Chapter CLVI: Oh No, Not Again!

March 3, 2548 (UNSC Calendar)/

Water Oakley, LV-426, Zeta Reticuli System

"And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'! That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me? Hello, Ground!"- The Whale

The limp was almost gone. It just hurt when I sprinted, but I was still making a point not to put my full weight on my injured leg. Two days had been enough to let it rest. That and catch quite a bit of rest. I always underestimated how tired I was during combat. How I managed to underestimate falling from a speeding vehicle is beyond me, but somehow I did it.

"Still limping?" Pavel asked me.

"Want to take care of my leg," I told him, gently patting my injury. "I think I'm good now."

"Good, the Covenant has been moving troops planetside for the past twelve hours."

"Yeah, I heard."

Pavel waved his arms around at the city. "Well, at least we saved Water Oakley."

"Damn right," I replied before chuckling. No humor like black humor. "Any other developments?"

"You were with Winters for three minutes Frank, not a lot of shit happens in three minutes."

"Point granted," I conceded. I grabbed my rifle from next to him and shouldered it. "Let's go, I've got an appointment to make."

"Pre-battle sex?"

I smiled. "Is there any other kind?"

"Post-battle sex," he shrugged.

"That one's good too."

The city had once been the largest population center in the entire planet. In a way it still was, filled with soldiers from two different carriers as well as the Marine complements from several other ships. There were thousands of Marines and a little fewer soldiers. The local soldiers were still large in numbers, but Army had taken a beating during the initial invasion.

We were supposed to get reinforcements from off-system yesterday, but the enemy fleet had held any UNSC ships on the outskirts of the system. According to Al we outnumbered them only just. That wasn't good news, we needed at least double their numbers in order to make a space battle anything close to fair.

I looked up to see the damaged More Badass Than Thou floating above the city. Right now it wasn't giving much honor to its name; even from down here I could see the exposed decks and the partially molten armor plating. Half its name had been scorched off.

Hovering on the opposite side of the city was the UNSC (Dis)Honorable, with its UNSC-sanctioned name in formal white letters and the addition painted in blood red. Whoever had decided to add the 'dis' to the 'honorable' had been a genius, even if having a ship named like that didn't exactly reflect traditional military ideals. Instead it reflected badassery.

The (Dis)Honorable was a heavy cruiser, but I could see two places where heavy plasma weaponry had impacted as well as several other smaller impact marks marking its hull.

And we had caught them by surprise.

"Why are we stopping?" Pavel asked.

"I'm supposed to meet Hanna here," I replied.

"Why isn't she here then?"

"I'm early," I said after looking at my military-issue watch. I hadn't used that thing in ages. I only used it when deployed and not wearing my armor. That was very unusual.

"Early?" Pavel wowed. "Damn, you're never early."

"It's never too late to start," I said simply, looking around for Hanna.

"If it wasn't you'd still be late."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"You know what it means." Pavel rolled his neck. "Well, there comes Hanna. By your leave." He departed after making a fancy bow and greeting Hanna.

"Hey you," she said when she saw me, an ego-boosting smile on her face.

"Banana, it's good to see you."

She stopped and raised her eyebrow at me. She still hadn't gotten over me calling her by her best-friends-only nickname. I liked it though, it was kind of cute.

"Everything all right?" I asked her, walking inside the vacated building.

Hanna put her arm through mine and nodded her head before leaning against me. "So far so good, no casualties in my platoon."

"So you're a wonder medic then," I joked.

"I wish," she replied, laughing. "No, we didn't see intense combat. A pair of idiots almost got themselves cooked by a plasma grenade, but for the most part we were on the easy end of the shit."

"Good for you," I said. "Seriously. You have no idea how much I hate it when you fight."

"Aren't I the one that's supposed to say that?" she asked with a small smile. "I don't kid myself, I know that you do missions that not even my whole company could pull off."

"Why thank you," I replied.

"But it worries me too."

"Ha, maybe we should both call it quits and retire to live a peaceful life in the country."

"Well, I'm considering it," she said with a smile. "Maybe not the country, but a break from all of this would be…nice."

I shook my head slowly, opening a door to a room that had once belonged to a slacker. Right out of college and no portraits of loved ones. "I wouldn't know what to do with my time," I told her. "This is all I know. And I'm good at it."

"You could probably find something to do."

"Like a cop?"

"You?"

"You see?" I said with a small smile. "Stunt double could work, but that's probably about it. I don't think I could even act."

"Come on now," Schitzo said. "You act like you're completely sane on a daily basis."

Hanna smiled at me and grabbed my face with both her hands. "Sometimes you underestimate yourself Frank," she told me. She stared into my eyes before sighing and looking down. "I know you're not going to leave the Corps, but it might be time I do."

I grunted. It would make me incredibly happy to know that Hanna was safe and out of danger. On the other hand, I know just how easily one person could stray in a relationship. Hanna had come into this relationship with almost literally no experience. While that had made me comfortable in a way, knowing that she knew of nothing better than me, it didn't mean that if she really started missing some intimacy she would seek it with someone else.

Yeah, in short I'm saying that I didn't trust her to control herself.

I cursed myself for being like that. She was the last person who would do that.

"And what would you do on your spare time?" I asked, ignoring my mental debate and gently guiding her towards a moldy couch. "Paint?"

