Chapter CLXI: High Tides

April 10, 2548 (UNSC Calendar)/

UNSC (Dis)Honorable, in orbit above LV-426, Zeta Reticuli System

"The operation was called Splasher, nobody even thought about Red Tide or something considerably more intimidating."– Lance Corporal Takacs Sandor

The heavy destroyer wasn't a ship designed to transport troops. It had a small hangar from which it could launch ten Pelicans and enough troops to fill them up. Its Marine complement was mostly used for internal security and occasionally served in ground engagements as an additional company to any of the two battalions from the Flaweless. Despite its shortcomings, the (Dis)Honorable was as much of a threat in space combat as six frigates. It had two MAC cannons running its length as well as several smaller railguns and an inordinate amount of point-defense guns. In addition to that, it carried enough plating to make it cumbersome and slow to accelerate.

It was like a well-armed tortoise.

It had been designed to take enough punishment to kill a cruiser while dealing enough damage to fend off any number of ships for a long enough time. The standard UNSC heavy destroyer had been the bane of insurrectionist fleets back in the days before the war started. Now they were terribly outdated and didn't inspire any fear in the Covenant. Rumor had it that the higher-ups in the UNSC Navy mostly saw destroyers as damage sponges nowadays.

The (Dis)Honorable had one good thing going for it though. It had thirty HEV launch tubes.

My twenty-man platoon was already inside their respective launch tubes and awaiting the time to jump. I was overseeing Staff Sergeant Mark Bradford as he ordered his men to climb inside the remaining ten drop pods. Not being one to waste perfectly good equipment Captain Hayes had ordered a squad from Platoon Four to jump down with us in order to have the whole company on the ground as fast as possible.

"Your men ready Staff Sergeant?" I asked impatiently.

"Uh, yes, sir," Bradford replied, had a little trouble attaching the hoses to their helmets.

I shrugged. While we were supposed to operate literally anywhere in the galaxy…well, maybe not literally, we didn't really expect to actually operate everywhere. Even within the ODSTs there were several smaller units that specialized in different mission types. Take the Leapfrogs and their jetpacks for example, working in a manner very similar to that of the Army Rangers. While everyone was supposed to be able to function in every aspect, we didn't really expect to have to do a whole lot of zero-gee or underwater missions.

I instinctively reached for the large oxygen tank strapped to my back. It was on my right shoulder blade strapped securely and reaching halfway down my back. The hose was secured to the back my helmet and nothing short of a direct hit from a rifle round would sever it.

"You ready?"

"Yes, sir!" "Then hop in," I ordered. "We're pushing it close as it is."

Bradford saluted and jumped inside his pod, pressing the button that sealed the hatch. Once he was inside I walked to the four remaining pods, they had been stripped almost completely bare and filled with mission-specific equipment. I made sure that everything was tightly strapped and closed the hatches.

"Jump in thirty seconds," a robotic voice announced.

"I know, I know, goddamnit," I growled at the speaker. I grabbed my battle rifle from the table in the middle of the room and jumped inside my pod, securing it on its designated space to my right. I waited for the hatch to close in front of me and cracked my knuckles in the same fashion that I always did before a jump. I rolled my neck slightly to either side before taking a deep breath.

"Helljumpers!" I boomed, my voice audible through the speakers in every pod. "How do we go?" "We go feet first, Lieutenant!" the men shouted back in chorus.

"Damn right we do," I replied, closing the line.

The light bulb directly in front of me lit up as the countdown reached three. Red, yellow, green.

My pod lurched and my stomach with it as we left the gravity of the ship. I glanced up and saw the bright engines of the (Dis)Honorable and the rest of the ship already flying away from us, speeding up to a speed of several kilometers per second. After that I switched my attention to the moon of LV-426. The moon looked dreary from way up here. The large storm that was directly at our feet didn't really help. MY HUD immediately outlined the coastline that I couldn't see in bright yellow and displayed my intended landing area in a green square.

My pod's guidance systems were doing their job properly and I didn't interfere. This was a high-orbit jump, it would take longer than the usual thirty seconds, as much as that bothered me I swallowed any complaints.

