Chapter CXLVI: Lullabies and Nightmares
May 5, 2547 (UNSC Calendar)/
UNSC Flawless, in orbit above Skopje, Philippus System
"You get used to it, no way around it. I know some guys with stress disorder that can't sleep without the sound anymore. They have to play recordings of explosions and gunfire just to fall asleep."
I reached towards the first chieftain and searched its body. There were several spike grenades attached to it. I grabbed them all and tossed them to Pavel and Wiremu while keeping two for myself. The goddamned things were almost as big as my arm, heavy as hell too. They made for excellent clubs (and crude demolition charges), but it was difficult to throw the explosives very far. I had to strap them over my back instead of on my thighs, but if everything went according to expectations they wouldn't be there for long.
Expectations were not good.
"Set up fields of fire! Aim for the officers! I want everybody to keep their cool and do not fall back until I give the order!"
The elites came en masse, firing wildly. They didn't attempt to use cover, instead trying the same tactics that the brutes had attempted. When it came down to it the elites were great tacticians and knew how to fight, but sometimes their pride prevented them from reaching their full potential. More often than not that saved our the huge apes, the split chins actually had the talent to pull it off. They used their superior shielding and skills to drive us back. Combined with smarter fire and maneuver tactics as well as leapfrogging they gave us some trouble. Within three minutes we were forced to evacuate to our fallback point. We were in a long hallway, with several sandbags piled on the sides to give us cover. Only the second half of the hallway had any cover, the other half was a killzone, and a rather good one at that.
The elites came again, firing at us, suppressing our fire with their own and trying to move forward. The lack of cover meant that we could take them out easily, but eventually the volume of firepower that they were displaying was more than we could handle.
"Fall back!" I ordered. "Fall back!"
I ran to catch up with my team, hiding behind the last corner on the hallway. I waved at my teammates to run while I stayed there, drawing one of the huge spike grenades from my back. As I heard heavy steps I swung it. I smiled when I saw an elite minor's legs fly forward in an almost comical way. As it fell down I brought the spike grenade down with even more force, driving the spikes even further into its chest. I activated the explosive and ran away, diving before it detonated.
"Fire, fire, fire!"
Right now Pavel was our most powerful weapon. His machine gun could match the plasma repeaters that the enemy had on them and then some. He even yelled loudly as his weapon ate through the rounds of ammunition. We could've used Beckel's shotgun right now, the pellets would certainly bounce off the walls and ceiling, multiplying the damage output. Caboose was firing his own M90, but two is better than one most of the time.
"Two girls better than one, right Frank?" Schitzo taunted. He hadn't let it go and neither had I.
I ignored him, barely even registering the comment as I fired on an elite that had been unfortunate enough to try to shoot from cover. Its shields were already drained and it only took one burst for its head to burst like a melon. The minor behind it got splattered with blood and a second later filled with buckshot. Two kills in as many seconds, not bad.
"Frag out!" Miranda cried. Her voice broke during the yell, not because of fear or nervousness, but because that kind of awkward things just tended to happen to her.
"Corporal," I yelled. "Fire on the right side, we need to stall them!"
"Copy that Gunny."
Explosions and gunfire dueled with roars and plasma, we tried our best, but in the end they were more and they were good. We had to fall back yet again. Our next position was a security booth that had guarded the entrance to the inner sections of the Macedon building. It would serve as a nice spot for the time being, even if it did make firing from cover a little bit awkward.
"Spike grenade!" Wiremu warned as he tossed his softball bat-sized explosive at the ceiling behind us. When we turned the corner we heard the explosion followed by the sound of shrapnel bouncing off walls and cries of anger and pain.
"Nice job," Pavel complimented.
"Gunny!"
"Almers!" I yelled. "Glad to have you back, and you two as well. Beckel?"
"He…he might still make it."
"That's good."
This time the elites managed to get within knifing distance. Two cloaked split chins managed to sneak past our fields of fire and attempted to stab at Caboose. Years of battles and honed reflexes saved his ass, but his chest piece was left with a huge gash from side to side. He raised his shotgun and fired at the elite as soon as he landed from his backwards jump. The buckshot tore through the shields, armor, and skin like it was paper and the elite collapsed.
The other one instead aimed for me, probably recognizing me as the leader. I was crouching when it slashed at me with a sword. As I dropped to the ground the plasma blade tore through the rock wall, raising dust and making a loud noise. I swiped at the elite's legs with my full strength, not trying to subconsciously hide it anymore. The kick was strong enough to bring the elite to the ground, its back slamming against the floor loudly. I jumped on top of it and grabbed its left jaws, tearing them to the side until I heard cracks. The stealth elite then backhanded me across the chest, sending me flying backwards.
The corporal had come to my aid, planting his foot on the elite's chest and aiming at its face. The elite swiped the ODST's feet from under him and attempted to deliver a lethal haymaker to his face, but the corporal placed his rifle in between the alien's fist and his visor, using his elbows on the ground as support.
While this happened a battle was raging around us.
I barely registered the bite wounds on my hand as I reached for my sidearm. I clicked the safety off and fired into the elite. The rounds collided with its ribs, but the shields stopped them in their tracks. It didn't matter, it was only a distraction. I managed to get behind the stunned alien with my knife already on my hand and lifted its head towards my own before stabbing it in the neck violently. I turned towards the corporal, who fired no less than eight rounds into the elite, finally killing it.
"I swear they are only getting harder to kill," he grunted.
"Agreed," I said. "Get down!"
Needle's flew past both of our heads and detonated harmlessly against a wall.
"Keep their heads down!" I yelled at Pavel.
