I banged on the cockpit and gave her a 'what are you doing' shrug. She just shrugged back and smiled underneath her huge helmet before polarizing the cockpit windows.

I rolled my eyes and went to the rear of the Pelican. I was surprised to see a bunch of Rangers hopping out. It never ceased to amaze me the size of their packs. They had their jetpacks on their back as well as a smaller backpack over it. Then they had their duffel bags strapped to their chests and their rifles over it. Us Helljumpers went light into combat, even lighter than regular Marines. We just took weapons, ammo, and occasionally a rucksack filled with some additional gear or food. Army always went heavy, they could set up a semi-permanent base with just the things that they took with them.

I examined the fifteen Rangers, there was one and a half squads inside the Pelican, well, outside now. It was the third squad and one half of the second. The half with the very pretty Specialist Claire Winchester on it. I smiled at the sight of her before catching myself.

You have a girlfriend now, I reminded myself. Who you love very, very much.

Still, not all of me agreed. You can still look, right?

I guess there's no harm in that.

On that I could agree.

"Ah," I greeted. "Sergeant Durant, it's been a while."

"Gunnery Sergeant," he replied, smiling while shaking my hand. "Good to see you. What is the news in this section of the front?"

"The usual," I shrugged. "But we have a little town right behind the enemy line, they have plenty of supplies and troops quartered there, so they can double their numbers in case of an attack."

"I guess that's why they brought us here," Durant said.

"What about us?" I asked him, feigning offense. "We're elite too."

"Fine, fine," he admitted. "I don't know why we're here, but I know that command is planning something big. There have been a few large pushes since two weeks ago, you hear about that?"

"A little bit," I said modestly.

"Well, ever since that initial charge we've had some other ones, right?" He continued after I nodded. "I think this is the big one, we're going to take the covvies out for good."

I nodded at the idea, I had thought about it myself. "What do you think Specialist Winchester?"

Claire was surprised to suddenly be invited into the conversation, Durant also seemed a little bit surprised, but he was aware of her dislike for me, so he just smiled and looked away while he got his facial muscles back under control.

"What?"

"I asked you what you thought about all the troop movements."

"Oh," she said, looking flustered and slightly nervous. "It's above my pay grade."

"But if you had to guess, Specialist?" Durant asked her.

"Well, probably what you two said."

"So you agree with me?" I asked, my face every bit as serious as my voice. I would've made one hell of a poker player if you ask me. But I've been known to exaggerate some of my talents.

"Yeah…" she grumbled, not seeing any way out of the trap.

"Mark it down Waylon," I told Durant. "In this historic day Specialist Claire Winchester has gotten over her dislike for me and managed to find a way to share my opinion."

"A truly memorable day, Sergeant," he nodded approvingly. I was slightly surprised at the eagerness that he had to mess with one of his subordinates. He had given the impression of being a serious, driven man, cold as a rock. I guess he still had some humor underneath that perfectly smooth ebony skin of his.

Sorry for the homoerotism.

Winchester just scoffed at us immature men and turned around to talk with another of her squad mates, if memory served me right his name was Thor. Like the comic book character. Oh, and the Nordic god of thunder and all that, but it was funnier if you thought about him like he was named after a comic book character.

"Well, good talking to you Sergeant," Durant told me. "But we've got to report to the man in charge."

"Understood," I said. "Tell the Colonel that I say hi. Oh, before you leave, where's Yevgeny?"

"The lieutenant is on the other Pelican, it should get here soon enough."

"Understood, thank you Sergeant."

"No problem."

I looked up as Marina's Lamb flew straight up and towards the parking lot. She didn't seem to mind that she was being yelled at by half of the population at this FOB. That was so much like her.

"What's are you so happy about?"

Well, Hanna managed to look amazing in full gear, even with her figure hidden underneath all that armor and fatigues, she had the look of an angel.

"The prospect of seeing you," I told her, hugging her. "How have you been?"

She smiled and hugged me back. "I just got here, we're getting some rest before we're sent back to the front."

"Same here," I told her. "Although we are being sent on raids every couple of hours."

"Sounds tiring," she said.

"Yeah, but at least we don't have to sleep in the mud."

"Tell me about it," she sighed. "My hair is the dirtiest that it has ever been."

Mine was fine, but I just smiled and stroked her hair lightly, pushing it behind her ears. "You know, you look great with a helmet on."

"I look great without one too," she said.

"That sounds like something that I would say," I noted. "Interesting?"

"Why is it so interesting, we spend a lot of time together."

"When we can," I corrected.

She rolled her eyes and started walking towards her new quarters. I, being the gentleman that I am, carried her duffel bag over my shoulder.

"Whatever," she smiled. "But it's not surprising, I guess you're rubbing off on me."

"And too much from the looks of it," someone said from behind us. "Get a room, you're already attracting stares."

"A Yevgeny, the pure embodiment of subtleness," I replied.

"You know me," he laughed. "Frank, Hanna, pleasure to see you."

"Lieutenant," Hanna said, blushing a little bit.

Yevgeny was wearing only fatigues, Camouflage pattern on his pants and the short-sleeved shirt. I guess that he liked to show off his muscles as much as I did. Hence my own t-shirt. The scar on his face was the first thing that you looked at, unless, of course, you were used to it, like I was. He had gotten a buzz cut with a flat top again, looking every bit as the military man that he was. The big M6 hanging by his waist added to the look. It was a one of the bigger versions of the M6, bigger than my silenced pistol at least.

"Listen Corpsman," he started. "I'm going to need to borrow your man here for a while."

"No problem," she said. "Just bring him back in one piece."

"No promises ma'am," Yevgeny laughed, "but I'll do my best."

I smiled at Hanna, "I'll see you later."

"Likewise," she replied, her smile every bit as big as mine.

"You guys are sickening," Yevgeny gagged as soon as Hanna was out of earshot.

I shoved him sideways. "No, I'm serious, you were never this…uh, hmm…how should I put it? Caring seems to mild a word."

"When you fall in love I'll be sure to remind you that you disapproved of me. In fact, I'll take you to Grass, observe your behavior and comment on it."

He laughed. "Maybe I'll speak in Russian."

"Da," I replied. "Glorious Mother Russia would approve."

"When is everybody going to get over that?" he sighed.

"Probably never," I shrugged. "Now, what did you need to borrow me for?"

"Right, I heard that there's going to be a large charge soon."