She chuckled. "Work. I do have some professional abilities."

"Not many people bleeding to death on Eszterghom."

"I would see plenty of those if I became a nurse," she countered.

I stopped.

"You're imagining the sexy nurse outfit, aren't you?"

"No, no," I replied, not able to lie properly. It was a very appealing idea. "Yes."

"Well, that is never going to happen."

"That is what you said about the sexy Marine outfit," I pointed out.

"Yeah, but I don't have to wear anything other than my uniform to be sexy."

"You don't have to wear much of your uniform you mean."

To her credit, she smiled and laughed at my terrible joke, grabbing me by the lapels of my uniform and pulling me close. "Come here."

I figured that some of the older guys could guess what I had been up to just by looking at my face. I wasn't exactly beaming and smiling to everyone that walked past me, but one could tell. Sometimes a little bit of intimacy goes a long way. It's relaxing and…well, it feels good.

My pleasant demeanor faded a little bit as the Pelican left atmosphere. At the speed we were going the lack of gravity was sudden and violent. I could see a few of the guys jerk in surprise. Fightmaster had dispensed with warning us about that.

"Sorry about that," he shouted from the cockpit. "Intercom was damaged during the battle!"

"You could've yelled it Sam!" I shouted back.

All I got for reply was a short chuckle.

The Pelican entered the Flawless' landing bays and gravity returned. Everybody stood up and grabbed their duffels from the rack above and shouldered their weapons even as a crane secured the craft. Sam opened the rear hatch to reveal a second Pelican jerking in its own crane.

Pavel's squad poured out with all their gear. Most of us had put on all of our armor already, but there were still a few pieces of equipment that wouldn't really make sense to be wearing at the time. Helmets, for example.

I jumped up on a crate, eliciting a muttering from one of the enlisted men that was about to move it. "Platoon 5 listen up!"
They all dropped their conversations and turned to look at me.

"Mission briefing is in thirty minutes and drop is in thirty five, if you want to leave anything in your rooms you're going to have to be quick. I want all of you there on time." I smiled. On time meant at least five minutes early, for them at least. "Squad leaders have to be there five minutes earlier." That meant that they could arrive five minutes after the rest of the men. "Get moving."

Most of the Helljumpers under my command quickly went up towards an elevator that would in turn take them to one of the trams that made transit around the ship faster. I jumped down from the crate and apologized to the sailors before returning to the Pelican to grab my things and maybe have a small chat with Sam.

"You have to vacate Frank," he told me, "we're leaving as soon as we're resupplied."

I lifted my own duffel bag and shouldered my battle rifle. "Damn, back to work already?"

"Sure beats jumping from orbit."

"Nothing beats that," I replied, smiling.

"Heh, maybe you're right," Fightmaster mused.

I shrugged. "Usually am." I walked up to him and shook his hand goodbye. "Good luck out there man, honor your last name."

He laughed and slapped me in the shoulder. "I will. Good luck to you too, you probably need it more than I do."

I smiled and hopped off the rear hatch before settling into a walk for one of the elevators.

Humorously enough, both Grigori and Miranda were waiting for the next elevator together, standing at least a meter apart from each other and not talking. They were staring into the elevator doors. I could feel them tense up when I joined them.

As soon as the elevator doors opened they stepped inside, but I remained behind.

"You're not coming Lieutenant?" Miranda asked.

I shook my head.

She seemed startled but seemed not to mind. Grigori in turn gave me a barely perceptible nod of thanks and acknowledgement. I don't know whether they'd make out inside the elevator or if they'd just enjoy the time by themselves. I thought about Grigori thanking me. We weren't friends by any means yet, but at least I could sacrifice a little bit of time to help him out with a girl and he could recognize that sacrifice.

Isn't he like twelve years older than her?

The thought occupied my mind during my entire elevator and subsequent tram trip.

"Frank!" Pavel said once the tram stopped. He was pacing around, probably waiting just for me if his reaction to seeing me was any indication. "I need to tal-"

"Is twelve years a lot of difference between a couple?" I interrupted.

"What?" he asked, taking half a step backwards. "Uh, yeah, I guess. A little past my comfort zone, but that's not important. I need to-why the hell are you asking me that anyways?"

"'Cause Grigori is twelve years older than Miranda."

"Grigori and Novak?" Pavel asked, laughing. "They an…item now?"

"No, of course not," I said instinctively. It was standard procedure to deny that anybody you knew was in a relationship. They could get suspended if one of the IA guys figured it out. Well, only if that particular guy was kind of a dick. "A hypothetical question," I said, smiling.

"I understand," Pavel replied with the same smile. "Well, hypothetically speaking I hope it pans out."

For her at least. I want a friend to be happy.

"Oh Francisco, you asshole," Schitzo teased.

"What was it you wanted to ask anyways?"

"Oh, right," Pavel started.

"Castillo!"

"Crap," I muttered, recognizing the voice. I turned around and both Pavel and I saluted. I couldn't help but notice that she didn't return the salute. Apparently her hatred expanded to Pavel as well. After all, he had also been part of the team that abandoned her cousin to her death.

"Captain Hayes," Pavel said in a neutral tone.

"Platoons One through Three are dropping in five minutes," she said coolly. "Four will go two minutes after that. Are your men ready?"

"They will be," I said.

"So no?"