"I'm running out of ammo!"
"Goddamn!" Wiremu cursed, jumping back as plasma hit his position. "Gunny…"
"We can hold them off!" I insisted. "Use your flashbangs!"
It was almost certainly a futile attempt, the elites had long since gotten used to our flashbangs, and they had developed some sort of polarizing function on their lenses and visors. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't, but it would be difficult for those devices to simply change the tide of the battle.
I was right, the elites barely reacted, save for one that dropped its weapon and was gunned down almost immediately.
"Fall back!" I ordered once again.
In our next position we met up with Third Squad.
"Frank!" Master Sergeant Dajani called out. "Good to see you."
"Same here Yas," I replied. "Helluva pounding we're taking."
He nodded. "Two squads and a half are better than one." He looked around, examining the open room that had served as a mess hall for employees some time back, it was easier to defend than most of our previous positions. "Second Squad and you four take center and right flank, Third Squad, we've got our left!"
The elites burst through the doors seconds after we had taken position. Sandbags and overturned tables had made our cover a small fortress while the elites had none of the advantage, a couple of them tried deploying shields, but they were clearly caught off guard by our fortified position and a dozen of them fell before they could react appropriately to the situation.
"Good job," Dajani complimented. "Show those fuckers."
In battle everybody's a pottymouth.
The next time the elites attempted to assault the position they tossed several deployable covers. They started firing from behind them holding an advantage over us because they could actually see where they were firing at without having to leave cover. Moments later elites carrying doors and tables burst through, positioning them in between the shield walls. They had made their own little barricade and we now found ourselves exchanging potshots.
"Wiremu," I called to the Maori. "Still have rockets?"
"Indoors?!" three different men exclaimed.
"Um…Gunny?" Miranda started. "We could bring the-"
"Wiremu?" I pressed, ignoring the girl.
"I-I do?"
"Well use them goddamnit!"
"Gunny, range is extremely close, they're less than fifteen meters away, plus the backblast could-"
"Either you fire them or I will," I growled.
He sighed.
"Heads down!"
The following explosion rocked the whole room, with pieces of the ceiling falling down on top of us. The results were clearly favorable though, with three elites now unrecognizable slabs of meat and one more out of the fight until he grew another pair of legs.
"Frank!" Dajani boomed. "Do not do that again without my explicit permission!"
I nodded, knowing that he couldn't see me. Just as well, he knew me well enough to know that my silence was agreement.
I ducked behind the tables and sandbags as plasma occasionally flew above us, the battle had slowly been dying down, no doubt the elites were expecting reinforcements. I had Serge to one side and Miranda to the other. The Frenchman was also taking a rest, taking deep breaths in order to make the tiredness fade away. Miranda looked annoyed and frustrated, but she hadn't been hit.
"Miranda, you still don't have a Purple Heart, do you?"
"What? No."
I examined her. "Those scratches don't qualify, do they."
"That's what command says."
"Uh-huh, do you want one?"
"No!" she exclaimed, sounding flustered.
"Just wondering," I shrugged.
"Frank…" Pavel started.
"Relax, I'm not planning anything, at least not yet."
A plasma grenade atomized part of our barrier, lightly scorching an ODSTs armor.
"Ok, I just came up with a plan!" I yelled loudly.
"About goddamned time!" Almers complained. "Do tell Gunny."
"It's a one man plan," I replied. "Just cover me."
"Covering fire!" Dajani shouted.
I ran towards the back of the room and ducked behind a partially collapsed column. Once there I tossed a small charge of C-12 at the ceiling. It was barely large enough for me to fit the minuscule detonator into it, but it would do the job. The explosion brought down a square yard of the ceiling, allowing me to jump and pull myself up the second floor. Once there I ran toards the direction of the elites and then some before placing another C-12 charge. This one would've been enough to blow through a frigate's plating. The thinnest section of it, but still.
For a moment I thought that I overdid it, but then I realized that I had placed just the right amount of explosive on the floor. A huge hole had emerged and the explosion itself had killed one elite. I tossed all my grenades down the hole, throwing them in different directions. The booms and ensuing cries of pain were music to my ears. I then started firing wildly at any movement I saw, producing even more cries. I enjoyed my advantageous position until I saw a green light.
"Shit," I muttered as I jumped backwards, a fuel rod shot only just missing me. It hit the ceiling above me and brought several pounds worth of rocks down on my chest, knocking the wind out of me. That would certainly bruise later.
"Hunter!" I yelled as loud as I could. "Fall back!"
Before I knew it another rocket was fired. Indoors. Again. The explosion brought down the floor from underneath me, and the air was driven out of my lungs once more as I landed on my back. I looked up with a groan to see a hunter's legs still standing and the walls behind it splattered in orange. Its bond brother roared in anger, the sound reverberating through my bones.
"Pull him out!" someone yelled.
Before I knew it two pairs of hands were dragging me back towards safety. I complained and got up just in time to hear Dajani give the fall back order and ran for my life as an angry hunter charged after us.
The hunter was berserk, tearing through the walls and ceiling of the room as we tried to enter a hallway. It was right on our ass, bashing at empty air with its shield while it tried to avenge its partner's death. I was the furthest one to the back and I didn't really feel like elbowing someone out of the way to save myself.
So I turned and fired a burst at the hunter.
Aaaand it had no effect whatsoever.
The hunter jumped forward, shattering pieces of the ceiling as it did so, landing right next to me.
"Gunny!" the ODST corporal yelled, running towards me and firing his assault rifle at the hunter.
"Duck!" I shouted at him.