"You don't say." I stopped and glanced at him. "If that is all you know then I think I'll be going back to my girlfriend."

"No, no, no," he chuckled. "I heard what the Spec Ops units were supposed to do."

"That's us."

"And a couple of locals, but mainly us, yeah."

"So?"

"You know about this little town? The one right behind the enemy line?"

"Yeah, only reason why we haven't attacked yet."

"Well, one of our units is supposed to take it."

"A whole town?" I asked. "Are you sure? I mean, you would need at least a company or two to take over a town."

"I know, that's what sounded unusual to me, but we've done stranger stuff."

"Agreed."

"That's the main mission, but there are several other…interesting things too. You heard about those two Scarabs spotted emerging from Catamaran City?"

"Yeah," I confirmed. "I still haven't figured out how the hell they manage to hide those mechanical monsters, digging I guess."

"The Inconvenience also spotted a bunch of Shadow transports and Spirits converging on two different locations. They're setting up AA guns."

"Shit, are they up yet?"

"One of them is," he sighed. "Brutes put it up while the Inconvenience was out of range, now the ship can't move near, rendering most of our sensors useless. It also started taking potshots at some of our deployed satellites."

"What about the other one?"

"They're still setting it up last I heard."

"It's gonna need to be shut down," I muttered. "How big is this push supposed to be?"

"It's supposed to be the push, we go all the way down to the city and the coast. If this works the covvies should be all dead by the end of the month."

"Easier said than done," I chuckled without much humor. "What do you supposed that you'll be assigned to do?"

"My units is the largest Spec Ops unit on the planet."

"That's not counting the Marines," I reminded him.

He rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean. Like really Spec Ops."

"Don't let anybody in the Corps catch you saying that."

Nezarian sighed in annoyance. "Whatever. The point is that my platoon is probably going to be tasked with taking the town."

"You up to it?"

"Always," he said. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it."

"Amen," I replied. "So, if it were up to you, what would you have us do? I mean my squad."

"I'd put you on the toughest mission, you somehow always accomplish the task with relatively ease." He cleared his throat. "But then you manage to dig yourselves in deeper and have to be rescued."

"Usually by you, ain't that right?"

"Hey, you've come to my rescue a couple of times," he said, slapping me on the shoulder. "Oh, now that we're on the topic, you remember Sergeant Valeri? Ivanov."

"Oh, the one who lost his arm?"

"That's the one!"

"What about Stumpy?"

"Stumpy," Nezarian spat out, looking at me disapprovingly. After all, Stumpy was his best friend. "Was finally cleared for active duty."

"Yay…"

"He's been trying to get himself cleared ever since they gave him that prosthesis, they wanted to give him a desk job or a promotion that would keep him out of combat."

"So unreasonable," I scoffed.

"Ok, just be happy for me," Nezarian chided.

"Fine, fine, I'm happy for you. Truly. Where are you going to be staying?"

"Those barracks over there, there's a spare room for me, as I'm an officer and all."

"Excellent," I told him. "I'll be sure to send Grass up."

"Just what exactly do you think that Cam and I do in our spare time? I mean, is your opinion of us that low? We both- yeah, thanks for that."

"No problem."

I slapped him on the back of the head and ducked underneath a counter before skipping away to my squad's tent. It was a smallish tent, but it was large enough to fit seven men with no problem whatsoever. It was currently occupied by Grass and Snark. They weren't having a conversation, Snark was watching a vid on his datapad and Grass was doing an interactive course on Spanish. Her attempts weren't exactly gold either, it was a shame to interrupt her.

"Grass," I told her.

"Yeah Frank? I mean Sarge."

"Are you seriously learning another language? What does that make? Four?"

"Five, actually, but it's going to be a while before I learn."

"No kidding."

"Ouch."

"Sorry, just wanted to let you know that our beloved 1st of the 1st of the 7th has arrived."

"Yev- I mean, the Rangers are here?"

Snark chuckled and shook his head from his bunk, Grass just pushed her hair behind her ear while trying to hide a blush.

"Yeah, Yevgeny is here, he's staying in the barracks that are three down ours and to the right, should be easy to spot."

"Oh, ok."

I groaned in annoyance at her. "Don't you have to go for a walk, or something? I guess that an hour and a half should be enough."

"Don't underestimate me," she warned with a dangerous smile. "Thanks Sarge."

She left and I suddenly found Snark standing next to me with a weird look on his face. "Lieutenant Yevgeny Nezarian, you are a brave man going in there. A brave man…" He snapped to attention. "To those that are about to die, we salute you!" He did a sharp salute and I joined him, holding the position for five seconds, saluting a wall.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Saluting the fallen," Snark said sadly.

"Really?" Pavel asked, wondering if he had asked the question too sharply.

"Nah," Snark eased him up, "but don't look so flustered."

"I'm not- nevermind. Hey, Frank, did you hear that B Company is here?"

"Sure did," I confirmed. "What about it?"

"Well, I bet you didn't hear that Chloe has ensnared another poor soul."

"Yeah, a guy from…uh, what was it?"

"Marine Aviation," Snark helpfully shouted from across the room.

"Oh yeah! That."

Pavel was obviously annoyed at me for having heard the latest scoops before he had. "Well, I was planning on letting him know all about Chloe's lying, cheating ways."

"Man, what's it to you? You're already married."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean that she deserves to be happy!"

I laughed. "Pavs, that line is straight out of a comedy flick." I shook my head disapprovingly, Pavel was actually getting a little bit worked up. "The sad thing is that you mean it."

"Of course I mean it! She cheated on me!"

"Twice, with one guy! You slept with twenty girls before even breaking up with her. And told her all about it!"

"What?!" he exclaimed. "You actually thought it was a good idea!"

"And I still do, but man, that's hardly the mature thing to do."

"You're telling me to be mature?"

"Funny world we live in."

"Fine, I won't broadcast a radio signal then," he sighed.

"Or anything else," I added.

"Or anything else."

Pavel was obviously disappointed that I had been forced to grow up mentally to steer him away from his evil ways. While he was normally the level headed one in the group, he still had a weak point for his ex, he had been in love with her and had been seriously hurt when she betrayed his trust. I understood how he felt, if any Layla or Marina had done that to me I would have been angry with them and myself for trusting them in the first place. In fact, I think that he had asked Amber to marry him so quickly in part because of that. Subconsciously of course, but the damage to him was done.