"Not at the time, no."

"Have them hurry up Lieutenant." She spat out the last word, making it sound like an insult. "I won't have Jaguar Company die because you messed up."

"If Jaguar's wiped out it won't be because of me," I assured her. It was professional and didn't imply anything against her directly. A very good comeback. "Captain, I must get going."

Hayes nodded slowly and took off, her helmet held firmly under one arm.

I shook my own head as soon as she turned the corner. The woman had gone from relatively friendly if a little bit strict to full bitch mode. Again, I couldn't really blame her; at times I asked myself if Pavel and I could've done anything to help save her cousin back in Aztlan. Most of the time I came to the conclusion that if we had just waited for her for a few more seconds she would still be alive and my life right now would be a lot different.

But people die. Soldiers die. Helljumper die. Her cousin knew what she was getting into and even if I had sped up her death, the blame wasn't all mine. Hayes could've just acted cold towards me, there was no need for her to treat me differently and go against me any time she got.

"Ever wonder where Darbinian ended up?" Pavel asked me when we started walking.

"Lieutenant Asshole?" I asked. "Not really, no."

"You know, sometimes I do," he admitted. "The guy jumped ship on a ODST pod."

"So he's got style. Doesn't take the asshole out."

"Can you picture him as a Helljumper?"

"Now you're just trying to piss me off," I grunted, shoving him against one of the walls. "Dick."

Pavel laughed and shoved me back into the other wall.

My, what would the admiral think, seeing two Helljumpers shoving each other around, one of them an officer. He probably wouldn't be very amused.

Pavel and I walked together to the briefing room. This section of the bottom deck was known colloquially as the Helljumper Deck and for a good reason, not many people came here aside from us. I saw the holographic displays on the top of the walls signaling the first of the jumps. The guys under dos Santos would be jumping in just five minutes. I needed my team to get down here quickly.

"Frank," someone hailed. I turned to see Lieutenant dos Santos in full battle gear sans helmet. He and his platoon were leaving one of the briefing rooms. "About to start the briefing?"

I nodded. "Sounds like a tough one."

"We'll see you on the other side," he told me.

"Good luck."

Domingo smiled and put on his helmet. "We'll need it."

I smiled back at him and walked the rest of the way down to our platoon's assigned briefing room. I was almost stunned to see that everyone in the platoon was here. Well, everyone except for Grigori and Miranda, but that was still a lot of my guys.

"Officer on deck!"

"As you were," I dismissed them. "You're early."

"Gotta admit I'm stunned," Pavel told me.

"Sit down everybody," I said after smiling. "As soon as we-" Miranda walked through the door, with Caboose following her a couple of feet behind. "Well, seems like our lovebirds are here."

There were some chuckles from the guys on the room. They obviously thought I was just giving them a hard time.

"So, you've heard the rumors I take it," I started, approaching my little podium. "The first three platoons are going to be dropping close to our target in order to draw attention and make some heavy noise. Dos Santos and his men are jumping right next to the target and will access it through this gravity lift. It has been active since the Covenant landed here and shouldn't be turned off in light of a few puny humans."

That brought general laughter.

"As soon and dos Santos and 4 are inside we'll jump right on top of the target, drive some heat off of them and…well. Yeah."

There were smiles of anticipation and eagerness all around me. This was going to be a tough one all right, but it was going to be one for the books.

As we broke through the cloud cover I spotted our target. The 900+ meter long SDV-class Heavy Corvette was imposing with its sleek curves and dark purple paint job. It was bigger than a UNSC frigate, but when you compared it with pretty much anything that flew in outer space it was a lightweight.

My HUD lit up. The ship was outlined in red and the dorsal landing pad glowed brightly before dimming down. That was our target. I did some minor readjustment while carefully examining the area below the corvette. I could see the flames that Hayes and platoons 2 and 3 had caused. They had pushed deep into the enemy camp but as soon as the elites got organized they'd have to pull back. Platoon 4 and dos Santos was nowhere to be seen, that meant that they were either directly underneath the corvette or already making their way up on the gravity lift.

"Aim for the center," I ordered calmly. Despite my tone my eyes almost burst out of my skull when I saw that we were at an altitude of one-point-five kilometers and the ship was-

Bang.

Ah well, the plating of the landing pad was a lot harder than polycrete or regular rocks, I'll give the covvies that one.

The landing pad on top of the ship suddenly got very noisy. I targeted a pair of elites in pilot gear that were loitering about next to a Seraph fighter. They both raised plasma pistols at me, but their shields were barely strong enough to contain one burst of my rifle each. They went down even as the rest of my platoon just utterly destroyed anything that didn't bleed red. It took just under ten seconds for everything inside to be dead.

"Pavel, have your squad keep watch on that shield wall!" I snapped loudly. "VSF on me!"

I tossed my new holo-disc to the floor and it promptly showed internal schematics of the corvette. "This is the closest thing that ONI's got to blueprints on this ship. Our goal is this right here." The bridge of the ship lit up. "We'll be plowing through anything in between us and the bridge. Sergeant Konstantinov and his men will rig the engine room to blow up and 4 will keep the rest of the complement too busy to attack us."

Several machine guns were fired at the same time. I turned to see two elite rangers falling down, their chests riddled with holes. They had come from underneath the shield floor. No doubt there were quite a few aliens expecting us down there.