The moment our pods hit the atmosphere and started shaking, Sandor let out an excited holler. "Whoo! Hell yeah!"

As much as he was enjoying himself, nobody else seemed inclined to partake in his taunts to Lady Death.

"Shit," a man from Dom's platoon said.

My heart jumped up to my throat. That word could only mean one thing in this situation. My eyes quickly scanned through the names in my HUD until I saw him. Corporal Jens Larssen, his pod had hit the atmosphere at a slightly steeper angle than the rest of ours, it had been enough to send it tumbling into a uncontrolled fall.

"Corporal, report!" I barked, sweat pouring down my face.

"Pod's systems are failing, electronics are going haywire, the chutes aren't responding," he yelled. The panic in his voice was too much for a man to bear, but I didn't close the line. "Oh my God, oh my God!"

His failing pod kept feeding me reports. The outer shell of the pod was failing and Larssen was slowly being roasted alive. The sad part is that he was falling him to fast for the heat to kill him. He would be in horrible pain as he saw the surface of the planet fly at his face.

His screams of panic filled my pod and I immediately cut his feed from the rest of my men. "Corporal, if you have a family, I'll personally see that they are taken care of. God knows you deserve better than this, but you're leaving a horrible world. I hope we meet again on a better one."

It was poorly worded, but it was the best that I could come up with in the spur of the moment. Larssen gave no acknowledgement that he head heard, but I knew that my voice had been projected over the speakers in his pod.

"I'm sorry," I added before cutting the line.

I'm sorry. How can you say that to a man that's about to die?

"Hey, it's better than disinterest," Schitzo said, his voice manifesting from all around me.

Before I could retort, before I could say anything at all, the pod tore through a gray cloud and slammed into the stormy ocean.

"Don't open your pods yet," I ordered my men. "Wait for the go sign." Sinking as fast as we were into the dark sea was an experience that would frighten anybody, especially considering that our pods were vaguely coffin-shaped.

"Now," I said, my voice a little bit louder than it needed to be.

My hatch opened and water began pouring in. I yanked my rifle from its hole and waited for the compartment to be completely filled before gently pushing myself away from the pod. The flashlights in my helmet immediately lit up to illuminate the dark sea around me. Several similar beams of light appeared all around me, their sources obscured by the stormy water.

Four waypoints appeared on my HUD, one of them was almost directly below my current position and slowly sinking deeper into the ocean.

"Grab your gear," I ordered.

"Sir, what about Larssen?" Bradford asked me, his voice perfectly calm.

I sighed. "He's gone. Set his pod to turn on a beacon on an hour, someone will take care of him." "Yes, sir."

Bradford had probably been close to Larssen. They had fought together and lived together. I could only be glad that they hadn't died together.

I clamped my rifle to my back and spun so that my head was facing the bottom of the ocean. My heavy armor was more than enough to drag me to the depths, but I needed to accelerate the process a little bit. The four pods had let out small air bags that would slow down their descent and eventually stop it completely, but so far they were still sinking.

"Ah, there we go," I said, finally reaching the pod. It was giving off bright lights so that we could locate it easily. I opened the hatch and grabbed one of the handheld turbines designed to transport a man underwater. I grabbed onto the pod with one hand and turned the turbine on with the other one. I slowed down the pod's fall and managed to keep it in a relatively stable position for the rest of my men to reach.

"Damn it's dark," Hoff said in a glaring understatement.

"We're half a mile below sea level," Andy reminded him. "It's supposed to be."

This part of the ocean was supposed to be three miles deep. I involuntarily looked down at the depths at my feet, not really wanting to think about it.

"Hurry up," I said sharply. "Grab your helping hands and we can swim back to shore."

There was the expected amount of horseplay from Hoff and Sandor while everyone reached one of the different supply pods and grabbed their turbines. After everyone was ready I opened a line to Staff Sergeant Bradford.

"I'm sorry about your man," I said.

"Terrible way to go." I nodded; realizing that there was absolutely no way that he would see that. "Yeah. You know where the rest of your platoon is. Once you link up with them tell Lieutenant dos Santos that I wish him luck."