I shut off Grass' datapad and sat on the workbench that came with the tent. My left shoulder pauldron was sitting there. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a sticker. It was an exact copy of the one that had been on my new armor, it showed my blood type and other important medical details that would be good to know if I needed some serious patching up. I had forgotten to put it on when I first got my armor, but I was fixing that right now. The only problem was that there was a groove from a carbine shot on my shoulder, I had to fill it with something to get the sticker to actually show what I wanted it to show.

So, I found myself with a small piece of metal that I picked up in the trenches and a blowtorch. I melted the metal onto the grove, fusing it with the armor. It was crude, ugly, and amateurish, but I couldn't get U/A Multi Threat replacements nowadays. I hear that they were reserved for Spartan units now, good thing I kept mine. I pasted the sticker on and smoothed it over.

"Nicely done Frank," I told myself. I put the armor aside and instead grabbed my pistol. It had jammed once on the last mission, it could be explained if you took the mud into account, but I still wanted to check for any other little things that could've contributed to the malfunction. It was at times like this that I felt that Nezarian was spending way too much time with Grass, she could've fixed anything that needed to be fixed in record time and for free.

My pistol was fine, I just cleaned out the mud and oiled all the pieces before putting it back together. Even with all our technological advances, FTL travel, artificial intelligence, terraforming, and more we still couldn't manage to make a completely jam proof weapon. I sighed, maybe some things just aren't meant to be.

"Excuse me," an unfamiliar voice excused itself. "Gunnery Sergeant Castillo?"

"That's me," I grunted. "Who's asking?"

"The Colonel wants you and your squad down in HQ."

"I'm on my way," I replied.

"What's that about?" Snark asked.

"You're kidding," Pavel looked at him. "We're being sent on a mission, dipshit."

"Hey, what's with the aggression?"

"Oh, suck it up."

I raised my eyebrow at Pavel, but otherwise said nothing. It was getting cold outside, so I put on a black jacket. It had my name, rank, and unit on it. 19th battalion, it had been so long since I had actually been in that battalion.

"Come on," I told them, "don't want to be late."

The temperature had gone down in the last hour, the mist didn't exactly help on anything, but at least the covvies were equally miserable, perhaps more. The FOB was emptier than normal, with most of the new arrivals resting off the trip in their new quarters and the departing soldiers and jarheads already on their way to the front or the rear. It was strangely quiet, Golf had always been full of activity. The HQ was a little building, sturdier than most, but still nothing impressive. I walked inside and entered the war room.

"Colonel," I saluted the woman. "You wanted to see me?" Colonel Rhonda Billings was, well, how to describe her? I think that if I had to describe the colonel in one word it would have to be sexy, or alluring. Maybe even seductive. Beautiful might've been stretching it, but not by much. Every now and then I met a person that shattered my preconceptions about something, Colonel Billings had shattered my preconceptions about every colonel that I would meet from now on. I still couldn't figure how an officer of her rank could be so stunningly attractive.

Oh, and she knew it too, using her looks to her advantage. With a perfectly made up face, slightly longer than regulation hair, and bright red lipstick that was definitively not regulation. Oh, and she actually let the top two buttons of her uniform go unbuttoned. She was sexy and she knew it.

"Ah Castillo, just the man that I've been looking for."

My stomach lurched. "The rest of my squad should be here shortly."

"Of course, I've already called for them, in fact I think that- oh, there they are."

Bee, Caboose, and Angel had just walked in, looking a little bit confused. Well, Bee looked like a dog in heat, he couldn't take off his eyes from Colonel Billings. The poor man needed to get laid, and hopefully not with the colonel.

"That's all of you."

"No ma'am," I said. "We're still short one member."

"I guess we can wait," she sighed.

Grass arrived less than thirty seconds later, you could just tell exactly what she had been doing, her normally perfect hair was slightly out of place and there were a few beads of sweat below her hairline, nobody would be sweating in this cold.

"Ah, Ms. Seppa, can you tell us what exactly was so that important that merited your late arrival?"

"Uh, I-" she started.

"I sent her to see something about some items that I had requested," I told Billings. "To confirm that the petition had been properly filed. I'm not really good with those things, wanted to make sure that it was fine."

"Which it is," Grass finished. "Sorry I'm late ma'am."

Billings looked at me and then at Grass, it was quite obvious that she didn't believe me, but she wouldn't press the issue. "Very well, now that we're all here I guess I can continue. It's probably no secret to you that there's something big planned. Command wants to win all the land in between here and Catamaran City, one second-to-last push before finally kicking the Covenant from the planet. Unfortunately," she went on, turning on a screen on one of the walls and the holotable in the middle of the room. "There are several targets that need to be taken down before any sort of large movement can be attempted."

I looked at the screen, it was displaying one of the AA guns, the one that had already been set up. The gun itself was completely surrounded by fortified trenches, not as buffed up as the ones on the front, but still pretty impressive. There were several shade turrets planed at equidistant points, covering all angles.

"As you can see, a ground assault would be nearly impossible, especially when the gun is a good fifty miles from the frontline, just outside the reach of our artillery."

"What about guided missiles?" Snark suggested. The man seemed to have a thing for guided missiles, it only showed very occasionally.

"And what would we guide them with?" Billings asked him. "The Covenant has jammers set up all over the peninsula, we haven't even found all of the ones behind our lines."

"Sorry ma'am."

"A carpet bombing is out of the question as well," she went on, ignoring his apology. "While the gun itself wouldn't pose a serious threat to any Shortsword or Longsword bombers, the placement of several SAM plasma torpedo batteries in the vicinity would make an attempted bombing run a disaster."

"Ma'am, I understand the need for the gun to be destroyed, but how exactly do you plan to do it? My own squad would be more than happy to do it, but I see no easy way."

"That's because there is none," Colonel Billings confirmed. "I have prepared extensive intel on the area surrounding the AA gun, you can have everything there is to be had. I'll lend you the war room to plan how exactly you'll do it."

"Is that a thing now? Planning our own missions?" Schitzo asked. "I like it."

"Of course ma'am, do we have a deadline?"

"Three hours should be enough, there are several other elite units preparing vital operations. You have to understand , you can't fail this."

"I understand Colonel," I nodded at her. "We won't."

"Good, I wouldn't expect anything less."

Just under three hours later I found myself hugging Hanna goodbye, we had finished with the plan slightly early, so I had sought her out. I knew that when (if) we succeeded Echo Company would be immediately deployed to help with the charge. I just wanted to tell her to be careful.

