Chapter CXLVIII: Surf Against Rocks
May 8, 2547 (UNSC Calendar)/
Calderwood Château, Skopje, Philippus System
"There are two ways to end a siege. Either you break them, or they break you."
It was raining. The water fell on my head and rolled down my forehead over my eyes, nose and mouth. For an instant I felt cold steel on my wrists and a warm towel covering my face. I had trouble breathing and I stumbled slightly, catching myself before falling down. It wasn't the first time that something like that had happened, even if it had been almost two years.
"You ok?" Pavel asked me.
"Just woke up," I dismissed, putting my helmet back on, breathing easy once again. "One helluva storm."
"Yeah, big planet means bigger everything."
"I'm not entirely sure it works like that," I said. "But so far it seems like it."
Lightning crisscrossed through the dark sky, lighting up the castle towers as well as the AA turrets. It was windy as hell too, I could feel the wind hitting me inside the courtyard, I could only imagine how the covvies outside were coping against what must've been gale force winds. Not my problem, I guess.
"Lots of Marines," Almers pointed out. "We expecting an attack or something, Gunny?"
"I don't know, I just woke up, same as you."
Miranda craned her neck from side to side before taking a step forward.
"Yes?" I asked her.
"Oh, me? Nothing."
I shrugged, she always managed to sound like a scolded preschooler. "Wiremu, keep those rockets dry, something tells me we might need them."
"He doesn't have to actually keep them dry, they're rated to work in all kinds of weather…" Miranda stopped talking as I stared at her through my visor. "But you already knew that."
"Opa!" Almers exclaimed, slapping her in the back. "You're getting better."
"Second Squad!" someone yelled. "Second-"
"Right here!" Pavel cried. "Oh, hey Royce."
"Klaus," the ODST acknowledged. "Gunny, the el-tee needs you with her. She's in the tower her squad was assigned to."
I sighed. "I'll be right there." I turned to Pavel. "Wish me luck."
"Good luck."
The smell of excitement and nervousness was heavy in the air, Marines ran from one point to another making last minute preparations or shouting for extra ammunition. Looking up at the battlements I could see dozens and dozens of green-clad men aiming down their rifles at enemies that I couldn't see. There were several Warthogs parked with their fronts to the gates in case we needed to use them, the two Scorpion tanks were all the way at the front, but so far we hadn't used them.
I climbed up the tower that Hayes was supposedly in. There were more than a few Marines standing guard. One of them even ran a scanner on me to see if I was who I said I was. Dick.
"Sir," I saluted Hayes. "You asked for me."
"Actually, I asked for you." The woman who had spoken was without a doubt Colonel Sanderson. Pretty.
"Sir," I turned to salute her. "Any reason in particular as to why I'm here?"
"I'm calling most officers and a few squad leaders," she explained. "The Covenant have finally taken the city, they are moving towards us in force as we speak."
"More of them?" an ODST I didn't know asked.
"Let them," another one stated. "They'll be mowed down before they even hit the wall."
There were some mutterings of agreement and I found myself nodding as well.
"While that is all an well," Sanderson silenced us with a wave of her hand. "The enemy forces are…substantial." She motioned for us to move up to the hastily set up holotable in the room, lighting it up. "Here. Hassani, please."
"With pleasure, Colonel," the voice of our platoon's new AI said. "Ladies and gentlemen, the enemy has forces that under any other circumstances would be considered overwhelming." Al stopped talking as the holotable displayed two battalion's worth of Covenant infantry forces. "As you can see, their infantry is rather large."
"No shit."
Al dismissed the comment and went on. "In addition to the standard grunts, no pun intended, the enemy has several companies worth of light and heavy armor vehicles. At least three dozen Daemon tanks have been spotted by air recon. Those tanks by themselves would be able to make a hole in the outer walls given enough time."
"Then we don't give them enough time," I found myself saying.
"Ah, but that's where it gets complicated," Al stated. The holotable now displayed a pair of Scarabs. The smaller models. "As you see, the enemy spared no expense when massing this strike force."
"Did we really piss them off that bad?" a Marine captain asked.
"The answer to that question is not within my processing capabilities," Al replied simply, his hologram shrugging. "The ground forces could likely be fended off by our turrets and heavy weaponry with relative ease."
I huffed. Relative ease when speaking of taking down Scarabs was a terrible joke.