"Can you hold this bay?" I asked Pavel.

"Damn right we can," he replied. "Cover those two doors!" he ordered loudly. "The rest of you, eyes on the shield."

"Grigori?"

His squad was already climbing up to the very top of the corvette. Grigori turned to give me a quick nod before he activated his jetpack and flew up with his men.

So, we were good to go. Right before I grabbed my holo-disk from the floor the ship shook.

"That'll be their engines blowing up," Sandor noted happily. "Let's go El-tee."

"Lead on," I said, letting him know he would be point man.

He nodded and glanced at Marv, who just nodded in reply.

"And jump!" I ordered.

All six of us dropped through the shimmering blue shield floor and landed on small bridges that connected one central structure to a surrounding ring. Several grunts without armor and a group of elites with half their armor off were there. The damn critters were ugly, but I'd take them naked over armored every time. And that just sounded like I have a thing for seven-foot tall sauropods.

Marv and Sandor quickly took down the elites with bursts from their assault rifles. Miranda and Hoff took out the only two armored grunts while Livingston sprayed the rest of the unarmored little aliens with her MA5. We had ourselves a sizeable body count by the time the room was cleared.

"Man, I wonder if one day we'll be the ones massacring their civilians," Livingston muttered, as if talking to herself.

"I sure hope so," Sandor admitted.

I found myself huffing in agreement. Nobody else said anything, the phrase 'I hope one day we can kill civilians' wasn't one you wanted to be associated with, but there was no doubt that everyone here would've gladly participated in a Sangheili massacre. Hell, I could see everyone nodding absent mindedly while keeping their weapons up.

"Livington, place those charges in the…structure's power core. If we knock out their communications they'll have trouble calling for reinforcements." I watched as Andrea produced a small explosive charge from her butt-pouch and disappeared down one of the entrances to the communications center. A moment later she excited and I gave her a thumbs-up to detonate the charge.

"El-tee, why is the Recon Squad doing the demo jobs on this mission?" Sandor asked as we positioned ourselves near the door. "Shouldn't Gunny Klaus and his men be doing that."

"Normally they would," I said as Hoff placed a spoofer door-opener on the locked doors. The device's screen displayed an hourglass that quickly emptied. It beeped.

"Door's good to go," Hoff announced. The red lighting turned blue even as he spoke. "All oiled up and ready."

"Did you ever grow up?" Livingston asked him with irritation.

Hoff walked up to his position behind her and tapped her shoulder. "Shut up potty head."

"Breaching," I ordered calmly.

All six of us took a simultaneous step forward and the doors automatically opened. Sandor and Marv were in the front and they opened up full-auto. The pair moved forward, clearing the grunt-filled hallway with ease. The rest of us allowed them to handle the little aliens until we reached the end of the hallway. It was closed off by another door, also locked.

"Hoff," I said.

"Right away," he replied. He ran back to the first door and grabbed the spoofer before running back and placing it on the other door. "Done. Should be ready now." As he said that the lights on the door turned blue and blinked twice.

"Go."

This time the door opened to reveal a hangar. Marv and Sandor, with freshly loaded magazines, opened on the grunts and jackals that were watching the door. Andrea and Hoff moved to the left, climbing up a ramp that led to a control tower-like platform. There was another similar ramp on the right that Miranda and I took.

An elite officer was halfway up, only just beginning to turn to face us. Miranda fired three times to drain the shields and I topped it off with a burst to the chest and neck. The elite fell and two jackal rangers tried firing at us from behind before Miranda took them both out. I rushed ahead and turned to fire at an elite major in full battle armor. It turned and strafed me with his plasma rifle, but either Hoff or Livingston got it from behind.

As soon as that last elite fell we had control of this side of the hangar. The other side still had plenty of Covenant foot soldiers bolstered up by the mechanics and other non-combat personnel. The hangar was housing several elite drop pods on the ceiling as well as a Phantom dropship. The Phantom was right in front of the platform where Hoff and Livingston were firing on the covvies.

"Hoff!" I shouted. "Up you go and man the turret."

I turned to see the jock jump across the gap and land in the cargo bay. He fired a couple of times before I heard the familiar noise of a plasma cannon firing.

"I can pin down all of the covvies on the left," he announced. "Just keep the ones on the right off my head!"

"Sandor and Marv, move up," I ordered. "Livingston, you're with them."

"So El-tee," Miranda started, going prone to minimize her profile. "Do we target the elites?"

"Miri, I seriously think we're past the point where you need to ask that."

"O-of course. Sorry." She sounded a lot more flustered than she should've been.

I laughed. "And I love how you still get so nervous."

"Shut up," Miranda said, no more annoyed than flustered. "Sir."

There were at least two dozen hostiles going against us. Fortunately, most of those weren't combat personnel, but what they lacked for in experience they made up for in firepower.

"Do we just wait for them to run out of battery?" Sandor asked. "I mean, seriously."

I rolled my eyes. I thought that I was supposed to be the chatty one. "Sandor shut up and move up behind that crate."

"Yes, sir."

I felt relatively safe. It was weird because we were rarely under so much plasma fire but right now the shots were going wild. I guess that if I had to compare it to something more commonplace it would be facing a sports team that sucks when compared to you but they can still pull off a comeback.