"You're a medic," I reminded her. "Keep your head down, do more good that way."

"And avoid getting shot too," she added.

"What can I say? I'm selfish like that."

She laughed nervously, a trait that I found very endearing. "The same thing goes for you," she told me. "I don't want you getting hurt. If you do it could be a curse or something."

"A curse?"

"Yeah, oh, the first guy I had sex with? Yeah, he died. I probably don't want that to become common occurrence."

"It won't," I promised after laughing some. "I promise you, I'll be fine."

She stood on her tiptoes and gave me a quick kiss before putting my helmet on and securing it. "Good."

"I love you," I told her, saying that phrase for only the second time. I waited a few moments and when she just stood there, flustered and unable to form a decent reply turned around and climbed on board the Falcon waiting for me.

"Let's go!" Pavel told the pilot.

The Falcon lifted off and left Hanna behind, standing in the mud, looking up at me with a look of bewilderment on her eyes and a smile on her face. That smile was mirrored on my face. Having something to come back to was good, it felt like I was fighting for something. I can only imagine how much Amber and Lavanya inspired Pavel to survive.

There were two Flacons in the group, one of them had Pavel, Caboose, Grass, and myself on it, with Pavel and me manning each turret. The other one had the rest of the squad on board. We were flying very close to the ground, less than three meters off. There was artillery and smoke grenades covering our flyby, it wasn't the first time there had been a raid similar to this one, the covvies wouldn't be too alarmed, they'd try to shoot us down, sure, but it was common enough for a pair of gunships to bypass the frontline completely that they wouldn't try too hard.

I had to gun down a few grunts and suppress a pack of brutes, but otherwise we bypassed the enemy line with no trouble. We then found ourselves on Deadland, mud and not much else other than a few craters and the occasional cattle corpse.

There were a few trees scattered here and there, but before the invasion this land had been mostly used for farming and pasturing, every tree that we saw was stripped of its leaves and looked like a skeleton. Of those several we saw were large oak or elm trees that had been used as shade by the occasional farmhouse. Large flora didn't grow naturally on this part of Asilon, even post-terraforming.

The rotors of the Falcons were incredibly loud in my opinion, especially on a mission like this, but they were dampened and as quiet as they could be made. In the end they made about as much noise as a Hornet would make, but they packed a lot more firepower, especially these two in particular. Missile pods had been attached to each side, they would serve as a distraction and draw attention away from us while we set up, buying us some time to start killing covvies.

I went through the mission in my head once more. It wasn't exactly the stuff that legends were made of, but if we executed it correctly it would work. Half the shades would be out of commission before anyone knew what was going on and we would enter the perimeter with complete ease. Once we were inside things started getting tricky, I had opted for a more stealthy approach while the covvies still believed that we were outside, but things could quickly go to hell if we didn't execute this op properly.

"One minute," the pilot warned.

"Weapons ready!" I called out. I let go of the M247 door gun and drew my BR55, pulling back the bolt and feeding a round into the chamber. The clicking noise was reassuring. "We don't know if they can pick up our transmissions," I said, "so only use speakers and hand signals."

"Thirty seconds."

I nodded, mostly to myself, and moved the gun slightly out of the way. It was still within easy reach if I needed it for an emergency, but I could jump out of the gunship no problem. The Falcon started slowing down a little bit until it was only doing about ten miles an hour.

"Go, go, go!" the pilot told us.

I jumped down along with Pavel, rolling sideways to avoid twisting my ankle. A second later Caboose and Grass went down, also rolling to absorb some of the impact. Twenty meters away Bee, Snark, and Angel jumped out of their own Falcon, they immediately looked around and aimed their weapons up, once they saw that they were in the clear they came running toward us. We were exactly two hundred meters away from the nearest Shade turret and flanked by two of the SAM batteries, about a click away from us each. The mist served as excellent cover for us.

"This is Foxtrot-India-Zulu-1, preparing to fire."

"Fire away," I told him. "Cutting of all radio communications now."

"Good luck Reaper," the pilot put in before I managed to terminate the channel.

"Ok, short sprint towards the Shade turret, gunships should have it distracted."

"If not?" Pavel asked.

"Snark can take care of it," I assured him, trying to sound confident. If Snark had to fire then we would probably be made a lot earlier than we wanted to. "Let's go."

All of us found ourselves running as fast as we could towards the first Shade turret. The gun could've easily mowed us down at this distance, but we had no intel that indicated the Covenant had thermal gear to spot us. At least that much went our way, they were fighting a different kind of war than they were used to, so were we.

"There, I see it."

"Stop," I commanded. "Wait." It took all of two seconds for the sound of several explosions to be heard all around us. I even managed to spot a few of the orange blasts a good distance away. I saw the turret move and immediately waved my team forward. All of our weapons had the best silencers available on them, while I didn't appreciate the front-heavy feel that they gave to my gun, I did appreciate the stealth capabilities that they added. These little beauties could actually silence a gun, making the firing noise quieter than the clicking of the bolt, just like in the movies. Still, I preferred if we didn't use our guns, knives were a lot quieter.

Grass and Bumblebee closed in on the turret, Bee had a silenced MA5 on him and Grass had her pistol out, they went around each side of the Shade, keeping low so that the nervous grunt wouldn't spot them. On the other side of the perimeter, the two Falcons were making a lot of noise, firing wildly and letting out unguided rockets at targets of opportunity, if we were lucky they would shoot down a couple of the Shades, making our job easier.

"Oi," Bee whispered to the grunt. The creature squeaked in shock to see a hostile less than one yard away from it. It tried to reach for its pistol, but Grass slashed with her machete. The sharp blade went through the grunt's throat and got stuck in the back of the turret.

I never did get to ask her where she bought that new blade, she had all but forgotten about her first one and had only started using this one since we jumped onto this planet. It was a wicked-looking blade even if it had a simple, traditional machete design, black blade, and single atom edge. What was better, the back of it was reinforced with I don't know what, it wouldn't bend much and most certainly wouldn't break easily. A perfect weapon for cutting through the tough grunt and brute hides.

"Catch," Bee said, tossing the head of the grunt to Angel. Angel in turn tossed it at me and I threw it as far away from the Shade turret as I could.