We both ducked as the hunter swiped at us with its shield. He was only marginally slower than I was, but it was enough to fail him. As I ducked underneath the swing I could see the corporal dropping to the floor. The flat of the hunter's shield hit him in the head and chest, dragging his body towards the wall. As the ODST was hammered in between the behemoth's arm and the rock walls I heard a crunch that made me gag. I could see a splash of blood against the wall and the corporal's corpse sitting down with half its head missing.
"Shit!" I said again, running away as fast as I could, not caring if I left anybody behind me.
"Concentrate your fire!" Dajani ordered. "Aim for the neck!"
The ones of us that were still alive followed his orders, and eventually the hunter stopped running and crouched into a defensive position. That gave Wiremu enough time to fire another rocket at the hunter, finally taking it out for good.
"Head towards the cable car," Dajani said. "We're abandoning the building!"
The cable cars were packed to the brim with us Helljumpers, the elites that arrived first, the ones on our toes got hit with a gunfire barrage for their eagerness, the cable cars started away towards the main building overseeing the shipyards themselves.
"Tahlia, we held as long as we could, but we're falling back."
There was a pause and a sigh on the other side. "Understood," Hayes replied. "Good job."
Plasma flew towards us, but we were too far away from the rifles to have any accuracy.
"Lieutenant!" I yelled just as Dajani called Hayes by her first name. She promptly turned to look at us. "El-tee, where's Beckel."
"There," she replied, pointing to a door without stopping. "Yassir?" she asked her second-in-command.
"Tahlia, we need to review our…" his voice faded away as I walked away from him and towards the infirmary.
The room was like a house of horrors, small tables and chairs had been dragged all the way to the walls while the larger desks were being used as operating beds. Dry and fresh blood adorned the floor and the walls, the moment I stepped inside I could feel my boots slipping on the floor, the blood making slushing sounds as I stepped over it. Several corpsmen and two doctors were working furiously to stabilize an ODST that had lost an arm and both his legs.
"Stop, he's dead," one doctor muttered.
"Vinters?" I asked in shock. "What are you doing here?"
"Frank? Long story," he replied, barely glancing at me and instead examining another soldier's wounds. "What do you need?"
"PFC Axel Beckel."
"I'm afraid I don't know who you're talking about."
I was surprised by the change on the doctor. He was barely glancing at me, giving me short and sharp replied when he usually talked warmly and was polite. I couldn't blame him, but it was still unusual.
"Spiker bayonets to the belly," I said. "Came in critical."
"Oh, him. He's on the adjoining room, no longer critical."
If that was no longer critical then the situation was bad.
I walked out of the room, leaving red-tinged boot prints on the floor. The other room didn't have as much blood on the ground, but some of the patients were bleeding through their bandages and into the floor. This was bad.
I quickly located Beckel and walked up to him. His shotgun had been placed next to the desk that was acting as his bed, but his assault rifle was nowhere to be seen. His helmet and upper body armor were also off, piled messily underneath the desk. He was covered in bandages, with two large red blots covering most of his front. He was breathing slowly, carefully. He was still one hundred percent awake.
"Gunny?" he asked weakly, only to groan in pain after that. "They say that-"
"Quiet," I ordered. "Don't waste energy." I very carefully lifted the top of the bandages and examined the very edge of the wound. The skin had been messily sewn back together and there was still some biofoam trying to keep everything from breaking apart. I was no doctor, but I knew that he could still die. "I'll talk to the el-tee about getting a medvac. Try to get some sleep."
Beckel nodded weakly, but didn't mention that he would be asleep if the pain would let him. I guess the pain was too much for his usual sarcasm to cope with.
"You did good out there," I said right before leaving. I cursed myself for not meaning it, he had managed to get stabbed in the belly by a low-ranking brute, but I could not let him know that.
Outside I could see a flurry of activity, the landing bay for the cable cars was full of soldiers moving ammo boxes and with Snark and two other snipers firing at the other side of the man made cliff. Occasionally they'd duck from a beam rifle, but for the time we had the advantage. Helljumpers and the personnel that had failed to be evacuated in time shuffled from side to side, creating barricades or running back towards the other end of this building. Luckily for us, we were on top of a mesa of sorts, about a hundred meters prominent and the same in width. The building itself was circular and overlooked the entire shipyards.
This was the only point of entrance that was intact, the stairs had been demolished and other cable cars had been turned off, we had ourselves a little fortress.
I gave us maybe three hours.
I barely glanced at the Spartan as it walked by, trying to appear unimpressed with it. Everybody else stared and gaped, chatting amongst themselves.
"Lucky us, eh?" Pavel askd me, filling his ammo boxes with more ammunition.
"Yeah," I replied, sounding sarcastic but not really meaning it. "Can you believe that most of these guys never even heard about a Spartan?"
He shrugged in an exaggerated manner. "It's a big military, and they were supposed to be a big secret and whatnot."
"I somehow feel like that never applied to us."
Pavel laughed loudly. "Maybe you're right."
"Castillo." I turned to see Hayes walking up to me. "You and your squad are resting for the time being."
"But sir, we're more than able to fight."
"We need backup units," she explained. "This might drag out."
I refrained from making a comment, I believed that we would be overrun rather quickly, but she seemed to dislike me for some reason so I didn't voice my concerns.
"Very well, sir," I said, snapping to attention before returning to my previous position. "Any place where we can rest up?"
"Radio room," she told me. "Tell your squad to go there."
"Sir." I opened a line to my squad. "Second Squad, to the radio room, we're getting some rest."