"The enemy also has large numbers of ground attack aircraft as well as dozens of dropships."
"So," Lieutenant Hayes spoke. "What do we do?"
Sanderson placed her two hands on the holotable, gripping it tightly before taking a small step forward. "We're pulling back, even if we did manage to hold off the enemy long enough for them to be destroyed from orbit the planet is already lost, already our forces are evacuating, with civilian evacuations being put to the back of the line."
It always hurt me to hear that. It made a lot of sense when you think about it, pulling out military assets to have them fight another day and leaving the mostly useless civilians behind, but it was still monstrous. I was beginning to think that it was useless anyways, we never did much damage.
"When does the evacuation begin?" Hayes asked.
"One and a half hours approximately, enough time to reposition some of the ships in orbit to make space for our men down here."
"One hour and thirty minutes down here is not so bad," someone said.
"No, it is not," Colonel Sanderson said firmly. "Everyone return to your units, we don't expect the aliens to just let us fly away."
"Sir," we saluted before leaving the room.
The rain was picking up, if that seemed even possible. Despite the sheer volume of water pouring down from the clouds I could still make out the purple and green lights that marked the Covenant positions. I don't understand why they saw it fit to announce their positions to anybody in the neighboring area, but the gunners and mortar spotters wouldn't be complaining when their vehicles started moving in our direction.
Soon enough they started doing just that.
"You know the drill," I told my men. "Hold until they're closer than two hundred."
"Feet or yards?" Almers asked.
"I thought Germans used metric," Pavel told him. As a born and raised Pole Pavel was certain that the Germans used metric.
"I'm not an Earther," Almers dismissed him. "Also, Netherlands, not Germany. Besides, everyone uses metric."
Miranda turned to the medic. "There are still some old colonies founded by United States explorers that stick to the old imperial system."
"Dye your hair blonde and you'll replace Grass in no time," Caboose said, allowing himself a small chuckle.
"Grass dyed her hair black," I told him.
"Newsflash," Pavel added.
"You know, I've yet to see this Grass that you talk so much about," Wiremu said.
I huffed. "Think she'd be into your tattoos?"
"They all are," he replied.
Our little conversation was interrupted as a Daemon shell exploded on the battlements in the inner wall behind us, the compressed whatever plasma didn't destroy it, but it did make a little crater and scattered rock all around, sprinkling us with gravel.
"Goddamn," Almers cursed. "Fucking tanks."
"Amen," Wiremu growled in agreement.
"Shut up, you're an atheist."
Wiremu spread his arms before giving Almers a knock on the helmet with the back of his rocket launcher. Almers stumbled and leaned on the battlements to stay afoot, cursing.
"Cut that shit," I ordered them. "Serge, anyone of them does anything stupid shoot them in the leg."
Serge nodded, acknowledging my order, knowing full well that he wouldn't follow it. It didn't matter, I had half a mind to do it myself.
"Wraiths and Daemons up front! Banshees are making a flyby!" Al warned us on our HUDs.
"Heads down! Wiremu!"
Green blobs collided against the hard stone walls, melting them slightly and creating small craters. The characteristic screaming of the enemy attack craft suddenly filled the air. I ducked and pressed my chin into my chest, making myself as tight a ball as I could. Blue plasma hit the battlements inches from my feet, but the angle didn't allow the Banshees to fire.
"Nail that fucker," Pavel ordered Wiremu.
The man rolled out of cover and took aim for a brief second before firing a rocket that took out a Banshee. It went down with smoke coming out of the fuselage. Several other Banshees were brought down by shoulder-held launchers as well as the Scythe AA cannon. The massive chaingun didn't kill as many as it could've, instead just focusing on the ones that were a direct threat. It could've brought down the entire enemy assault force, but the gunners were conserving ammunition.
"Shitfuck!"
Whoever yelled that was spot on.
Two Scarabs suddenly showed up, the lights on their legs and bodies lighting up all of a sudden, revealing the two walking mechas hulking towards us. They were a lot closer than I would've imagined.
The Scythe opened up on one of them even as the lead Scarab powered up its main gun. The green stream of plasma flew towards the AA gun even as heavy rounds hit its armor. Both the Scarab and the massive defense gun went up in flames at the exact same time. The problem there was that they had a spare.
"Shitfuck," I echoed.
"Movement on the ground!"
"What the fuck?!"