Snark and Caboose took a knee and covered us with their weapons while Angel moved towards the Shade, the turret had a little bit of blood on it, but Angel quickly wiped it away while Grass and Bee dragged the body away from sight and dropped it behind a rock. If anyone saw an empty turret they might think that a grunt was slacking off, if they saw the blood and the body then they would know that they were under attack. Angel also put a small charge on the base of the gun, strong enough to blow it up and kill the occupant but not good for much else.

The AA gun itself was surrounded by fortified trenches consisting of two lines. There was the inner line, a wide trench with several plasma turret emplacements and the bulk of the forces, and then there was the outer trench, the line that communicated all of the larger Shade guns to one another. The outer trench was thinner and not as heavily defended, what little information we had on this place indicated that it was probably empty most of the time, except for a couple of grunts that checked in on the gunners or relieved them of watch duty. We still expected the random patrol, but it shouldn't be to worrying. One other thing that we had running for us was that the outer trench was only connected to the inner one in four points, each of them in between one of the eight Shade turrets. It was bad planning at its worst and would do us more good than a pair of Scorpion tanks would.

Well, maybe not.

I jumped inside the enemy trench, taking in the similarities and differences between it and ours. Our trenches had a step on the front side, to allow soldiers to fire easily, the step was equally high on all sides and was usually supported by a piece of wood or metal. Here they had different steps at different heights and in some places they didn't have steps at all. There was also something different about it, almost…curvy about it. I know that the Covenant loved organic and bulbous designs, but it seemed that it was ingrained into them, even their trenches. I guess it made sense, if I dug a trench I would unconsciously make it angular, it felt natural to me.

"Pavel, take Grass, Caboose, and Snark with you, handle the other Shade."

He nodded and immediately took off, disappearing through the mist. I turned back to Bee and Angel and waved them in my direction. "I'll take point."

They both nodded. Angel had a silenced M7 with him in addition to his usual SAW. The machine gun also had a heavy-duty silencer, but it wouldn't do much to attenuate the roaring of the weapon. We'd keep quiet for as long as we could. I kept myself at a half crouch and attached my small knife to the barrel of my rifle. If I encountered a covvie around a corner a quick thrust would be enough to cut through its windpipe. Bee also saw fit to do the same thing and placed the knife on the barrel, adjusting it so that it was on top of the barrel instead of on the bottom, with the point facing slightly downwards he could punch through a skull with less effort.

The trench was dug in straight lines, a complete antithesis to the curved edges that they had. I could guess that the design was an octagon, connecting all the Shades. I stopped briefly when I heard the sound of rotors nearby, I could only make one pair. I cursed inwardly and hoped that both the pilots had been able to make it out of there alive. We wouldn't be getting any more distraction to help in our sneaking.

"Wait," I hissed. There was a passage to our left, one of the connecting trenches. I pressed myself against the wall and walked carefully towards it, lowering my rifle so that it aimed at the floor instead of up front. I handed it to Angel and reached for my sidearm as I peeked over the corner. There was one grunt directly in front of me, just standing around, looking back. It didn't seem too scared, probably happy that the Falcon's had left.

I lunged out of the corner and grabbed the grunt by the throat, yanking it around the corner and slamming it into the muddy walls. The alien was surprisingly heavy for its size, but I managed all the same. In that same movement I yanked its breather from its mouth, revealing pointy teeth. The grunt wheezed and tried to make noise, but Bee quickly bayoneted it in the throat twice before cutting down to the chest. The grunt died from shock before it could choke on the unbreathable oxygen.

"Hide it," I ordered.

I turned again and leaned against one side of the wall, aiming down the trench that the grunt had been standing in. After a grand total of five seconds a grunt emerged from a side passage, talking in grunts and yelps, probably asking its dead friend just exactly what it was doing. I double tapped it on the head with my pistol and ran towards it. I checked inside the passageway and sighed with relief when I saw that it was empty. I grabbed the grunt from the methane pack and dragged it back over the corner. Bee and Angel had already tossed it over the edge of the trench, where it slid down the mud ramp. Nobody should find it for a while. We sent the other dead grunt to join the first one and I stomped on the two bullet casings for good measure, burying them under the mud.

"Move it," I said.

We want slowly along the trench, keeping all of our weapons up in case we needed to take out a grunt or a patrol. We were lucky this time, nobody came across us. The next Shade turret was looking out into the open, with the grunt slouching on the seat. There were a couple of plasma cases next to it in case it needed reloading, but they were safely behind the trench walls. I closed in on the grunt, with Angel and Bumblebee aiming to either side of the trench. I drew the knife from my boot, taking notice of all the colorful patterns that the curious blade had. The sight of Dominic Tenare came to my head, I imagine that this was not exactly the use that the cook had in mind when he gave it to me, but no doubt that he would approve.

I covered the grunt's breather and pulled its chin up sideways violently. I sliced across its throat with the blade, cutting deeply and making a mess of the grunt's throat. I quickly pushed the chin down so that some of the blood splatter would be stopped and then removed the grunt from the turret. It fell down to the ground with a dull thud.

"Sarge," Angel whispered, tossing me a charge. I slapped it underneath the gunner's seat and then heaved one of the plasma cores up, placing it next to the turret. No doubt that when the shade went up there would be a nice boom.

"Should we go for another one?" Bee asked me.

I looked at the mission clock on my HUD, neatly placed underneath my minimap. I missed the motion sensor on my other helmet dearly, but the prototype design had been melted completely when a Locust took a shot at me. Not even the helmet that I had owned prior to this one had motion sensors. The clock indicated that we had a few minutes before we blew up the turrets. It sounded good to me.

"Yes, one more," I ordered. "You be point this time."

Bee nodded and started walking slowly, his eyes scanning every point in the trench to see if a grunt would emerge from behind the mist. Angel was behind him, switching between aiming forward and outside the edge of the trench. I walked backwards, making sure that no alien came around and tried to surprise us. I thought I saw movement a couple of times, but it was only the mist swirling around the bottom of the trench. It made me edgy, jumpy. I didn't want that.

"There," Bee said. "I can see the Shade."

"Your turn," I told him, we'll cover you."

Bumblebee disappeared on the little dug road that led to the shade while Angel and I covered both directions. I heard some struggling coming from the grunt and shook my head disapprovingly. I doubted that anybody would hear it, but as a Helljumper he should've been able to pull this off without any noise whatsoever.

"Crap," Angel said. "Jackals."