To be fair, I did enjoy the rest. I managed to doze off a little bit, using my helmet as a pillow while everybody else tried to get some sleep. We were all used to sleeping with gunfire and explosions around us. A lullaby for a nightmare, they called it. It was fitting, if you were sung to sleep by bullets and shells, then you were bound to have bad dreams.
I was no exception, in the little time that I was asleep I saw the faces of the first ODSTs, Marines, and soldiers that had served under me in the Inconvenience, they had thrown their lives away without even caring, but I hadn't bothered to help or even try to save them. Then I saw everybody else, getting hurt, getting killed, in pain. It was my fault, they told me. It was all my fault.
"Castillo!"
"What?" I growled.
"Your squad is up," Sergeant Greg Williams from Third Squad told me. "Bravo Bay."
I nodded. "Second Squad!"
Nobody complained, they were disciplined men. The closest I got to that was Almers groaning a little bit as he got up, but he pulled back the bolt on his MA5 as everybody else took the safeties off. We trotted towards the second cable car port. Or bay, or landing area, I don't know how they're called. Two squads were already there, firing on a group of grunts and elites that had landed inside. The aliens had set up deployable covers, but they were getting hammered from all sides.
"Our backup's here," someone yelled. "Pull out."
I shook hands with some sergeant as his squad pulled out while mine took positions. We finished off the rest of the aliens with little effort.
"Phantom coming in," Al-Hassani warned, his face briefly appearing on my HUD. "Be ready."
"Ready, ready!" Wiremu yelled.
"Ready, ready!" the other squad echoed loudly.
Apparently that's what his team had cried before starting a play in rugby, it was supposed to intimidate the opposing faction, here it was good for boosting morale, everybody felt more badass than they actually were.
The humming got louder until a Phantom appeared on the open space. The cables were still there and were too thick for anything short of a power saw to cut through them, instead the aliens jumped several feet and landed, some of them rolling to divert the force of their falls. The grunt door gunner did an excellent job of suppressing us, firing on our positions wildly to keep our heads down. I wasn't able to look up until after the Phantom left and by that time the aliens had taken cover in the cable cars and had set up deployable covers.
"Elites go out first," I reminded everybody. "Miri, see if your rounds can punch through the cars, keep them with their heads down!"
For five minutes we did what we could, shooting at them from our fixed positions. We had a slight advantage when it came to altitude, standing about half a floor higher as well as having superior cover, but their plasma weaponry was heating up the metal walls, making it highly uncomfortable for us to stay where we were.
"Serge, throw a frag," I ordered. He was the best throw. Well, in truth he was the most precise, I was the one that could throw the farthest. "Second cable car, that elite's getting annoying."
He complied with my order and finished the elite as it staggered backwards, its shields drained from the explosion. Two other grunts were killed by the shrapnel, and I could see the body of one that had tried to vault over the window and to safety. It was bleeding blue blood into the floor.
A burst of plasma made me duck before heavy footsteps and bursts of gunfire drew my attention. I saw the Spartan jump over our line before landing amongst the surviving aliens. It killed the nearest elite with a flashy kick to the jaw. The grunts were peppered with SMG fire and the remaining aliens were quickly dispatched in a combination of gunfire and close quarters physical combat.
"I need a rocket launcher," it announced suddenly, its submachine guns hanging by his sides, still smoking.
"Wiremu," I ordered the man, extending my hand. As he handed me his rocket launcher I turned to the super soldier. "Catch."
He deftly holstered one of his M7s before catching the heavy weapon with one hand. I was amazed at myself for having been able to throw it that far, but the man just had to outshine me. He stood on the edge of the open space where the cable cars stopped, a hundred meter fall a step away. A couple of plasma bolts hit near him, but he promptly jumped back towards the wall, his back pressed firmly against it.
I had to duck as another Phantom hovered over the entrance. Then I saw the Spartan fire two rockets at the belly of the ship at point-blank range. The missiles hit the engines, and soon the Phantom was bucking wildly, trying to stay afloat. It hit the cables before sliding downwards and finally tipping over the side. Before it fell the other set of cables made contact with it and it stayed there, an upside down Phantom, hanging a hundred meters from the ground without any way out of there.
"Huh," I muttered in surprise. "Interesting."
"Take a picture," Pavel laughed. "I know I am."
"Then put a caption on it," Miranda laughed.
"No," Almers said. "No captions."
For a moment I thought that Miri would quip something back, but she was still awkward around people and instead remained quiet. I still didn't get how she couldn't give shit to anybody. She had been an ODST for over two years now.
"Thanks for the assist," Wiremu told the Spartan as he was given his SPANKr back.
The Spartan barely nodded before he was off, reloading his guns as he went.
"Damn," Miranda exclaimed in admiration.
I rolled my eyes. "Close your mouth," I snapped at her. "You'll drool all over your visor."
I could picture her snapping her jaw up before turning to aim down the range.
"Three Spirit dropships," Al warned. "Their shape should allow them to deploy the troops further in."
"Thanks," I said sarcastically. "Prepare grenades."
Only two Spirits could fit side by side on the opening, but they made sure to drop all their troops at the same time. Every last one was an elite wearing a full face helmet. Spec Ops. They started firing at us with their carbines while rolling away from our fire. The grenades took out a couple of them, but the rest found cover or deployed their shields. When the third dropship came in I knew that we were in some trouble.
"Fuck!" Caboose cried as a needle pierced his forearm, going all the way through. In pain, he stood up and cursed, pressing his hand against the entry wound. Another burst of plasma fire made him duck, but another elite fired a bolt that caught him in the back of the knee and made him collapse. "Yebat, yebat, yebat! Chertobski derm'mo!"