"Willco, sir. Good luck to you as well. Careful with the sharks." At that moment it occurred to me that I had no idea what kind of fauna inhabited the oceans of LV-426.

"I hate sharks," Marv muttered under his breath. "And swimming." Hoff chuckled slightly. "Don't worry, sharks won't be able to bite through titanium and ceramic." "Are there sharks?" Miri asked, her question tentative.

"I don't know, now that you mention it," Hoff admitted, "but I don't really think that they'd approach us."

I looked at the beams of light that seemed to struggle to light up the dark ocean. There was absolutely nothing else around us, considering the noise that we had made coming in it seemed pretty possible that a curious fish or two would be headed our way. The only fish that would be curious as opposed to afraid would be the big ones.

"Let's not linger," I said in the most professional tone I could manage. I didn't like sharks.

A chorus of 'yessirs' and acknowledgment lights followed. I grabbed the bullet shaped turbine and made sure that I had a firm grip on it while I aimed it at our destination. As I turned it on I could feel the water it pushed out hitting me right below the neck. The little turbine propelled me forward with incredible speed, the rest of Five following closely in my wake. It would be almost two hours before we reached land, only then would the real party start.

Almost two hours later we slowed down. The surface of the ocean had steadily grown closer and closer to us until we were forced to adjust our course in order to ascend with it. If I looked directly up I cold make out the vague shape of clouds and the occasional flash of lighting. Those last ones would light up the water,giving the coral reefs and my fellow Helljumpers a ghostly appearance. It could almost be called strangely beautiful.

"There," I said, creating a waypoint on the platoon's HUDs. "Those are the docks." We moved forward slower, watching out for mines or other dangers in the harbor. I could see the shape of a sunken ship below me, huge holes on its side where the plasma bolts had hit it. Most of the ships had been large cargo vessels, some of them still had containers strapped onto their docks. Others still had been pleasure craft, yachts and old-fashioned sailing ships had been sunk as well. In my opinion it was a waste of time and effort, there was no use that I could think of for those ships, at least none that would hurt the Covenant.

The city of Two Stones was more of a glorified town, but by the standards of this moon it was a large population center. It wasn't a particularly strategic location, the founders of this colony had seen to it that a port had been built here in order to facilitate transport and a city had grown around it. The comparatively heavy concentration of people had been what made it a target to the Covenant. The UNSC hadn't been able to respond because we had to deal with the larger threats in Water Oakley and Forest Green. As a consequence, every last human being on the city had been killed by the Covenant.

It was necessary sacrifice; their deaths had saved tens of thousands other humans and bought us time to kick the Covenant's ass right back here. Somehow I don't think that made anybody feel better about their deaths.

"Pavel, break off," I told him. "Inform me when you've cleared your target." "Understood," he replied. Eight blue dots started swimming in a separate direction from the rest of us.

I knew that the other four platoons would be doing similar assaults on the different ports in the city; we were supposed to coordinate our assaults in order to cause as much chaos as possible and prevent the Covenant from forming an effective response. We would keep our attack going for as long as possible and then the UNSC forces on the far side of the city would launch a rapid assault Marine force in Pelicans, hitting the Covenant on the other side of the city hard and fast. If it went well, we would destroy the last significant presence of Covenant forces on the planet with relatively little blood shed. Human blood, I can't speak for the aliens.

But first, first we needed to take the docks.

"Spread out," I ordered, stay low and turn down flashlight intensity.

Nothing quite said 'I'm over here!' like a set of bright lights.

The docks were made out of polycrete that reached all the way to the harbor floor. Some large rubber wheels were still hanging from ropes or chains, their purpose to keep ships from banging against the rock. I stood behind one and turned off my flashlight completely, the darkness of the ocean enveloping me. I was only a couple of feet under the surface, but the night sky and murky water kept me hidden from all but the sharpest eyes.

I almost started giggling hysterically when I imagined a pelican, the bird, diving for my helmet in the mistaken belief that I was a fish. How embarrassing.

"Ready," Caboose said a moment later, speaking for his whole squad.