I didn't say anything, those things had a better sense of smell than a bloodhound and could hear as good as a bat. Not to mention their eyesight, those bloody assholes. I turned around the corner, towards the Shade, and pulled Angel with me. I slung my BR55 over my shoulder and pulled my sidearm, he did the same. Bee stayed behind us, aiming with his assault rifle at the corner. I signaled for him not to fire unless absolutely necessary and waited for the jackals to come through. The first two were regular jackals, with blue shields hanging lazily by their sides. They saw us to their side, but before they could say anything they had bullets in their brains. Angel turned the corner at the same time as I did, the trench was empty.

I did spot a pair of legs scrambling out of the top of the trench. Angel cursed quietly and jumped up, trying to reach for them, Bee aimed sideways at it but otherwise didn't fire. Angel climbed up and fired three shots, well, at least I saw three flashes. I allowed myself a sigh of relief before a shadow jumped me from the side.

I was slammed hard against a wall, this wasn't a regular jackal, but a full-grown skirmisher, almost as tall as I was and every bit as deadly.

I repressed the urge to cry in pain when its claws cut through my suit, slashing me in the armpit and the nook of the elbow. I pressed myself against the wall and jumped to the other side. I made sure to press my forearm against its throat in an attempt to keep it quiet and maybe crush its trachea. The jackal made a soft wheezing noise but otherwise remained defiant, using its claws to try and get at an unprotected spot and delivering powerful knee strikes to my ribs. I grabbed both of its shoulders and tossed it around towards the Shade. I was lucky that jackals were so light, if it had weighed as much as a regular human I wouldn't have succeeded.

The jackal slammed into the wall of flesh and titanium that was Bumblebee. Bee turned the creature around quickly and used his rifle to hold it by the throat, cutting all the oxygen flow. The jackal made weak screeching noises and clawed at Bee's helmet, leaving scratch marks on the yellow stripes and the pinup girl adorning his helmet. Bee moved his head up front, making a smaller target of his throat. I immediately reached to the small of my back and yanked free the large knife. The jackal had a look of complete and utter fear in its eyes and redoubled its efforts to get free. It lifted its legs and kicked at me, but I was expecting that. I grabbed one of the weak legs and twisted it with one hand, feeling the bones snap.

The skirmisher tried crying out, but it had no air in its lungs, all that came out was some sort of weak, pathetic gurgle. I yanked him and Bee towards me by the leg and dug the knife into its belly, not to deeply. I had make sure to have the sharp edge facing up. I slowly lifted the blade, cutting through organ, muscle, and skin with surprising ease. The jackal shivered and shook violently, looking at me with a look of shock and confusion in its eyes. Bee pulled back on the creature with his gun, pointing the eyes in another direction. I encountered resistance when my knife met the equivalent of the sternum. By that point the jackal had long since stopped moving and was most definitively dead.

"Whoa," Angel said from above us. "I checked for other birds, these were the only four."

"Good," I growled. "Plant the charge." I turned to Bee. "Nice work on the jackal."

"Thanks, sorry about the grunt."

"Don't let it happen again."

"I won't. Sorry."

Angel returned a second later and gave me a nod. He helped Bee toss the dead skirmisher over the edge of the trench and then threw an intestine over as well, making a yuck noise as he did. The other two jackals I threw down as well, three of the four jackals were piled up one on top of the other, with another skirmisher a few meters away. I have to give it to the two skirmishers, I wouldn't have been able to react that quickly in a million years. Too bad they were physically weak when compares to us humans.

I suddenly winced as I felt a wave of pain in my armpit and elbow. I stretched my arm sideways and examined the wounds, there were two cuts on each point, not too deep, but long and painful. I self-administered some biofoam and grinded my teeth together to keep from swearing at the needles of pain. I flexed my arm experimentally and smiled with satisfaction when I realized that the two wounds wouldn't be an impediment if I wanted to kick some ass.

"Twenty seconds," Bee called to my attention. "We better get some distance between us and the bombs.

I nodded and we all started jogging away from the Shade. Our boots made splashing noises when they hit the mud, but we wanted to be as far away from the mayhem as possible when we detonated the charges. When the timer reached three we stopped and Angel sat against the wall. He examined the detonator that he had on one hand and waited for the countdown to reach zero. Once it did and the clock disappeared he raised his left hand and lifted his fingers one by one. He reached four and on the fifth he detonated the charges. Five explosions filled the air, not too big, but they did seem incredibly loud.

Let's take a quick pause to explain the next step of the plan. Once the explosions were heard we assumed that the Covenant would be sending troops from the inner line to the outer ones to check just exactly what had happened. That's why we would keep running around the perimeter to avoid most of the reactionary forces. We were supposed to meet with the other section of the squad on the opposite side and break into the perimeter together, but if that failed we would meet up in the inner trench.

"Let's go," I ordered, my voice still quiet even despite the shouts of activity all around me.

The three of us started running around the trench as fast as we could while keeping our weapons up and ready. We only paused when we saw another of the trenches that connected the outer and inner lines. I peeked over and cursed when I saw that there was a squad making its way in this direction. A brute minor shoving five grunts and a jackal sharpshooter. It obviously wasn't too happy, but it didn't seem to be particularly alert, after all, he didn't spot me peeking over the corner.

"Seven hostiles," I said. "Brute, jackal, and grunts to top it off."

Bee and Angel nodded at me and took several steps back, aiming at the corner. I went with them and dropped to one knee. The moment the brute turned the corner Angel peppered its head with automatic fire from his SMG and allowed me to finish it off with a headshot. The grunts were all hit with short bursts to the head by Bee, five of them down in half the time. The jackal rolled to the side, avoiding our initial bursts. It made the mistake of rolling out of the connecting trench instead of inside it. As soon as it emerged from its roll it received three bullets to the throat. It went down and fired a shot straight up.

"Shit," I muttered. "Hurry it along."

We reached the meeting spot with ten seconds to spare. Pavel and the rest weren't there. I heard scarce plasma fire coming from a distance away, I couldn't make out any gunfire, but that was because of the silencers. The plasma fire was cut off suddenly, the covvies would assume that the intruders were dead, I assumed that the intruders had killed the aliens.

"We go without them," I said when the secondary countdown reached zero. "Angel, you're point."

Angel aimed straight ahead while we checked every side passage, every nook and crevice. Angel took out a pair of shield, carrying jackals halfway through and we started moving more urgently. I had to bayonet a grunt that was emerging from a sleeping hole, but otherwise we were lucky. Once we were inside the inner trench I started feeling a little bit worried. I ordered the team to head in the direction of Pavel.