I had never seen Caboose lose his composure like that so I was immediately worried. I ran to him and dragged him behind cover again. His leg and arm were bleeding profusely, and he was quietly cursing in Russian. I looked at his wounds carefully before looking up at him once more. He met my stare through his visor and slowly, almost regretfully, shook his head.
"Keep your head down," I told him. "We should be relieved in a few minutes."
A few minutes turned into half an hour of intense combat with the elites. Wiremu was nicked in the waist, but he could fight on. I myself got hit twice in the chest, but the armor held well enough and dissipated the heat as well as destabilized the plasma. Pavel, as per usual, escaped completely unscathed, with Serge and Almers only getting close calls. In the end it was only the timely entry of the Spartan that allowed us to push back the elites.
Literally. The last elite alive was actually knocked off the edge in a combined effort of the ODSTs of the other squad. They laughed loudly for thirty seconds after that until they realized that one of their own had been hit right in between the eyes by a miracle shot. The atmosphere changed as they solemnly carried their dead comrade out of the room while I observed them, Caboose's good arm wrapped around my shoulder and his wounded leg bent at a slight angle so that he wouldn't put any pressure on it.
I carried him out, with the Spartan keeping guard as two other squads came to replace us. I entered the room for the mildly wounded and sat him down on a chair before calling for a medic.
"Just don't piss your pants," I teased.
"I'll try," he replied, not amused.
I then walked into the room where Beckel was, he was still awake, his eyes marked told me that he was in serious pain, but no more morphine or painkillers could be spared on him. He was stable and others weren't. He looked at me and smiled weakly.
"Gunny…"
"What did I say about talking?" I snapped.
"Just, could you?" He slowly lifted an arm and pointed at a can of coke sitting on a table opposite him.
"That can't possibly be healthy," I told him. "You have two holes in your stomach."
"If I die I die. I know what the docs are saying."
I shrugged. It was his funeral, not mine. I reached for the can and gave it to him.
"Not gonna open it for me?" he asked.
I shook my head.
He shrugged and then grunted in pain before slowly putting his other hand on the top of the can. He opened it and for some reason it exploded in his face, getting him wet and sticky.
Yeah, kinky stuff.
"What?"
"This is the second time," I said disapprovingly. "Remember Acheron-VII?" I left the room without waiting for him to reply, silently hoping that he would make it in time to be saved. I walked to a bathroom and took off my helmet, examining my face.
I suffered from a great deal of vanity and was lucky that I considered myself good looking enough not to worry about that most of the time, but right now, looking at my face, I looked like shit. There were huge bags under my eyes and a large bruise on my forehead from having the helmet secured against it for so long. My left jaw was slightly swollen and I had snot dripping from both nostrils. My hair was messed up and even with water it wouldn't stay down.
I tried reassuring myself that I still had my natural good lucks underneath all that, but I decided to stop looking at my face and instead took off my chest piece and front armor, exposing the burn that the two plasma bolts had inflicted.
"Puta madre," I cursed when I saw the extent of the damage. I would've imagined raw skin and maybe some blistering, but it was evidently worse. I had no skin in the area in between my nipples and my solar plexus, blood and pus oozing from the wounds. Below that I had black bruised covering most of my ribs. "Carajo," I cursed again, throwing my armor aside and punching the window, producing a spider web-like pattern of cracks.
I cursed again, this time in English before picking up my shit and walking back towards the radio room.
"What up Gunny, showing off your abs?" Wiremu said jokingly before he could see the red spot of raw skin on my chest. "Goddamn…"
"Holy shit Gunny, you ok?" Miranda asked me.
Hell, even Serge looked over with a worried look on his face.
I dismissed them all, tossing my armor to the floor and kicking at my helmet when it rolled away from the pile. Pavel tossed me a can of biofoam and I poured some on my hand before gingerly rubbing it on my chest.
"Fuck!" I grunted as the biofoam started taking effect. The thousands of little stinging needles were closing off the wounds and mending tissue. After the pain was gone I looked down at my chest and was relieved to see that it was a much lighter shade of pink than it had been before. Putting my armor back on was painful but manageable.
"Frank…" Pavel asked after everybody had gotten over the sight of seeing my glorious naked upper body.
"I'm fine," I assured him. "Flesh wound."
"We're not in a movie," he told me. "There's no such thing as a flesh wound."
"Sometimes it feels like we're in one," I sighed. "With all this crazy shit going on. Relax man, I'm fine, it hurts like a bitch but shouldn't do much more than that. After I'm out of here I'll get skin grafts or surgery and I'll be as good as new."
"You sure?" he asked me.
"Yes!" I said loudly. "Just shut up."
I closed my eyes and managed to fall asleep once again, this time I was woken up by Snark, he prodded me with his sniper rifle. It was a good decision on his part, because I grabbed the weapon and yanked in an attempt to get the attacker, but I soon realized that there was no attacker. It had all been in my dreams once again.
"Sarge," he said. "You're up."
"Did you just poke me with the barrel of your gun?" I growled.
"Uh…no?"
I glared at him and shook my head before deciding to let it go. "Second Squad up," I boomed, emphasizing the last word. "Let's go, let's go, let's go!"
Everybody slapped fresh magazines onto their weapons and shoved them into their webbing. No grenades this time, we were running low.
"Follow me," Snark said, beckoning with his head.
He lead us through the small complex and towards a set of stairs. I shook my head and groaned as I saw that we would have to guard the rooftops. Several boxes and barriers had been set up as cover, but we were still exposed to enemy aircraft.