My head broke the surface of the water without a sound. The moment that happened I activated VISR mode on my helmet and looked around. The pale lights that the covvies had set up were perfect for night vision, they wouldn't blind me if I looked directly at them and they would light up their surroundings more than enough for my helmet to let me see everything. I reached up to the top and pulled myself up slowly, the water dripping from my armor seemed incredibly loud.

"Go," I whispered. "Quiet." I finished climbing up and drew my rifle. There were two grunts directly in front of me. One of them was sleeping and the other one was walking like a zombie. I approached them as quietly as possible, drawing my knife as I went. I dispatched the woken grunt first and then slashed the other one's throat. I could see my men beginning to climb this dock and the adjoining one, dark silhouettes making short work of the sentries.

Marv and Sandor jumped on top of an elite, bringing it down while clamping its jaws shut with some effort. Before the elite could reach for its rifle or activate its shield Hoff ran up to it and stabbed it through the eye. That was good news; the elites believed they were doing rear echelon duty, which meant that their shields wouldn't be activated at all times until the alarm was raised. All the more reason to keep quiet.

"First dock is clear," I called after the elite was dead.

"We've got the third one under control," Caboose informed me.

"And two's fine," Pavel came in a second later.

"Ok, good. Keep moving up, keep it quiet for as long as you can," I said.

Progress was slow; killing people while observing noise discipline is a lot different than killing them regularly. Mostly we used our knives, but on occasion the ones of us that had suppressed pistols used them. The docks were long enough that they warranted their own management buildings. Clearing those was a little bit noisier than I would've liked, but in the end nobody raised the alarm.

"That was close," Sandor noted, letting an elite fall to the floor.

Hoff nodded, probing the elite with the top of his DMR. When the elite didn't move he took a step back.

"The docks are clear," I broadcast to the platoon. "There are three priority targets," I told them, going over what we already knew. "We have the AA gun, that's MG squad's priority. Then we also have the communications antenna here and this building right here. The building is an excellent defensive position; we can use it to distract the Covenant while the regulars attack on the other end of town." I examined the city map on my HUD, carefully going through the plan. "Recon will take care of the antenna. I want you to set up explosives, quietly if you can, and then do some scouting of the area. We'll clear the building as quietly as possible."

"Understood," Caboose said.

"Yes, sir," Pavel said.

"Detonate explosives on my command or as soon as you're made. Let's go."

Everyone nodded, in a way they seemed giddy with anticipation. It wasn't always that you were part of an assault on the Covenant forces that might actually turn into a victory. If we won here then the planet was ours.

"Snipers, there and there," I said, spotting the glints of the helmets the jackals often wore.

Before I could even order them to do it, Miri and Hoff dispatched them, the suppressed DMRs making a quiet snap that even then seemed too loud. I could hear other faint noises to my right, where Caboose's and Pavel's squads were moving up as quickly as possible.

There weren't many guards in this area. If an attack was to come it would come from the front, where the bulk of our forces were waiting. Even the long-range jumps and long swim after that served to assure the Covenant that we didn't have any secret plans for them. It was all good and well, they had been so battered by our continous (continuous) assaults that the covvies barely had enough soldiers to hold the city, small as it was. Despite that I was still nervous, good as Jaguar Company was, we'd have a very tough time facing off against five thousand angry aliens.

"Patrol's coming," Sandor hissed. "Squad and a Revenant."

"In through that building," I ordered.

All six of us sneaked to the side, with Marv and Andy covering our flanks while we entered the building. We quickly cleared the building, making sure that it was empty before waiting for the patrol to pass. They made their way around the corner and slowly moved through the street in front of us. I examined the troops as they went; even the elite leading the squad looked bored, not to mention the grunts and jackals. They took their time, but when they were far enough away that the Revenant's humming wasn't audible anymore we kept moving.

Everything was going well. Two houses and five dead grunts later something blew up. The noise was incredibly loud and seemed to snap everyone out of a dream-like state.

"What the hell was that?!" I asked. "Report!" "Wasn't us, Lieutenant," Caboose came in quickly.

"Nor us," Pavel said. "We're holed up right outside the tower's defense perimeter."