I did kind of feel like the douchebag rival sports team that won't allow the underdogs to win. But that's beside the point. If these guys couldn't hit an elephant in a hallway I was going to take advantage of that. I took out thee grunts in some weird gear that probably marked them as engineers before Miranda knocked out an elite. Sandor and Marv were also causing some mayhem, easily killing grunts that left cover to fire. Marv was ahead on the body count by a few. Mobuto could sure fight.

"Ryan, they're on your left!" Andrea warned Hoff.

He redirected his fire to gun down two elite rangers and a jackal sharpshooter with the plasma machine gun. I could see the aliens falling as the superheated plasma burned through their shields and bodies. Plasma small arms definitely lacked penetration and stopping power, but they could really mess up a body through sheer heat alone.

I smiled at the smoking corpses before a carbine round nearly punched through my visor.

"Fuck!" I cursed. "Fucker," I added, killing the jackal before it could fire again. "Ok, time to clean this up guys," I announced. "I'm sick of this shit."

"Spoken like a true poet, sir," Sandor laughed.

"Was that Neruda?" Hoff asked, also laughing.

I just about shot both of them in the back. "No, I was quoting your mother right before she took off her shirt," I snapped violently. "Now move the fuck up and keep your mouths shut!"

"Damn," Miranda whispered next to me.

"That was a little bit rough," Scarecrow told me.

"They needed a lesson on respect," Schitzo disagreed.

Neither Hoff or Sandor said anything although they were probably itching to tell me exactly what they thought about me right now. I'd have to casually engage in a sparring match with them in the future to keep them in check and cut off the head of any ideas that they might be having.

Lead by example my ass, force works just as well.

The hangar was cleared in another five minutes, with a pesky elite that just refused to die holding out against all of us from behind cover. Eventually Livingston tossed a grenade that pushed the crates it was using for cover against it and allowed me to rush it, spraying it while it was stunned on the ground. "Nice work," I told her.

The next hallway was empty and devoid of any aliens. We quickly cleared it and moved up with our weapons raised. All of us had reloaded our guns and were ready for anything that came across us. The doors on the end of the hallway opened up to reveal the plasma battery. There were several elite gunners as well as a small crowd of grunts.

"Frags out!" I ordered.

In perfect synchronization Sandor, Marv, Livingston, and I all tossed fragmentation grenades at the small crowd, still taking us in. The four explosives killed all the unarmored grunts and two of the elite gunners. The rest of the elites immediately ducked to the sides and took cover behind the sturdy firing panels for the turrets. Before I could wonder why the hell a gunner would have a repeater for a personal weapon we were taking fire from the side.

I cursed myself for forgetting that there was a door on the lower section of the battery. A small squad of grunt ultras led by an elite of the same kind had appeared right next to us and opened fire.

"Take cover!" I ordered.

"Fuck!"

Someone was hit, if he could scream and curse then there was no doubt that they were fine. "Supressive fire!" I yelled. "Toss flashbangs!"

Someone, I didn't see who, complied with my order and the familiar noise of the equipment detonating marked the signal for Marv and me to leave cover and fire on our attackers. I quickly targeted the elite while Marv sprayed the grunts. The ultra rolled to the side even though it probably couldn't see anything. I switched targets and helped Marv finish off the grunts.

"Gunner down," Miranda announced form behind.

I turned to nod at her and saw that Hoff was tending to Livingston, smoke drifting up from her helmet.

Shit.

"Grenade!" Marv yelled.

Both of us rolled in opposite directions as a plasma grenade landed right between us. Miranda jumped backwards and Sandor quickly dragged her behind cover while Hoff positioned himself over Livingston. The explosive detonated and my HUD flickered, courtesy of the pulse the grenade emitted. Marv was up and firing at the same time I was. The ultra decided to attack him instead of me and produced an energy sword seemingly out of nowhere while spraying me with his plasma rifle. I rolled back to avoid the plasma even as Marv kept firing.

I left cover once more to see Marv's weapon click empty just as the elite prepared to lunge. His last bullet must've finished off the shields, because the ultra flared with yellow lightning. Even that wasn't enough. Still, Marvin Mobuto wasn't planning on dying that day, and he neatly sidestepped the elite's lunge before hitting it in the face with the butt of his rifle. Marv wasn't able to completely duck the backhand that the ultra delivered and flew backwards from the hit. The ultra roared in anger, its theatrics actually working to intimidate Marv into shuffling backwards.

I aimed at the elite, finally having a clear shot. Sandor was faster, emptying half his magazine into the alien's face at a range of less than three meters.

"Yeah fuck you too," he said, taunting the corpse.

While Sandor was taunting the corpse and Marv was further getting acquainted with the floor Miranda fired anything still in her DMRs magazine into the remaining elite gunners. The aliens returned fire, but shy as the Helljumper was, she was also one hell of a shot, needing only five rounds to take out each gunner.

"Clear," she announced, taking a deep breath of relief.

"Marv, get up and cover the door," I ordered. "Same goes for you Sandor."

"On it, sir," Sandor acknowledged, helping Marv up and positioning himself behind the firing controls of a plasma turret.

While he did that I approached Hoff and Livingston. The woman was still on the floor, groaning with a burnt helmet. "You all right?" I asked her. "Can you walk?"