Someone cried out in pain and then a jackal jumped in front of me. The huge Skirmisher kicked me, almost making me fall out the back of the wall. I kicked back, expecting to hit it in the chest only to hit empty air. I used the momentum to help me back to my feet and saw Miranda drive her knife into the back of the jackal's neck.
"You know Miri," I said. "It's weird that you can't talk without blushing."
"A girl's gotta have a few glaring contradictions in her life," she said, shrugging.
"Huh," Pavel muttered.
That's all the time we got, because all of a sudden a dozen skirmishers appeared out of nowhere. I was pretty sure that they weren't cloaked, but the heavy bombardment by the Wraiths and Daemons had given them a small window to sneak in.
"And stay down!" Pavel yelled at a vulture he killed.
I saw Caboose hit a button on his MA5 and a bayonet jumped out, sticking a jackal through the neck. He fired his gun into the alien's face and dropped it, reaching for his shotgun. Miranda slashed at one of the attackers with her knife before firing into its chest from the hip. The skirmishers were carrying plasma pistols and some sort of needle knives. They were in a bad position, with their backs against a wall and then a long fall.
Plus, we were highly trained killing machines.
I made quick work of the two in front of me with a burst to each of their chests. I surprised myself, I wasn't normally that conservative when it came to killing. Wiremu, on the other hand, managed to bash a jackal's skull in with a haymaker and then snapped another one's neck with a backhanded strike. I could hear the poor bird's neck crunch all the way from here.
"Nice," Serge said, taking a moment off his fight to compliment Wiremu. After that he kicked a jackal against the wall and punched it over the top.
"That it?"
"Don't tempt-"
Another dozen skirmishers jumped up. They were using some kind of fancy grapple guns to pull themselves up. This time they fired wildly, missing us by inches or less. I took an involuntary step back as I fired my gun at them, missing as I sprayed just as wildly. After a second I fired three focused bursts on the three skirmishers closest to me, but before either side could react jackals with shields appeared out the ledge, forming a wall with their energy shields.
"Don't you have one of those?" Schitzo asked me, examining his fingernails.
I activated my gauntlet just in time for a burst of needles to bounc of it and charged forward. I slammed into the enemy shield wall with my own scavenged gauntlet. The jackals had weak arms and the one directly on the receiving end of my half-tackle collapsed backwards, slamming its head on the battlements. I tried raising my rifle and firing to the sides, but a skirmisher stepped on the BR55. Instead I drew my pistol and shot it three times in the chest before it could stab me with its stupid-looking pink sword.
That was enough for my squad to make quick work of the rest of them.
"Shields, castles, and now swords?" I complained. "Next thing I know someone will be shooting arrows…"
Pavel stared at me for a second before breaking into laughter. "You know what, you're right, this is fucking nuts.
He was joined by the rest of the squad sans Caboose and Serge, who usually laughed at things only they understood. Our laughter died down with the second Scarab's beam. It hit the inner walls, vaporizing the top of the battlements as well as the Marines behind them. Immediately several missile pods started firing into its knee joints. We were now not only getting pounded by tanks, but by the heavy Scarab as well. With the Scythe gone we were in what you would call a pickle.
"Castillo, I need you and two other men down here now!"
I considered Hayes' orders for a second before ordering Miranda and Wiremu to come with me. I followed the el-tee's IFF and found her climbing into a Warthog on the courtyard.
"Are we actually…" I asked.
"Yes."
"Sure, why not." I climbed onto the Hog's driver's seat and Miranda took the heavy machine gun on the back. Wiremu reloaded his SPANKr and took shotgun.
Hayes was on the side seat in her Warthog, with a PFC driving and Royce manning the gauss cannon on the back. The gates of the castle opened and our two scout vehicles lurched forward.
For an instant I had a sense of déjà vu.
I hit a grunt that jumped out of a rock at the sound of our jeeps. I have no idea how it managed to stay alive for so long, but it did the grunt no good, as its insides painted the hood of my 'Hog.
"What does that make, Gunny?" Wiremu asked.
"Keeping count is childish," I told him. Sixteen.
He laughed and shook his head.
"There!" Hayes came on the radio. "Castillo, I'm going to need you to draw its fire."
"I am a tempting target aren't I?"
"I might just decide to use you for stuff like this more often then."
"I'm your grunt," I replied bitterly.