I groaned. "Must be some other platoon." I groaned again, this time louder. If any of the other platoons had been caught this early it meant that we would have to rush our mission. Not only would the five thousand Covenant soldiers be awake and alert after that, they would be actively searching for intruders. Two of our objectives were supposed to be the first ones taken out, that's why this area of the docks had been given to Five.

"We're going to have to hurry," Pavel said, sensing what I was feeling.

"Agreed," I replied. "We can take advantage of the chaos right now; better get our work done before they're all awake and coordinating search parties."

"Sounds like a plan," Hoff sighed.

We were moving faster now, clearing the houses quickly and barely bothering with patrols. We ran behind them as soon as they were past us, a couple of times I thought our steps would make an alien turn, but they were all too eager to get to the action. Already I could hear gunfire and other minor explosions not too far away. They were making a lot of noise.

"Who's that?" I asked finally. The company-wide frequency had a larger chance of being intercepted, which is why we rarely used it during stealth missions. "Need assistance?" "This is Two," Yas responded immediately. "We're good so far, making lots of noise, drawing them away." He paused and I could hear the plasma bolts even through his helmet. "Might need a little bit of help in a moment." "Don't worry Yas, we'll ease some of the pressure soon," I assured him. "Just stay alive." "If I had a nickel for every time I heard that…" I chuckled lightly. I was half-expecting Grass to say something about nickels not being used anymore as currency before explaining the origin and meaning on the phrase.

"Building's in sight," Sandor announced. "Two Wraiths, fifteen soldiers. Wraiths aren't active." "Hoff and Miri, you take out the elites closest to the tanks," I quickly ordered, moving up. "They should be the drivers. Andy and Sandor, I want both of you to move to that car over there. Marv, you and me are going to move to the right and behind those crates. We draw their fire as soon as Miri and Hoff fire then Andy and Sandor take them from the back." "I did always consider myself an ass man," Sandor said with a small shrug.

"I–I don't even…ugh," Andy said, expressing her feelings clearly and concisely.

"Move," I said, inwardly groaning.

Our armored boots clicked on the pavement even despite the specially treated rubber soles designed for maximum grip and minimal noise. Marv and I ran and slid behind a bunch of abandoned-looking crates and took aim at the closest targets.

"On your shot," I addressed Hoff and Miri.

They fired simultaneously a moment later. They didn't stop at the first shot, the elites had wizened up after the explosions and had activated their personal shields, but even then they couldn't avoid the barrage. The two aliens jerked backwards and tried to avoid the bullets that pierced their armor as their shields failed. They weren't exactly successful and their corpses fell down to the floor a second later. By that moment both Marv and I had fired. The two elites closest to us also tried to run for cover, but they were too far away from anything sturdy to make it. They both died short of safety. By that point most of the grunts and jackals had panicked and were running away from our position while the rest of the elites tried to get them to turn around and fight us.

"El-tee, cover me," Marv said.

What now? I inwardly groaned.

Marv dashed from cover and climbed onto the rear of one of the Wraiths from there he pulled himself up and crouched on top of the turret. He fired a couple of bursts before sliding forward and manning the plasma turret. He started firing indiscriminately, the hot plasma shredding flesh and shields alike with deadly efficiency. It wasn't long before all the aliens around the building were dead.

"Marv, drive that Wraith into the building's entrance," I ordered. "Sandor, put some C-12 in the other Wraith's engine." As Sandor quickly booby-trapped the other Wraith and Marv carefully maneuvered his commandeered tank in order to jam the entrance the rest of us moved up inside the building. It was five stories high, with a sturdy ten-foot wall surrounding it and fifteen meters between the wall and the building. It had no windows on the first floor, and that alone meant it was a fortress to us.

"Lieutenant, the antenna is rigged and ready to blow," Caboose said.

"Roger that, no time to scout for targets right now. I want you and your team on our position as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir." By that time we had kicked down the door and were going in with our guns blazing. Sandor and Andrea took the lead, leaving Hoff, Miri, and me at the rear, checking for anything they might've missed. The first floor was mostly grunts. The second one had mostly jackals. The third one had four elites, all of them ready for us. The fourth floor was empty and the fifth floor had an ultra that almost managed to chop Sandor's head off.