"I-I…"

"If you can't I'll send Hoff and Miri to the comm center and bring Sutton here," I told her, referring to our platoon medic. All of us might've had some medical training and Miranda was corpsman certified, but no one could beat Sutton when it came to patching people up. Well, technically speaking Livingston was the squad medic, but right now she found herself a little bit…impaired.

"No need," Livingston replied with some trouble, trying to get up. Hoff had to help her to her feet before she wobbled a little bit and sat back down.

I took off her helmet and examined the extent of her injuries. The skin on the left side of her face had been peeled off and the upper half of her cheek was raw and a little bit charred at the edges of the wound. There wasn't a lot of bleeding, but the left side of her face and neck were still covered with blood. I was afraid that it had been worse. Judging from her helmet I would've guessed that she would lose an ear and maybe part of her scalp.

"You're fine," I told her, allowing myself a small smile of relief. "Some grafts and you won't even have a scar. Miranda?"

Miranda approached from her position, Hoff providing cover for her. "She looks well enough for being shot in the face. Don't you Andrea?"

The injured ODST laughed weakly. Her injury wasn't life threatening, but I had an idea about just how much it hurt right now.

"No medic for you," I told her. "Now brace yourself, 'cause this is going to sting like a bitch."

Miranda quickly handed me a can of biofoam and I gently placed my hand over Livingston's face. I pressed my thumb against her eyelid and made sure that her eyes were closed. If even a little bit of biofoam got into her eyes she wouldn't be able to see for a good fifteen minutes. Her eyes would be the whitest that they had ever been though. With my other hand I gently placed the biofoam can against her injury and nodded to Miranda. Miranda knelt next to me and grabbed both of Livingston's wrists.

"What are-"

Her question was interrupted by a scream of pain. She screamed so loud that I thought that I had done something wrong. I kept pouring the biofoam as Livingston jerked her face away in reflex. She stopped screaming and swallowed her pain, instead allowing herself a few grunts. Miranda released her grip on her arms as soon as it became clear that she wasn't going to try to push me away. I finished with the healing foam and Livingston took a few deep breaths.

"Congrats Andy," I said. "The moment we're out of here I'll pin a purple heart on your chest."

She smiled, the anesthetics on the biofoam already starting to work. "Thanks." Her voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"Frank, what the hell was that?" Pavel came in.

"Nothing," I said. "Livingston got nicked on the face, had to have some foam applied. Things on your end?"

"Rather quiet, there were a couple of attempts to take the landing bay from us, but we have the area tightly guarded."

"Good job," I complimented. "Keep it that way."

Livingston swallowed a pair of painkillers and carefully got up, putting on her helmet again. The burn marks on the side of her helmet would be a nice battle scar for her armor. She nodded at me and cocked the slide of her assault rifle, giving me the all-clear sign.

I walked down to the lower level where the turret controls were and wondered whether I should shoot them. I was about to when two Helljumpers appeared on the exterior of the ship tied to ropes. I recognized one of them as Caboose and waved at him. He waved back and opened a comm line to me.

"How goes it?" I asked.

"We're making progress," Caboose replied. "Several of the point-defense guns are already down for the count." As he said that he and his squad mate, who my HUD now marked as Lance Corporal Jared Reeves, produced small blocks of C-12 explosive and placed it on the base of the huge plasma turrets. "Zepeda is taking potshots at the covvies on the ground."

"At one-point-five clicks altitude?" I asked, disbelieving.

Caboose shrugged and Reeves did the same. "No need to account for drop when you're firing straight down, sir" the lance corporal told me. "If I didn't know him I'd say he's having fun."

Caboose finished placing his charge on the turret and gripped the rope that was holding him in place tightly. "You might want to step back Lieutenant." Having said that both he and Reeves activated their jetpacks, climbing up and disappearing fromsight.

The two charges exploded and destroyed the turrets, denting in the window and producing a loud noise.

"VSF," I said calmly. "On we go."

There was now only one more hallway in between the bridge and us. Fittingly, it was filled with grunts and jackals desperate to stop us from getting there. The jackals caused us some trouble in the confined space, using their shields to form walls. Despite that we pushed through with liberal use of grenades and automatic fire.

We all stopped in front of the final door, a good thirty corpses behind us. "Ready?"

"For whatever comes through that door," Hoff replied.

Suddenly something felt a little bit weird. "Is the-"

"The corvette is moving!" Pavel came in quickly. "They want to suffocate us in space!"

"I thought they took out the ship's engines!" Sandor said.

"Apparently not," Marv replied, his voice slightly angry.

"Double time!" I ordered. "Pavel, Caboose, hold your men a little longer."

The door opened and proved that Hoff was wrong.

Two hunters fired at us at the same time. All of my squad dropped to the floor, only just avoiding the green plasma that would've surely killed us. From the floor we fired at the pair of hunters and pouring out of the death trap that the hallway had become. All of us moved to the left. Several weapon crates would provide cover for us

"Focus on the one on the left!" I yelled loudly. "Use your grenades!"

A few explosions resounded in the large bridge room. I could hear one of the hunters roaring in that particular way of theirs and knew that we had hurt it. Not just pissed it off, but actually hurt it. I left cover and saw that our targeted hunter had half of its back armor damaged. I quickly switched to full-auto and fired my entire magazine into its orange side.