A squad of grunts appeared out of nowhere, I mean, literally out of nowhere. We were two meters away from them when we saw them. Angel lunged forward and kicked the one in lead in the head. I bayoneted it on the floor while Bee kept his gun raised but didn't fire. Angel sprayed the rest, knocking them to the floor, the squeals of pain were very loud. I bayoneted two and Bee finished off the rest with his knife. Angel turned to face me and shrugged.

"Let's just go," I groaned. I have no idea how all three of us could've missed the little fuckers.

When we got to the next connecting trench we stopped. I could hear the sound of Pavel's silenced machine gun firing, it was very loud when compared to the nearly silent shots from Angel's SMG and my own pistol. We waited for a couple of seconds around the corner. Our patience was rewarded when a brute fell backwards, its chest being peppered with automatic fire. It fell on its ass and just sat there, a dead look in its eyes.

It suddenly roared and Angel fired a burst into its head, tearing it into chunks.

"Frank?" Pavel asked. "That you?"

"We're here," I confirmed.

"Good, got a couple of patrols on our way, had to take this trench."

"You're getting old," I joked. "Anyways, let's move on."

Now that the squad was complete and together again I felt safer. We had two machine guns with us and two shotguns that would cause mayhem all over the place if we used them. The inner trench was covered with purple metal on the sides, no doubt intended to prevent small mudslides and the walls from collapsing, but here they'd be just perfect for bouncing bullet's and pellets around. I wondered, if we fired straight ahead, would the buckshot come and bite us in the ass? It was a good question.

"Fuck, brute pack," Grass warned.

"Light em up," I ordered.

The brutes were all minors, carrying spikers and not much else. They were caught completely by surprise, they knew that they were under attack, but they had no idea that they were this fucked. They let out a couple of shots, but the spikes didn't hit any of us, instead embedding themselves in the floor or flying straight up. The three brutes collapsed and fell one on top of the other. Under any other circumstances the image might've been funny, now it was just relieving.

"The trench leading into enemy HQ is right this way," Angel said.

"Or that way," Snark said, pointing in the other direction. "Either way, we can't go wrong." He paused. "Pun intended."

"Let's go," Grass said.

Since when did they give the orders?

The enemy HQ was a small bunker dug directly underneath the AA gun. It ought to have a chieftain and several of its bodyguards, not exactly something that I was willing to face, but still something that we could take care of if it all went well. We encountered only grunts and jackals on the way, taking them out easily and without making much noise. I turned to the right with the rest of the squad down towards the enemy command bunker, it had the traditional triple doors that covvies loved so much, the color indicated that they weren't locked. Much like the ships.

I felt uneasy, when you got to a human HQ it meant that all you had to face were old men that had left peak physical condition a while back. More often than not these men would be armored but not heavily armed, usually a sidearm but not much else. If you were very lucky, they'd only have a pair of corporals protecting them. The thing is, when you got to a human HQ the thing that you were afraid of the most was that they had a nuclear bomb and were taking you with them.

When you got to a Covenant HQ you knew that you were about to face the fiercest, strongest warriors that the Covenant had to offer. You were expecting a tough fight with a field marshal bearing twin swords or a chieftain with a gravity hammer. You could also count on several white-clad ultras and the deadly brute bodyguards. All you had counting for you when you went in was the element of surprise and the stubborn pride of the aliens to refuse to believe that a pesky human could've gotten this far.

The doors opened to reveal an empty room. We walked inside carefully, our weapons raised. Something spoke to me in the back of my head, this was wrong, but I couldn't quite figure out what was wrong.

"Really?" Schitzo asked. "You can't?"

That was all I needed. "Stalkers! Light it up!"

My squad had long since learned to stop doubting my orders. They were drilled to follow my instructions to the letter. The few times that they didn't I would do everything short of beating them half to death to put them back in their place. Pavel was still the first to fire. He trusted me as a leader but also as a friend, his best friend. The other members didn't take longer than a millisecond either, and soon, the noise of suppressed fire filled the room. We hit the first stalker soon enough, eliciting a cry of pain from it.

"Watch for the flames!" Bee called out as he sprayed the space in front of him. He spotted a flickering brute and emptied what was left of his gun's magazine into its face.

An orange orb floated towards us. We saw it coming and dove to the sides, away from it and the flames that erupted around it. The brute that had thrown it immediately went down with seven different weapons being fired at it. We killed the rest of the stalkers with help from our thermal and VISRs. They hadn't been expecting us to notice the trap, they were probably going to encircle us and light us up with their pyro grenades, letting us walk deeper into the room before acting, they were completely unprepared for this.

"Sarge," Grass said in between breaths. "Good one."

"Don't let your guard down!" Pavel yelled at her. Grass had pressed her hands against her knees and was taking deep breaths.

A second later Pavel was pressed to follow his own orders as a hammer swung towards his head. He ducked underneath the blow and a chieftain emerged from thin air.

"They're not supposed to have camouflage!" Angel complained, firing at it wildly.

Pavel rolled out of the way and the chieftain stomped angrily towards Angel. The man tried ducking out of the way, but the brute slapped his gun to the side and hit him with the hammer. It was a weird strike, hitting him from underneath at a very slow speed. Still, Angel was lifted up to the ceiling and slammed hard against it. He groaned from the pain and then fell back to the floor. He used whatever strength he had left in him to roll away quickly. The brute swung the hammer at the floor and the gravity field pushed Angel violently away, slamming him against the wall.

"Shit," Bee cursed. The man took off his Spanker and left it on the ground as he lunged at the brute chieftain. He aimed his bayonet straight at the place where its Achilles tendon would be. The brute fell to one knee from the impact but still managed to swing its hammer, forcing Caboose and Pavel to jump away. Grass fired at it from the side, hitting it in the torso but not really doing any damage. Bee yanked his bayonet while twisting and the brute roared. Bumblebee then stabbed it in the back of the neck. Hard.

The brute lifted its head and roared at the sky, well, the ceiling. It was very dramatic.

Then it shook its head violently, not so dramatic. The movement yanked the gun from Bee's hands. Grass, Pavel, Caboose, Snark, and me, fired at it while Bee scrambled backwards. The brute lunged for Grass, but she rolled out of the way and quickly scrambled to safety while the three of us kept up our automatic fire. Caboose and I had to stop to reload while Pavel kept backing away while pounding away at the brute. Pavel's back hit the wall and he kept on firing. The brute was now struggling to walk forward.