"Shit that was close," he heaved, resting his hands on his knees and taking deep breaths. He straightened up and rubbed his throat where the plasma sword had cut through the undersuit. "Too close."

"It's gonna leave a scar," Andy noted drily, closing in on him and lifting his chin to examine the wound. "Cut wasn't deep, but the burn's going to stay." "Great," Sandor muttered. He didn't sound as if he was in pain at all. He turned and stomped the dead elite in the head, denting the alien's helmet. "Bitch." "You're going to look like a mafia hitman," Hoff told him. "Not your look, bro." "Shut up," he snapped back.

"Friendlies coming in on your six," Marv warned.

"What the hell took you so long?" I asked him.

"Sorry, I was jamming the Wraith into the gate so that they can't move it." I sighed. "Whatever. Find positions."

"Frank, we've rigged one of the AA guns legs." I squnted, suddenly remembering that their target in particular was the AA gun version that stood on three long legs and didn't have any battlements. The one that could punch through the plating on a cruiser. If one leg went down then the whole thing would collapse.

"Got it, fall in on our position, we're going to make as much noise as possible."

My men scrambled in different directions, mostly going for the windows. Once we had all sides covered and Caboose's squad was in position I waited. And waited.

"Uh, do you want us to fire now, Lieutenant?" Miri asked tentatively.

"No, I want you to make me tea," I said with a roll of my eyes. "Come on! Let's make some noise!"

That was all the encouragement my men needed. Suppressors were taken off and everybody that could changed their guns to full-auto. Already some aliens were coming towards our position, no doubt investigating the lack of response. From our location in the fifth floor we could easily spot several other Covenant groups, but those closest to us were the logical targets.

I never got tired of easy pickings. Hitting a grunt in the head when it wasn't even expecting it gave me this weird sense of satisfaction that would've been considered psychopathic when facing human enemies. But they weren't human and I wasn't a psychopath... probably. Three grunts went down when I fired, it took a moment for everybody else to catch up with me.

Sometimes being augmented did give me some satisfaction. I was the best one in my company, no doubt about that. Then I remembered that I was only that way because of my augmentation.

"Frank, we're inside the building," Pavel said.

"Blow the charges," I replied immediately.

Two loud explosions shook the building. One of those explosions was followed by the unmistakeable noise of a collapsing structure. We had just knocked the most powerful defensive weapon the covvies had out of the game. Oh, and disarrayed their communications too, but nobody ever cares about stuff like that.

It wasn't long before we got exactly what we wanted and ludicrously large numbers of Covenant soldiers started moving in around our position. The advantage of this building was that nobody could get close to the outer walls without being exposed to our fire. Even if they made it to the walls, going past them would expose them to our weapons again. Quite a few grunts died trying to get to the outer walls before the elites realized that they weren't getting anywhere.

Despite our strategic advantage we were severely outnumbered and all the covvies had to do was throw enough aliens at us until we ran out of ammo. That was doubly true for Pavel and his men, who were firing almost nonstop, slowly eating away at the walls protecting the Covenant.

"Hold your fire," I ordered.

It didn't take long. Some eager elite squad leader ordered his underlings forward. They were cut down before they ran the length of the street. After that we repeated the process two more times before the aliens got smart and stopped trying to rush us.

"Hold your fire until you spot targets," I ordered. "MG Squad, that goes to you guys too." "Buzzkill," Pavel complained.

I rolled my eyes and crouched behind cover. "Jaguar Company, this is Lieutenant Castillo, we have control of Strong Point Alpha and can keep one of the access points clear."

"I might just take you up on that offer," Lieutenant dos Santos said. "Which point of access can you clear?" "Northwest," I replied. "You should make it quick though, little buggers are swarming this place." "Understood, we're on the move." Platoon Four would push their way towards us, tearing the covvies a new one as they went. If it worked they'd have even more aliens on their tail and would lead them straight to us. That was part of the plan, the less covvies our Marines would face the better. It took Dom and his platoon exactly four minutes to get to our position. We intensified our fire in order to allow them to come through.