Wiremu slapped my arm and gave me a what the hell look.
"Sir," I added.
Before anything else could be said three different plasma machine guns started firing on our hog, a couple of bolts even scorching the hood plating. I swerved to avoid being targeted and cursed myself for not turning off the headlights before. Miranda stopped firing back as to avoid muzzle flashes.
"What the fuck are you doing?" I yelled. "We're supposed to be making targets of ourselves!"
Miranda didn't say anything, instead replying by firing at the Scarab's side with as much accuracy as the heavy Gatling could provide. I was thinking that perhaps I should've turned the lights back one, but I didn't want to make us that obvious a target. The heavy caliber rounds slamming into the lower deck should be enough to draw some attention away from the el-tee's 'Hog.
One of our tires was blown and I barely managed to regain control of the Warthog, but we were moving a lot slower than before, making ourselves an even better target.
"Shiiiiiit!"
I heard two blasts from a Gauss cannon just in time. The Scarab collapsed on its ass and a second later it blew up, less than a hundred meters away from us. I was rocked slightly by the shockwave, but I didn't feel any organs turn into mush. So that's good.
"Incoming!"
Shit. Again.
All three of us left our Warthog before a Wraith mortar slammed directly into it.
"How do they even manage?" Miranda complained loudly. "I mean, they're never this accurate!"
"Easy girl," Wiremu said. "We need to get back."
"Agreed," I said. "Eyes up, there are still some Banshees lurking around. Those are your responsibility Wiremu."
"Understood."
"Let's move."
I felt a tickling on my face, kind of like it would feel if it were numb, but slightly different. It was accompanied by that déjà vu feeling, but I pushed it back. A couple of carbine-toting aliens spotted us moving and fired on us, but they were too eager and left cover in an attempt to secure the kill, allowing me to take them out.
"Nice reflexes," Schitzo complimented. "Almost…supernatural."
I groaned and ignored him, stepping up my pace and forcing my two squad mates to try harder to keep up with me. Luckily we weren't too far from the walls and went back in without much trouble.
"Damn, I half expected us to be ambushed by a platoon of elites with active camouflage," Wiremu huffed in between breaths.
"Agreed," Miranda managed.
I was about to say something when I saw lightning flash and looked up.
At first the raindrops hitting my visor didn't allow me to make out the shape clearly, but within a few seconds I recognized it for what it was, a Covenant corvette. Directly overhead, its pulse lasers heating up.
I saw dozens of missiles go up in an attempt to strike at the unshielded ship. The heavy SAM launched what must've been its entire arsenal at the ship. The defense lasers took out most of our missiles and I watched helplessly as the big gun in the center of the ship turned brighter and brighter. One missile got past all the defense guns and hit.
It was a small explosion, but it rocked the corvette. I whooped and hollered, realizing that I had been instants away from death. The enemy ship boosted away from us, with a few of the smaller missiles hitting its sides, barely denting the armor.
"Stop staring," I said, despite doing just that. "Back to our positions."
Pavel and the rest were just fine. Hell, they were even chatting with each other.
"One heck of a close call, eh?" Pavel asked.
"What the hell kind of question is that?" Almers exclaimed. "Of course it was a close call!"
"If I had to guess, I'd probably say it was a rhetorical one," Caboose said.
"Burn," Wiremu added.
"Anyone know how Beckel's doing?" I asked all of a sudden, feeling guilty for having forgotten about him.
"Still in the infirmary, but I hear they're preparing the wounded for evacuation," Pavel said.
I nodded and shrugged before sitting down. Occasionally a plasma shell would hit one of the walls, but they wouldn't punch through. Mostly they were just pestering us now. Their two Scarabs had failed and a miraculous shot had hit their corvette. Only know did I realize how unlikely it had been for that missile to get through the point defense systems. It was one of the bigger ones and therefore one of the more dangerous ones. It should've been targeted and destroyed before the rest, but for some reason it hadn't. We were alive and I wasn't about to complain.
"How'd that corvette get all the way over here anyways?" Almers asked. "I thought that we had the big guys watching us."
"Nah," Pavel said. "If they were we would be evacuating right now. They're not close enough."
Wiremu nodded and examined his weapon, brushing some mud from his SPANKr. "Still, it is worrying. What's to stop more of them from sneaking past."
"The big guys?" Miranda said doubtfully. "Ok, maybe not."