The loud noise of the weapon was suddenly replaced by a repeated clicking noise. Pavel looked at his gun, then back at the brute. I cannot possibly describe the sound that the brute made, it was a sound of triumph, satisfaction, and realization that it had won.

It jumped forward and punched Pavel right in the gut, forcing him to drop his gun. Pavel fell to the floor, trying to catch his breath and probably holding back the pain. By this point my weapon was already loaded. I fired into the brute chieftain, but it seemed intent on killing Pavel first. It raised its hammer and prepared to bring it down on him.

During my long days as a Helljumper I had picked this silly habit of tackling bigger aliens than me. Most sane people would scramble away and try to reload quickly, the aliens always expected that and rushed forward to kill them before they could reload. Most of the time I didn't do that. Most of the time I attacked first. I was pretty good with knives and could kill most aliens with them in very little time, bar hunters, of course. I went for the legs or waist, shifting the alien's center of gravity with the tackle. Once on the floor we usually ended up on equal terms. The elites and brutes had more strength than I had, but I had three knives and the know-how required to cut open the aliens. It was a stupid habit, flamboyant, and showy, but it was ingrained into my very being, it was part of who I was.

And Caboose had apparently picked up on it.

The man fired a burst as he ran forward and tackled the brute's ankles hard. The brute shifted sideways from the impact of a speedy human hitting its feet. It wasn't able to regain its balance and Caboose made sure that both feet were secured together. The chieftain slammed hard into the floor and reeled backwards when Pavel kicked it in the face three times in a row. Snark ran forward, he was the closest to the action after Pavel and Caboose. I refrained from firing, I didn't know whether the brute would move and I'd end up shooting Pavel or Caboose.

Snark jumped on top of the brute, stomping down on its head. I had a hard time believing that a man as small as he was could succeed in restraining the enormous alien, but the stomping was good and the brute was stunned. Following that Snark reached for Bee's rifle, still embedded on the chieftain's neck. He twisted the weapon, and the brute's head with it, so that it was facing the floor. Once it was there he depressed the trigger, emptying whatever was left on the gun into the chieftain's head.

That was what did it, the brute stopped moving. Snark pulled out his sidearm and fired two shots into the chieftain's head just to make sure.

"Grass," I snapped. "Check on Angel. Caboose, you're with Pavel." I turned to face the doors. "Snark and Bee, cover the entrance."

I checked the room for more surprises, the only thing that I discovered was a small rear exit that would allow us to fire directly on the AA gun. I returned and tried assessing the situation.

"Caboose, sitrep."

"Strong punch, can't really say much, but the impact was hard enough to knock the wind out of him, pain will probably stay there too. There might be some organ rupture, nothing immediately deadly, but he's out of commission until we get him to a hospital."

"Nonsense!" Pavel yelled. He was about to say more, but yelling was too much for him. He wisely shut up after that.

"Grass?"

"Similar injuries here," she replied. "Initial hammer strike wasn't that bad, it just lifted him up. He probably got a concussion from the impact on the ceiling, but nothing bad."

"And?" I pressed her.

"The gravity field did some damage, like a concussive blast. One of his kidneys is mush and he's bleeding internally, I've patched him up with biofaom, but I'd need medigel if I wanted to do a thorough job.

"Here," I said, reaching into the pouch on my left leg. "Private reserve, make it count."

"Thanks," she replied. "He's unconscious, but not immediately critical."

I nodded and paced around. "Ok, we lock the door to this place," I ordered. "Grass, there's a firing console over there, I want you to fire at nothing…" I paused. "Wait, how much can this gun twist?"

"To the side?" she asked. "It can fire sideways if needed to."

"Excellent, I want you to aim it at one of those SAM batteries, ok?"

"Understood," she acknowledged, leaving Angel lying on his back.

"Bee, after Grass shoots down the SAM emplacements I want you to fire into the energy core inside the weapon. It's supposed to come out then reloading."

"Yeah, I know," he replied, taking his weapon from Snark and patting him on the back with approval.

"Gun is aiming," Grass shouted. "They have the coordinates of several of the enemy positions here."

"Copy them," I told her, "as soon as we blow this thing up I want you to transmit them to command."

"First target is located. Shot should be enough to wipe it from the map."

"Fire," I ordered.

There was a loud noise through the ceiling and walls, but otherwise we saw nothing. The doors were locked now, impervious to most portable arms, nothing short of a fuel rod from a hunter would take them down, and even then, it might take a while. I felt safe here. Safer than I had since that Falcon first took off.

"Second target locked."

"Fire," I ordered.

"Third target locked."

"Fire."

"Fourth target is out of reach, too close to us."

"Find another target of opportunity," I told her.

"Done," she said.

"Hold it." I turned around and nodded at Bumblebee and Snark, both of them climbed out the rear exit and took aim at the gun. The covvies were looking everywhere but at them, they assumed that we were firing at human targets and that their leadership was still here. I waited a few seconds for Bee to get into place and then ordered Grass to fire. The room shook from the force of the blast. There was another minor explosion, most certainly from Bee's Spanker. He and Snark slid in again and the AA gun started blowing up from the heat overload in its power core. Snark locked the rear entrance behind him.

"Grass, transmit the target coordinates to command," I told her. "Request a medivac and have them try and get us out of here as fast as possible. We're stuck in this little bunker until they can come get us."

"Mission accomplished, eh?" Bee suggested, trying to look at the bright side of things.

"Mission accomplished," I agreed. Now all we had left to do was wait.

Thanks to Sniper Fodder for proof-reading this chapter.

Well, it's about 12,500 words worth of battle and battle prep. Gotta say that I enjoyed writing this chapter, it was pretty fun and I think I did much better on the sneaking part than I have done on past chapters. You know, I think that the jackals are sometimes underrated as enemies, of course, in the games they pose no trouble, but I think that fighting one of those in real life would be one hell of a challenge. The reason that I decided to have trenches is because I wanted WWI style combat in my fic, it's probably one of the wars that interest me the most and wanted to do something similar to trench warfare. I particularly wanted to do this stealthy trench-clearing part. I think it turned out rather well.

The chapter turned out rather well for me, even if not for Reaper. As always I love reading your reviews and appreciate your constructive criticism. I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Stay strong.

casquis