"Your house, Frank," Dom said as soon as all his men were inside. "Your rules." "Send your sniper and sharpshooters up to level five, keep the rest of your men on the first and second stories. And Dom…"

"Yeah?"

"Nobody gets through." He laughed. "Frank, I'm insulted." I smiled. Dom could keep the covvies from climbing up.

"Sir, they're doing something!" Miri called in.

I looked up through the window and at the spot Miri had marked. I could see three elites crouching behind a large SUV. They lifted it to its side and crouched behind it. The three elites proceeded to push the car forward several feet. One of the elites the rolled back to its previous position and behind another car. The huge alien lifted it to its side and pushed it forward all by itself until it was nose to tail with the other car.

"Oh shit." A dozen elites that had been taking cover behind cars saw what was going on and decided to join the fun. The small walls of cars moved forward and our bullets wouldn't penetrate the undercarriage with enough stopping power. The moment they crossed the halfway point to the outer walls yellow sparks appeared on the bottom of the cars.

"Hold your fire!" I yelled. "Carver, break the wall, hit them right there!"

A red target designator appeared on one of the cars in the middle and Carver immediately set to work with his MGL. The explosions tore the car apart and blew up whatever was left of its fuel cells, shredding the elite behind it to ribbons. The covvies responded with a heavy barrage on Carver's position.

"Shit," he cursed. "They've got me pinned!" "Switch windows, you jackass," PFC Ramirez told him.

"Right," he said, sounding embarrassed.

Despite his constant firing, most of the elites didn't stop pushing their cars, the ones that did only left behind convenient cover for any other covvies that wanted to move up.

"Shit, they made it to the wall," Andy cursed.

"Forget about them!" I ordered my platoon. "Dom, we need you to handle anybody that tries to hop over the wall, we'll bleed the rest of 'em." "Sounds like a plan," he replied immediately.

The elites in the front started jumping over the walls only to be brutally stopped by Dom and his platoon. The rest of the covvies on the rear started moving up, the bracketed line of cars allowing them to take cover and avoid most of our fire.

"Shit," I said. "Zepeda, if you spot elite ultras and above be sure to take them out." I got his acknowledgement light and resumed firing. The bulk of the alien forces surrounding us were slowly moving forward, apparently unfazed by the corpses littering the street.

"Shit," I said again. "All right, MG squad, I want you to focus only on covvies vaulting over the wall." An explosion brought down a large section of the outer wall.

"Or through it," I amended. "Let's go!"

Tracers started pouring into the breach that the covvies had opened, going through the dust and hitting flesh and shields. Several grunts collapsed before a few of the elites could toss deployable covers and hide behind them. The elites waited while more and more aliens poured in, setting up a small area that was relatively protected from our fire. Dom's sniper started taking some of them out through the gaps in between the shields, but they covvies in the back quickly fired at his position.

"Hoff, Sandor, I want grenades on those shields, take a few of them out. Miri, I want you to kill anything with a carbine, give our snipers some breathing room."

"Yes, sir," she replied even as Hoff and Sandor tossed their frags.

The explosion allowed Pavel and his men to kill three elites that had been exposed and forced a couple more back behind the all again. That bought us some respite, but already the aliens were breaching through other sections of the wall.

I did my best to help Miri, shooting down jackal sharpshooters in order to allow us to defend this building a little bit more comfortably. The covvies didn't seem to lack numbers, they had enough soldiers to make us run out of ammunition.

"Frank, I'm sending my men up the second floor," Dom came in. "Not long before they push through." I nodded and acknowledged that. Once the covvies made their way inside the building it would prove tough for them to take the stairs, but it wouldn't take long for one elite to get crafty and decided to make a hole in the ceiling. I had done that more than a couple of times, it tended to work surprisingly well.

"To all Jaguar Company, this is Captain Hayes. I just received word that the Marine Strike Force has lifted off and they're on their way here, to put in in their words, to assist us. I'm just giving you all the heads up in case you're required to provide support to our so-called saviors." Even I had to smile at that. If Hayes wasn't such a bitch I would've liked her a lot. And my sexual fantasies with her would not involve so much angry sex.

I looked up to see Scarecrow and Schitzo both giving me disgusted and disapproving glances.