"Thanks," I nodded at Snark. "Can you spare Bee?"
"He's already up here," he replied. "Good luck. I don't envy you."
I slapped his shoulder and laughed without much humor before putting my helmet back on. "Wiremu, go see if you can get any more missiles, we might need them."
"Move along Api," Almers joked, slapping him in the butt as he walked past him. "And don't loiter!"
The hatch door leading to the roof hissed as it opened slowly. "Move, move, move!" I yelled, running out into the open. "Miranda and Serge, you get the right flank, cover the exiting squad!"
I stayed out with my weapon aimed up as the other ODSTs that had been here ran back down, some of them bleeding and one of them seriously injured. Bee tried running past me only to run into my outstretched arm. His head turned to look at me and I slowly shook my head. He depolarized his visor so that I could see his face and looked at me pleadingly. I shook my head again.
Bee stood straight and nodded before running back out with his Spartan Laser on his shoulder.
"Get out of the way!" someone warned.
I jumped to the left just in time to avoid a Banshee strafing us. The blue bolts produced hissing and little clouds of vapor from the spots where they hit, but otherwise they didn't hit anybody. As it flew past us I fired several bursts at it. Snark would've been useful right about now, but he was doing his own thing below. A couple of the bursts nicked the right wing of the craft and it veered off slightly before massed gunfire forced it to abandon a second attempt at a strafing run.
"Wiremu!" I cried into my comm.
"I'm going goddamit!" he replied, plasma fire loud in the background. "They took Alpha landing whatever, god fucking damn!"
"Phantom!"
All of a sudden there was a dropship directly overhead. I hated the ones that had active camouflage. It was one of those models that had gravity lifts underneath instead of doors. Well, maybe it was the same model with the doors closed. No matter, elites and jackals dropped, with the smaller aliens making a circular wall of sorts to protect the bigger warriors.
It was a terribly overused technique, but it was also terribly effective. Even when we tried firing at the gaps we usually missed. The few bullets that made it through were stopped dead in their tracks by the elite's own personal shields.
"Frag out!" someone yelled.
The explosion killed three jackals and then all hell broke loose on the aliens. They were partially surrounded and had two full squads of battle-hardened ODSTs firing on their faces. It took all of five seconds for them to collapse on top of one another.
"I'm here!" Wiremu announced all of a sudden. The Phantom was already leaving and one of the Helljumpers on the other squad was groaning and putting pressure on a burn on his leg.
"You're late," Pavel told him.
"I'm sorry, I-"
"Sh!" I quieted them. "Listen."
Sure enough, two Phantom's showed up a second later.
"Take out the one on the right!" I yelled. "Take cover!"
Wiremu fired two rockets at the dropship and it started putting out smoke, but it didn't stop. He reloaded in what must've been record speed and fired another rocket before a pink bolt hit his SPANKr. He dropped the smoking gun and kicked it away from him just in case it blew up. I looked up to see another Phantom directly overhead. Fucking stealth craft.
"Skirmishers!"
There were only two of them, but they managed to bring Miranda to the ground and before she killed one and Caboose shot the other. I turned to fire on the other Phantom's gunners but suddenly felt a heavy weight on my shoulders. Not a metaphorical weight mind you, a real one.
My head slammed into the rooftop as a jackal landed on my back. I pushed myself up and then threw the creature over my head and to the ground. Just as I looked back up I saw an elite aiming at me with a repeater. I didn't have time to reach for my rifle and my sidearm would've barely hurt it. It was too far away for close quarters combat.
"If only you had…" Schitzo started, but I already knew what to do.
I ducked and lifted the jackal. It was still alive but shaken up. I put my arm across its neck and it jerked as the elite fired three shots, not caring if it hit its ally. I used my other hand to lift the shield gauntlet and smiled when it held under the rapid plasma fire. I didn't even bother to draw my own sidearm, instead just yanking the jackal's pistol from its still-twitching hands and pulling the trigger down. I didn't let go until I had charged the shot for three seconds.
"Smile."
The green blob hit the elite right in the chest and I could see its shields disappear in a storm of yellow lightning.
"Serge!" I called out.
He turned from whatever he was doing and fired one quick burst into the back of the elite's head before firing a longer one into its body. He nodded at me and went back to his own business.
"Frank!" Behind you!" Pavel warned.
I was on a roll. I turned with the jackal's body still in my arms and stopped or deflected a bunch of needles from another jackal. I fired at its feet and finished it off, buying myself a moment's respite. I used that to yank the gauntlet from the jackal and put it on my won hand. I don't think I have to describe just how incredibly badass I felt when I activated the red shield, its hissing noise fading into a hum before disappearing.
My rifle was down on the floor a few feet away. I grabbed it and took a kneeling position before a bunch of plasma bolts slammed into my shield.
"Not so much fun now, dickhead," I told the elite that had shot at me. I knocked its shields off with three bursts before it tried to dive for cover. Miranda put it out with a neat headshot that went in through one of its eyes. "Get their shields!" I yelled.
The moment there was a lull every ODST grabbed a jackal's corpse and pulled the gauntlet out. There were a few mutterings regarding the new equipment.
"It feels…" Miranda started.
"Wrong," Caboose finished for her, examining his blue shield.
I was about to start yelling when another Phantom appeared from below. "You've got to be kidding me."
Three high-ranking elites dropped from the cargo bay. One of them had not one, but two energy swords and the other two had one turret each. They were crouching, no doubt having trouble carrying the huge weapon, but they were carrying it.