I sighed; this siege shit was tiring me.
"I'm tired of this siege shit," I voiced my thoughts. "Castle warfare is not my thing."
"You should be thankful Gunny," Almers said.
"Kid's got a point," Caboose granted with a slight nod. "If it weren't for this castle…"
"Yeah, yeah, I know."
"Think that corvette will come back?" Miranda asked, squinting through the rain, trying to make out the shape of the enemy ship.
With my eyesight I could make the edges, but she could probably only spot the lights on the sides.
"Not sure," Wiremu muttered. "If the main gun was destroyed they could still launch plasma missiles against us."
"Do those have the torpedo tubes?" Pavel asked.
"Don't think so."
"Where's Grass when you need her, right?" I joked. "Let's not worry about that too much, shall we?"
I wolfed an energy bar and put my helmet back on before I aimed down my designated area. It was filled with the husks of destroyed Wraiths and Daemon tanks. I had been gone for about fifteen minutes and all of a sudden there's nobody else to fight. It was a little bit like one of those so-called classics that my uncle made me read, about a soldier that everyone thought was a coward despite being the bravest of the bunch.
Good book, can't remember the name though.
"What will they try next?" Almers asked after a prolonged silence.
"Stealth Phantoms?"
"Massive bombardment?"
"Dig a tunnel?"
"Storm the walls?"
"They already did that."
"Right…blow up the walls."
"They already tried. You're killing me Miri."
"I know, teleportation."
"You've been reading too much sci-fi," Almers told Wiremu.
"Almers…we live in a spaceship."
He sighed. "Point taken."
"Hey, when did the line between old sci-fi and reality blur this much?" Miranda asked.
"About the time the Shaw-Fujikawa business?" Pavel suggested.
"Nah, there were colonies before that," I said.
"Only the Jovian moons and Mars."
"Still, that counts as sci-fi."
"Old sci-fi," Wiremu specified.
"Thanks Api," I said dryly, using his nickname.
A few of the Pelicans were taking off, probably filled to the brim with the more critical wounded Marines. I watched them disappear into the rainy night before returning to look at the ground through my scope.
"…anyways, old sci-fi is still sci-fi," Pavel was saying. "Same as old theater is still theater, there shouldn't be a big difference."
The conversation could've been an interesting one on other circumstances, but right about now I was pissed for some reason. I kept having this flashes of an elite stomping on my face and trying to stab me through the neck with a spear. It was pissing me off because I couldn't do anything to make them go away. It wasn't something new to me, in fact, it was disturbingly familiar. See things that weren't there, feel things you shouldn't feel. Nosebleeds, headaches, hallucinations. They were all just part of the bundle of fucked up shit that happened to be me.
A glimmer, something off caught my sight.
"Anyone see that?" I asked, tightening my grip on my BR55.
"I don't-"
A needle went through my scope, exploding before going completely through and destroying my scope completely, sending glass, crystal, and metal fragments everywhere, cracking my visor. I fell backwards as more needles from a needle rifle flew past me. A pair of heavy legs appeared next to my head, materializing from nothingness.
A stealth elite looked at me and reared its heavy boot to stomp my face in.
I raised my arms to protect myself. As my left arm passed in front of my face I saw the Latin carvings I had etched into my armor when I first got it. It had been almost juvenile, but it did look pretty badass.
Nulli secundus.
Second to none.
And most certainly not to this motherfucking split chin.
I roared as my hands caught the elite's foot, stopping it abruptly. The elite seemed too surprised to react as Caboose fired a shell into the back of its head, leaving it a mess that looked like hamburger meat. The headless elite took half a step back before Caboose pushed it off the edge of the battlements.
"Nice," I told him.
"How'd you do that?" he asked me, voice quiet and serious. The rest of the team was firing at whoever had attacked me from below.
"Do what?"
"You stopped its leg with your arms moving barely an inch…" he stated. "How. Not even you are supposed to be able to do that."
"I stopped it before it could stomp," I said, trying to sound confused. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"No you didn't," Almers said. "But it's probably just adrenaline or something like that."
"I don't know what any of you two are talking about," I told them. "And I don't care what you think you saw. Back to your positions, both of you!"
Almers shrugged and obeyed like a good soldier, but it took Caboose a little bit longer to step back to his position, eyeing me cautiously as he went. I ignored him and returned to my position, keeping my eyes extra open to see if I could spot any movement while other members of my squad used the thermal scope on their helmets to see if they could make out the covvies.