"They're inside the building!" one of Dom's men broadcast.

"Keep them off the stairs," Dom ordered. "I want one squad covering the stairs. Bradford!" "We got it, sir."

More and more covvies started moving up. We could barely hold them back as it was. Had they been a more…reasonable enemy, their leaders probably would've long since given up on the assault and would've called one or several artillery strikes on our position. The elites, however, weren't exactly reasonable. They had an entire race's worth of cannon fodder and weren't afraid to use them. What I wouldn't have given for an allied race that we could just throw to the dogs.

"Hit priority targets only," I ordered. "Grunt officers and fuel rod carriers count."

The fire coming from the building became a lot more sporadic, but a lot more effective. Elites collapsed at higher rates and several grunts were sent into disarray or panic as their officers were killed. I could hear the gunfire coming from inside the building several floor below us, but so far Staff Sergeant Bradford's squad hadn't requested assistance.

"Hunters, coming across the corner." "Pavel," I said.

Two or three of his men immediately redirected their fire to the alien behemoths, forcing them into a crouch o protect themselves. Seconds later one of the aliens was killed when Bamber fired her Spartan Laser. The weapon left a perfectly circular hole on the alien's thick shield and turned its torso into an orange mess. The other hunter roared in anger at seeing its partner die. It tried to run to hide behind heavier cover, but Bamber hit it before it could reach safety.

"Those things get easier to kill," Pavel said.

"Only because it's not just the two of us anymore," I reminded him.

Before he could reply to that an incredibly loud series of explosions rocked the building. For a moment I thought that we had been hit, but then I realized that the explosions were coming from the opposite side of town. Command must haveauthorized some seriously heavy bombs in order to shake us up that bad. I almost pitied the covvies that had been incinerated by the blasts.

"There's the cavalry," Marv noted.

"And it was only starting to get fun," Sandor said wistfully.

The arrival of several Pelican's worth of Marines didn't go unanswered. Even as I watched several of the covvies in the rear started moving back. Well, forward I guess. The departure of those aliens took some of the pressure off, allowing us to take our sweet time sniping jackals and tormenting grunts. Less than an hour passed until we saw the Scorpion tanks rolling down the street, their gunners looking for targets.

"You really did a number on them, Helljumpers," one of the tankers said admiringly.

"It's in the job description," Dom laughed, leaving the building and approaching the tank with little concern for his safety. "How was it?"

"Lieutenant, I drive a sixty-six ton machine of death. It was a cakewalk."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we pushed the Covenant out of LV-246 for good.

Thanks to SilasWhitfield for proofreading this chapter.

It's nice to have the good guys win every once in a while. It's not very often that the UNSC gets victories, due to the nature of the games you participate in most of the victories that the UNSC had or make the defeats seem like they were somehow worth it. To Frank every defeat is just a fight that wins nothing but a little bit of time, a delaying action that in the end might not be enough. He doesn't know it, but his effort and that of everyone in his unit helped win the war, stalling the Covenant onslaught enough for the Chief to do his job and kick some ass in the Halo installations and the Ark.

As for the chapter itself, I would've loved to make the entrenched-in-a-building section a little bit longer, but I have to admit that I didn't have the willpower or even the desire to do it. Besides, the ending of the chapter would've been the same. I'm sorry if the last couple of chapters have seemed somehow repetitive or lack innovation, but it is mostly because I've been spitting them out as fast as I can come up with anything resembling a storyline in order to get to the good part. I know that's not exactly what you'd expect a writer to do (and if I ever write something I intend to have published I'm going to take my sweet time doing it), but I really wanted to get to the big battles. I have so many ideas for reach that I'm probably going to make that battle at least twenty chapters long. Regarding Larssen, the ODST that died during the jump. I've always wanted to show that dying like that is something that can happen to Helljumpers, but I couldn't bring myself to do it to one of the more primary characters. It would be bad taste and a crappy death to boot.

I do recall mentioning having slightly over one hundred Helljumpers to toy with a couple of chapters back...

Anyways, hope this chapter was to your liking and again I apologize if you perceive it as inferior to others. Let me know what you thought and stay strong.

-casquis