The other hunter fired a round at us and we all scattered away from the explosive. The first hunter, the one that we had shot at had fallen to its knees and both Miranda and Hoff took advantage of its pain to fire at its neck. The incredibly fast 7.62mm bullets had more kinetic energy than my heavier rounds and damaged the worms making up the alien. I don't know if they killed it, but they sure as hell severed the connection from eyes to anything else. One final grenade from Marv killed the hunter.

Now we only had another one to face and we were low on explosives.

"Go for the neck!" I said.

It seemed weird that the elites in the bridge hadn't attacked us yet; they were all very busy in front of their control consoles.

The second hunter didn't have any console to attend to, it just had us. I ran sideways to avoid another blast that seemed to be directed to me in particular. Livingston took the opportunity to fire at its head and neck. Even then most of her bullets bounced off the blue armor.

As the hunter redirected its attention to Livingston Sandor closed in on its beyond what I would've considered a safe distance and emptied his mag into the hunter's back. He quickly jumped back as the hunter attempted to squash him to the floor with his shields. This maneuver allowed Marvin to do the same thing to the hunter, firing at its exposed back and rolling away from the green explosive.

Hoff and Miranda saw themselves forced to take out one of the elites that decided to help the hunter.

"Hoff, Miri!" I yelled. "Link to the console and get what we came for! We can handle this fucker!"

I might've been wrong though. I had to run more to avoid another stream of green plasma. The explosion behind me knocked me off my feet and I slammed into a weapons crate, knocking it sideways. "Fuck…"

I heard gunfire and more plasma explosions as I got up, but that wasn't what drew my attention. I found myself staring at a sleek pink weapon. I had seen one of this a long time ago and ordered one of my guys to grab it and give it to ONI for investigation. It was strange enough that the sight of it made me raise one of my eyebrows. The concussion rifle seemed to be winking back at me, daring me to grab it.

I might've had my reservations about using Covenant weaponry if I could avoid it, but right now I wasn't about to turn this opportunity away. I grabbed the grenade launcher, remembering that it only head six explosives, and aimed.

The first three all hit the hunter's cannon. I'd like to say that I was hoping to hit it there, but it turned at the last second, preventing me from hitting it in the neck. The following three shots all hit its left leg, blowing it off. The rounds that hit the cannon damaged something, because its entire right arm was blown apart as the plasma fueling its weapon overheated and blew up.

Still the hunter did not die.

Sandor and Marv, both with freshly reloaded rifles calmly walked up to the injured hunter, firing as they went. The hunter received all the bullets right in its unprotected orange areas and struggled to stay afoot before it collapsed, dead.

Miranda and Hoff had taken out two other elites, leaving only the shipmaster to face us. They were kneeling next to a device that an ONI guy had given us just for this mission. It was supposed to extract and decrypt Covenant information but had to be in direct contact with it.

"Surround it," I ordered. It was one against six and if we captured it we would all get a very large bonus.

The four of us that weren't busy approached it. I aimed at it with my BR55, discarding the empty concussion rifle. The huge elite had one sword drawn and its back was against the wall. We made a semi-circle around it.

"Put the sword down," I said calmly.

The shipmaster instead drew another one and roared in anger at me. "You will die for this, vermin!" it spat in broken English.

"I'm not going to say it again hingehead," I told it. "Drop. The. Sword."

The shipmaster growled, but its expression switched from one of anger and pure wrath to one of confusion. I realized that it had spotted Hoff and Miranda as well as their little device. I allowed myself to turn and look at them before meeting the shipmaster's eyes again. Its jaws curved to form what was surely its equivalent of a smile.

"Kill it!" I yelled.

The elite didn't care, it just turned and sank both of its swords into the control panel as fire from four different automatic weapons hit its shields in the back. The ship's lights flickered. That wasn't what worried me; the entire corvette lurched and shook sideways. Had the platoons in the ground done their job right we could've avoided all of this.

Mr. Shipmaster turned to face its glorious death and found its shields failing and its armor useless against the amount of lead and depleted uranium we poured into it. It fell to the floor and twitched.

"You will die," it calmly reaffirmed, looking directly at me as I walked up to it.

"Fuck you," I replied, firing one final burst into its face.

Suddenly all the lights turned off. The ship lurched once more and I knew something was terribly wrong. I could see the surface of the planet from the windows, but it slowly started gaining a different angle.

"Frank what the fuck did you just do?" Pavel asked me angrily.

"Jump!" I ordered. "Everybody off the ship!"

The elites had managed to get the ship to an altitude of eighteen kilometers or about 60,000 feet in their attempt to escape.

And now the corvette was plummeting back to LV-426.

Crates and corpses started shuffling to the side of the ship as it lost its balance relative to the planet.

"Run!" Miranda said.

I found myself chasing after my men through the bridge and picking up the abandoned device, securing it in the magnetic plates right above my butt-pouch and below the jetpack that had been issued to me for the mission. The corpses of the grunts and jackals gave me some trouble, and I found myself tripping over them, using my hands to support myself. I quickly holstered my rifle on my back and tried running.

Suddenly I found myself falling towards the direction I had been headed as the corvette's heavy rear pulled it towards the surface. The ship then rolled on its longest axis before settling on an upside down fall. We hadn't really been battered up by the sudden change of scenery, but running on the roof did disorient me a little bit. We emerged from the hallway and into the plasma battery. The corvette spun again and I found myself running on the large windows. Miranda helped Hoff back to his feet right in front of me. Marvin pulled Sandor and Livingston over through the wall and into the next hallway as I jumped behind them.