Right about then the mortar teams started firing, lobbing explosives all the way across the battlefield and into enemy bases. They were disrupting enemy activities to buy us more time. Whichever ship was coming to pick us up would need some time to get us all in. Even if three carriers came it would take time for all of us to be picked up.
"Hear that?"
I looked up, I did indeed hear that. It sounded like a jet plane. It was in fact, the closest thing we had to that. I barely made out the shape of a Longsword fighter screaming through the air before it passed overhead. It sprayed the ground forces with its ventral cannon before gaining a bearing on the enemy corvette and pulling away.
"Are they-?"
"Yeah," I answered Miri.
"Aren't we a little close?"
"Yup," Pavel told her.
"Everybody down!" someone yelled.
It was a little bit too late. A MAC round split the night sky in two with a bright white line before colliding with the corvette. There was a small explosion on either side of the enemy ship before the massive slug impacted against the ground. The sheer kinetic force was enough to destroy absolutely anything within a kilometer of the impact point. Shockwaves slapped against the castle, even managing to tumble down one of the more weakened towers. I don't think that there was anybody on it, but it was still dangerous for the Navy to fire MAC rounds that close to us.
"Motherfucker," Serge cursed, dusting himself off.
"Gotcha," Almers muttered. "That was risky."
"Maybe they're in trouble up there," Miranda suggested.
I looked up. The MAC round and following explosion had pushed away most of the above, revealing the dark night sky. I could see the twinkling stars. Suddenly, one of them disappeared. A ship of some kind must've been pretty close to our position or attempting to enter the atmosphere. Bright white flashes converged on one position and a few seconds later my HUD flickered slightly.
"They're using nukes up there," Pavel said.
"Heavy ones too," Caboose added.
"Ship busters."
Al's image appeared on my HUD. "All units not on the outer walls report to the inner courtyard for evacuation."
"Why are we always the last ones to go?" Almers complained, kicking at a rock.
"Because we're the best," Wiremu reminded him.
"You'd think that we'd het perks for that…"
I shrugged. "Doesn't matter. All of the enemy forces are gone now." I waved at the crater. "Just relax."
Miranda looked like she wanted to say something when a plasma bolt hit my stomach. I collapsed as I felt my blood boil and my skin burn, my vision blacking off at the edges.
"Elites!"
My squad placed themselves between my attacker and me before firing at an alien that I couldn't see. I heard a little bit of plasma fire before it disappeared completely. I would've thanked them, but my belly felt like it had been burned out completely. I looked down to see that my armor was boiling off and that my skin was red, showing muscle and something that looked vaguely like an intestine. I started screaming.
"Almers! See to him," Pavel barked his orders. "Scan the area, more might've sneaked past us!"
I could hear plasma firing and explosions, no doubt coming from a few cloaked elites that had been inside when all their forces were destroyed.
"Gunny, can you hear me?!" Almers yelled, slapping my helmet softly. "Gunny, you're hit in the abdominal region, can you hear me?"
I tried to reply, but instead I just nodded weakly after managing to stop screaming.
"Good, good, that's good. The plasma burned through your armor, but it stopped short of your skin. The molten armor is what burned your undersuit and skin. Damage is not life threatening. A little bit of biofoam and a quick stay in the operation room and you'll be fine."
I nodded again, managing a grunt.
"Good, good, stay awake. Now, this is going to burn," he warned me as he shook a can of biofoam. "But you already know that."
I let out a hoarse scream of pain as the foam filled my wound, stopping blood loss and connecting the damaged muscle and skin tissue as well as keeping my intestines in. It was painful, painful as hell, but I managed to keep quiet after that initial scream.
"We're falling back!" Pavel ordered. "Pull him up."
"Here, I got you Gunny," Almers told me, gently lifting me up and pulling one of my arms across his shoulders.
I struggled to remain afoot, but I managed. My legs felt like jelly, but somehow I managed. Almers huffed under my weight, dragging me behind him while I tried to hold on to my rifle and keep myself as light for him as possible. I could only make out the rest of my squad running in front of us. They were firing to enemies that I couldn't see.
Shit, shit, shit.