An ODST jumped away while firing his sidearm at the leader, a field marshal by the looks of him. The enormous elite jumped towards the man and impaled him through the chest with one sword before decapitating him with his second sword. I allowed myself a sigh of relief when I realized that he didn't belong to my squad or platoon. Then the spell broke.
The ODSTs that were left fired at the three aliens and they opened up in return. One of the gunners went down almost immediately, but the other one managed to make all of us dive for cover. Rapid plasma fire flew overhead and anyone that tried to take a peek was aimed at.
"What now?" Almers asked.
"Fall back," I ordered. "To the hatch."
"Blind fire," Pavel said, mostly to himself. He raised his machine gun and started firing in the general direction of the enemy. His arms shook from the recoil, but his massive muscles managed to keep the M247L relatively stable.
I stayed with him as everybody ran back and the ordered him to fall back, leaving me alone.
After all, a leader is supposed to be the first one in and last one out, right?
Fucking idiot, I told myself. You should've run.
I played dead as the two elites walked past my position, the gunner barely spared me a glance before I jumped it. By jumped it I mean tackled of course. Its knees gave way under him and it collapsed. I could just imaging the train of thought that went through his head as I slammed the butt of my rifle on its face, teeth falling from its jaws. I jumped away just as the swordsman tried to impale me, the twin points instead went through the elite on the ground.
I allowed myself a small smile as the field marshal yanked its sword free with a growl.
It examined its weapon before looking at me. "My blade is stained by the blood of my comrade," it said in surprisingly good English, its voice a deep baritone that would've intimidated anyone. "Yours will have to clean the stain."
It didn't give me a warning as it lunged at me with both swords. I barely had time to activate the gauntlet as the plasma blades flew at me. Both of them hit the shield and the elite growled. The shield pulsed red but it held. I took a small step forward and pushed the two swords away before rolling sideways as the elite slashed at me.
"Too slow," I taunted.
"You mean to make me angry, vermin?" it asked. "A futile attempt."
I shrugged and fired at it with my battle rifle, it stumbled a little bit under the automatic fire before it lunged at me again, it attempted to decapitate me with both swords, but I dodged underneath them. A follow-up strike collided with my shield, completely draining it.
"Shit," I cursed. Jumping away and pulling out my pistol. I needed to get as much lead as I could into this alien's shields if I was to have any chance. "Can't handle the heat?" I asked it.
"The weather does not concern me, and neither should it concern you."
"Colloquialism," I explained. "Figure of speech."
"Human language confuses me," it admitted, trying to stab my belly but falling just an inch short.
"I'm confused by how you can stand to look yourself in the mirror," I taunted once again, firing both weapons at it in a futile attempt to finish off whatever was left of its shields.
The field master roared and charged at me, I was only able to survive through sheer reflexes. The swords were a whirlwind around me and I don't know how, but I managed to avoid the blades every time. I thanked the ONI bastards.
"You missed," I said as soon as I managed to put some distance between it and myself.
"You should not feel so full of yourself, imp," it told me. "You are just delaying the inevitable."
"Imp?" I asked it, reloading my rifle. "Why imp? I'm a full blown demon, bitch."
To my surprise, the elite's jaws spread in slight shock when I said that, but it started attacking with even more ferocity. I ducked and dodged and ran, but it was faster and stronger, it was only a matter of time before it caught up with me and gutted me from groin to neck.
Something similar to that was about to happen, with me on the ground, rolling, and the elite raising one of its sword arms. A burst of gunfire hit its hand, forcing him to drop the sword. It embedded itself on the rooftop before it deactivated. We both turned to see Pavel with his machine gun aiming at the elite. He fired another burst before the field marshal drew a plasma rifle from its thigh and fired at my friend, making him run for cover.
Then, through a series of events that I still fail to comprehend, the rest of my squad came up to my aid and suddenly Miranda found herself hostage, an energy sword pressed against her neck. Second Squad aimed at the elite but didn't fire. I myself placed its head in my pistol's sights, but didn't shoot.
"Damn it Miri," I cursed. "What the hell?"
"Sorry Gunny." She sounded genuinely apologetic.
"Not one more step human," the elite addressed me. "Or your man will be missing its brains!"
Miranda scoffed in offense as the elite said man instead of woman, but I was already pulling the trigger. Three bullets slammed into the elite's head before it jerked backwards, giving Miranda enough time to elbow it and stomp on its foot, getting away.
The whole squad opened up, but the elite ran out of the rooftop before jumping.
"Shit," Pavel growled.
We moved to the edge only to see the elite swing down one of the thick cables and disappear inside one of the windows.
"Fucking ninja," Almers complained.
I was about to mutter in agreement when Al-Hassani's avatar appeared on my HUD. "Frank, can I call you Frank?"
"Sure," I said quickly.
"The wounded are being evacuated, three Pelicans are coming to pull them out the rooftop. Hornet gunships will provide air support and cover while the rest come to pull you out."
"We're retreating."
"The United Nations Space Command prefers the term…tactical withdrawal."
"Sure they do," I sighed. "Second Squad, you all heard, take positions!"
Five minutes passed before the three dropships arrived, making a triangle with their rear sections facing each other. The wounded were already up and were inside the craft within seconds. It was very evident why the floor of the troop bay was commonly called the blood tray. Beckel was being carried up in a stretcher, groaning and complaining all the while.
"We've got space for one more!" the pilot on his Pelican said.
I looked around, all the wounded were up already. "Almers!" I called to him. "Go!"