"Miranda!" I yelled. "How much did we get?"

"What?!" she asked, obviously confused and scared and running for her life.

"Hoff?"

"Not much," he said in a tone that obviously wished I would shut up. "Connection was severed when it stabbed the computer."

Who the fuck makes a ship that fails when its main computer does? I cursed.

"Beats me El-tee," Marv replied to the question I thought had gone unasked.

"There's the hangar!" Sandor yelled.

As we emerged into the huge room the Phantom that had been clamped to its crane came free and slammed into the roof before another spin of the ship sent it tumbling out of the shields that kept the air in and the vacuum out. It disappeared from sight as the corvette kept turning, sending crates and equipment in all directions.

"Out! Out! Out!" I yelled, using a combination of hands, feet, and jetpack to make progress towards the shield wall.

I managed to hold on the edge of the floor, gravity dragging me down towards the other direction. Marvin and Hoff both shot out of the ship with their jetpacks leaving smoke behind them. Sandor climbed out and jumped even as Miranda let herself fall down and out the other end of the ship. I thought that she was going to hit something on her way down, but her gamble paid off. Livingston jumped up towards me and I grabbed her hand, dragging her up and unceremoniously tossing her out of the ship.

I climbed up, climbing out the shield and standing in the outside of the ship, suddenly realizing the absurdity of the situation. A spin sent me tumbling towards the secondary hull of the corvette. I quickly activated my jetpack, sending me flying sideways and avoiding the section of the ship by what seemed to be a couple of feet. I rolled and spun until I remembered my training and settled into a controlled fall, arms and legs spread out.

"Reap-" I started. "Platoon Five come in!"

"We're good!" Pavel announced in a strained voice. "I'm a Helljumper, not a Ranger goddamnit!"

"Recon's all out," Caboose said. For once his dull voice sounded somewhat out of balance.

I sighed with relief. "VSF?"

"We're all good El-tee," Miranda came in. "Although you might want to speed up!"

I turned my neck to see that the kilometer long corvette hadn't magically disappeared. It was still falling down and somehow managed to stay above me.

"Race you to the ground?" Schitzo suggested from next to me. He was wearing Ranger armor. For some reason that pissed me off.

I switched positions and pressed my legs together and my arms against my body. The roar of the air increased and my helmet shook. The ship had more mass than I did, but I didn't know anything about its density. I activated my jetpack wondering how this scene would've looked from the side. A single man trying to outrace a spaceship to the ground.

I suddenly started hurtling towards the ground a lit faster than I would've liked, slowly turning to the side and away from the SDV-class corvette that seemed to want to eat me. At an altitude of about two kilometers I finally managed to get out of the way of the corvette. I turned off my jetpack and watched as the ship slammed to the ground, lifting a couple of tons of dirt and making a huge crater. A couple of minor explosions raked its hull, but by some miracle its engines didn't overload.

The floor started approaching rapidly again and I used my jetpack to control my fall and head towards the rest of Jaguar Company.

"Ho-lee fuck," Sandor said on the platoon channel, echoing everybody's feelings at the moment.

Thanks to SilasWhitfield for proofreading this chapter.

And Happy New Year to all! I had some very restful vacations, spent doing pretty much nothing other than sunbathing, sleeping, surfing, and writing of course. The awesome thing is that I still get another week before school actually starts. Can I get a fuck yeah?

There's Chapter 156, hope you enjoyed it. I was thinking that it was about time that something ridiculous and that would look awesome on a movie happened to Frank and Co. again. Hence the falling Covenant corvette trying to pin Frank to the ground. It's pretty amazing when you imagine it all in your head which as much detail as possible. The rest of the chapter included Frank being an asshole, the medic getting shot, and more of the usual shenanigans. All in all, I think that this was a rather nice callback to the old Reaper-era chapters

I promised to post more than one chapter when I return and I will. Next chapter will be up tomorrow morning, Mexico City time.

HodgePodge97:I'm glad you decided to read this, when you get to this chapter please tell me what you think so far.

AlysBrangwin: I had something similar in mind. Your title is so much better than mine though.

Colonel-Commissar2468: You know, I don't usually picture a face when I write him. I've said a couple of times that he has light brown hair and light brown eyes, but haven't really elaborated other than on the fact that he's tall, ha a bunch of scars, and has the body that I would like to have. I guess that he looks however you picture him at the moment. Damn, I might have to fix that.

To reviewer Guest from Chapter 85: 'radio' is a noun that can be both feminine and masculine. In Mexico, nobody refers to it as 'la radio' always using the masculine form. I believe that both forms are accepted by the Real Academia Española. I realize that this reply might seem a little bit angry, and honestly your review annoyed me at the time I read it, but I'm mainly writing this for future reference. When I write in Spanish it will always be in the Mexican variation of the language.

Wow, sorry to everybody else that doesn't actually care or speak Spanish. Thanks to all of you for reading and for the good vacations/christmas/new year wishes. I hope you had good ones too.

Remember, your opinions and views on the chapter are always appreciated.

Stay strong.

-casquis

PS. Hope the quote wasn't much of a spoiler to those of you familiar with it.