We entered one of the larger towers, stopping only to catch our breaths before Pavel and Wiremu kicked down the door on the other side and started firing on the covvies on the walls. Almers hung back for a moment, keeping me on my feet.
"We're almost there Gunny, hold on. Just hold on."
I nodded too weakly for him to see.
"Let's go!" Wiremu yelled. "Almers! Come on!"
Almers grunted something and carried me through the door before something separated him from me.
I looked up to see an elite materialize right above me for the second time in ten minutes. It looked down at me and aimed its plasma repeater at my head. Almers tackled it from the side, pushing it to the ledge. The elite managed to hold on, but Amlers was too busy firing at another alien that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. The other elite's shields flickered and died before Almers finished it off.
I watched as the split-chin that he had knocked to the side of the wall pulled itself up and drew an energy sword.
"Almers!" I yelled in warning through my pain.
The medic turned around, swinging his empty rifle like a club at the elite. Before he could finish his swing the elite stabbed upwards, driving the twin tips of his blade through Almers' body. He grunted lowly as his body was violently lifted up from the ground. Despite having two burning blades in his body he managed to lift his head and look at the elite.
"Fuck…you…"
"Sander!" Serge yelled, firing his assault rifle at the elite's feet, draining his shields. "Help!"
The elite moved its sword to the side, carelessly tossing Almers' body against the battlements. I tried to pull myself to my feet to help, to do something. It was useless, my legs gave under me and I fell back to the floor.
More weapons joined Serge and the elite fell, roaring in its native language, probably cursing and damning us.
"Here Gunny," Wiremu said, picking me up like Almers had. "Serge, he's gone!"
"I'm not leaving his body behind for those carrion eaters!"
"Serge-"
"Api," Pavel interceded. "Shut the fuck up. Caboose, help him with Almers. We need to move it!"
I was dragged and manhandled through battlements, vaults, and corridors until eventually we were in the inner courtyard. I could see a Pelican taking off with one of the Scorpions and a group of Marines jumping on the back of another dropship. Most of the troops inside were already gone, but they were still keeping watch for any elites that might've avoided detection. I could barely breath, I wasn't even able to see properly.
"Klaus, Frank!" Fightmaster's voice yelled. "Over here!"
"Thanks Sam," Miri told him as we boarded the Pelican.
"Is he…?"
Caboose shook his head as he placed Almers' corpse on the blood tray with care and Serge threw his helmet at one of the walls.
"Damn. We've got to go."
"By all means," Pavel urged him. "Don't wait on our account."
My consciousness finally faded, the pain overwhelming my mind. I slipped into dreams of knights and monsters, dreams that felt like they were real. In all of them I saw Almers die and the planet burn.
I shouldn't have felt like that. It was just another battle we lost, just another planet taken from us, just another million dead. Just another number to put on a list.
Just another defeat.
Thanks to SilasWhitfield for proof-reading this chapter.
Frank gets shot, someone dies, nothing is gained.
Just another day in the life, right?
This is an interesting chapter, I think. There's not much combat on it when comparing it to most of this fic, but instead we get a bunch of close calls including almost being sniped through the eye, almost being glassed, almost being killed by jackals, and actually getting shot. Frank's luck ran out just in time. If you can call a plasma shot to the gut 'just in time'. PFC Sander Almers, on the other hand, didn't have nearly the same amount of luck as our protagonist. He went down like a true Helljumper, swinging his rifle and cursing the enemy.
The team moved on quickly, but that's only because they were in mortal danger themselves. There will be some fallout in the following chapters (five or so). There's also going to be some big changes. Some seriously big changes. In fact, i just started writing one of them. Stay tuned, if I manage to write them half-decently then I have a feeling that they will be rather magnificent.
As always, I want to thank you all for your incredibly kind reviews. I'm glad to say that all of them were positive, which is always good for the good old ego. I'm especially happy that you guys enjoyed the medieval scene, it was great fun to write. There weren't any questions or concerns, but I got a pair of reviews asking me to update more frequently. Guys, believe me, I try. I do my best, but sometimes the life (lowercase) gets in the way. (that was a terrible pun and i am sorry). I always try to update as fast as I can, and I do believe that one-point-something chapters per week is a great achievement. For example, last chapter was posted just four days ago.
Let me know what you thought. Did anyone expect Almers to be the first to kick the can? I didn't when I introduced the new squad. Ladies and gents, please review and stay strong.
-casquis