The three Pelicans took off as soon as they were full, but the two Hornets accompanying them stayed overhead, slowly circling our position and discouraging Banshees or Phantoms from making any attack runs. A Banshee made the mistake of trying to engage in a dogfight and promptly got torn to shreds with combined fire from the two pilots. We were all tense, our guns trained on the hatch that lead down to the building itself. There were almost eighty Helljumpers here on the rooftop, a bunch less than we had started out with. The Spartan was nowhere to be seen.
"Al, where's the Spartan?" I asked the AI.
"The Spar-oh, right." It sounded vague, but I didn't press the AI for reasons as to its reaction. "Two ODSTs find themselves in trouble. He volunteered to rescue them."
"Good luck to it, then," I said simply, pointedly saying it instead of him.
"Pelicans inbound," Pavel told me. "Heads up."
This time it was four Pelicans, and they managed to jam nearly every last ODST inside their troop compartments. The ones left behind barely amounted to sixteen. First and Second Squads to be precise.
"Castillo, you and your men get the hatch," Hayes ordered me. "First Squad, set up fields of fire on the rooftops!"
I didn't think that it would be necessary, the Pelicans would be back soon and we only needed to cover the hatch. Pavel would occasionally fire a long suppressing burst to discourage them from rushing. They got the message well enough and didn't attempt to storm our position.
"Here they come," Wiremu said, pointing at two Pelicans in the distance.
Before anybody could even turn their heads one of the Hornets blew up as several heavy plasma rounds hit it. The other one quickly swerved out of the way and fired at the flight of Banshees, breaking up the formation and miraculously avoiding the plasma. The two Pelicans were still a few vital seconds away. I fired at the Banshees, trying to feel like I was doing something.
"First Squad," Hayes beckoned at her men, aiming at the Pelican. "Go, go!"
By that time my own squad was jumping on the second Pelican. I'm not sure why command deemed it reasonable to send two birds when we would've all fit in one of them with almost no trouble. Still, I couldn't complain as long as I got evac.
"Watch out!" someone warned.
It wasn't directed at me, but at Lieutenant Hayes. The same elite that had had a nice chat with me while trying to impale me swiped at Hayes. She ducked underneath the blow and charged at the elite, catching it off balance and making it stumble backwards. She then jumped back and backpedalled several meters before raising her rifle.
A green flash suddenly blocked her from view, and I saw a Banshee finish a strafing run. The el-tee had been thrown to the edge of the rooftop by the explosion, and the elite's shields had been drained.
"Stupid apes," it growled in its guttural language, my helmet translating it.
"El-tee!" I yelled, seeing Hayes slip down the edge of the rooftop and disappear. I ran towards the spot as the two door gunners on the Pelicans covered me with the heavy machine guns. Lieutenant Hayes hadn't been knocked unconscious, she had merely been dazed enough for her to slip down the roof. She had been lucky enough to grab onto the thick cables that supported the cable cars. She didn't look too good, her armor smoking and only holding on to the cable with one hand.
"Hold on!" I yelled. Even as I said that plasma bolts flew from the opening below, missing her by inches. She weakly raised her MA5 and fired at the aliens below me, but it didn't stop the plasma fire.
Then I did something incredibly stupid. Again.
I jumped down, catching the thick cables with one hand and grunting when my whole weight pulled down on my shoulder. I fired a couple of bursts at the grunts firing at us. They were inside one of the parked cable cars, taking quick potshots. I slung my rifle and pulled myself up the cable before carefully moving towards Hayes. I pulled her up with both hands and placed her behind me. The cable was big enough for us to precariously sit down in but not big enough to walk on.
"Some help here?" I yelled into the comm.
It wasn't a Pelican, but the lone remaining Hornet that hovered next to us. We both sat down on the same side, tilting the craft sideways. It flew off, jerking us and forcing us to hold on to something to avoid being thrown out.
"Why did you do that?" Hayes asked me.
"No one gets left behind," I said, smiling. "Right?"
She depolarized her visor and for a moment I saw the face of her cousin, the lieutenant whose name I hadn't even bothered to learn, who had helped me when my pod crashed down and allowed Pavel and I to get out of Aztlan alive. The same lieutenant that we had left behind without even bothering to confirm was dead.
"Right." The tone in her voice was as clear an indicator as I could get that she knew exactly what had transpired down in Aztlan. "No one."
Thanks to SilasWhitfield and Alshep for proof-reading this chapter.
So, Frank clotheslined an elite a spike grenade. I don't think I could convey the sheer awesomeness of that act so I didn't elaborate. Just try to picture it, it's awesome. He also exchanged witty banter with an elite zealot, something most people would find interesting and under no circumstances incredibly stupid.
So. Beckel's hurt bad. Frank's got a nasty burn on his chest. Pavel saved Frank (again). Miranda did something embarrassing. Caboose actually cursed. Lieutenant Hayes knows what Frank and Pavel did and is understandably pissed. And everybody else just tried to keep up with the badass. That's pretty much the whole chapter. Oh, and the Spartan. I think that Frank has matured a lot since he last worked with Spartans. When was that? With the Chief? I think it was. Say what you say about my story, there's some character development for you guys, and I consider that a small victory.
I've been thinking about some incredibly cool, yet plausible stunt for Frank and Second Squad to pull off, but I can't come up with anything cooler than airdropping with a Scorpion tank. I mean, that was the high-point in sheer badassery of the story and that's depressing. I was considering a couple of things involving drop pods (use your imagination) or maybe jetpacks, but that's the extent of it. Maybe on the next planet they'll do something ridiculously badass again.
To all of those that reviewed: thanks. To all of those who didn't: thanks for reading, but come on guys, it's just an additional ten/fifteen seconds of your time.
Hope you enjoyed reading this chapter, and as always: Stay strong.
-casquis