The Life Chapter 167: No Loitering, a halo fanfic

Chapter CLXVII: No Loitering

January 28, 2549 (UNSC Calendar)/

UNSC FOB 'Fountain', Udinia, Paris IV, Paris System

"Those weren't meteorites, we were just testing our new weapons."

"Hey Lieutenant! Did you get us a combat mission?"

I groaned and turned towards Sandor. His armor was lacking its chest piece, probably getting repairs from that needle burst. It had been rather impressive, a whole section of the chest piece was shattered when the pink crystals detonated. They had flown outwards like fireworks and thrown Sandor backwards.

And yet he still desired to see some action.

"No, Sandor," I told him. "Besides, you'll get enough action on the…" I looked for the right word. "…battlements?"

He turned to look at the slabs of Titanium-A at his back. The whole plaza square had been turned into one huge fortress, with walls covering every entrance. "Shooting the occasional careless grunt isn't action El-tee. These fuckers invaded our planet; I want to kick them out."

I shook my head and hefted my battle rifle. "We wait." Sandor's sigh made it seem like he had just been forced to kick a puppy. "Fine, I'll go see if any grunts are out in the open." "Good luck," I told him, walking away.

Sandor was a good time, but he got too eager sometimes. He was already climbing back up towards the thirty-foot tall walls, trading banter with some of the Marines assigned to guard them. Ever since Pavel's unit had rigged the buildings around us to collapse, the walls had become useful. At times I wondered whether bringing down a giant pile of polycrete that protected us from the Covenant was a smart move, but then I remembered that had they collapsed it instead of us the building probably would've squashed us all.

Units all around the city were blowing up buildings around the park and other Covenant strong points, boxing them in but also giving them debris walls all around them. If all went according to plan then we could just bomb them from orbit.

Marine regulars and soldiers alike subtly moved out of the way as I walked past. Even without full battle armor they recognized me as an ODST, and I made it a point to sport a pissed-off look in order to discourage anybody from causing me trouble. Most of the Marines were from Cutthroat and knew me by reputation. I got the occasional nod from them, but the Army soldiers just thought that I was an asshole that was perpetually pissed off.

"You found what you were looking for?" Pavel asked me as I walked inside the lobby of the building. The office building was being used as barracks and to house additional equipment. The landing pads on top meant that it also worked as one of our resupply points.

I nodded. A quick trip to the database had revealed that Katie was alive and well. She had checked into one of the nearby refugee camps. She was as safe as she could be while inside the city. The subway tunnels had been blocked and turned into homes for all the civilians that had become refugees inside their own city.

I had checked in on Hanna too, she was resting from a recent defensive action on a suburb on the outskirts. I even managed to talk to her for a couple of minutes. She seemed tired, but intact.

As I left the terminal I couldn't help but feeling guilty that all I wanted was to talk to Katie.

"Frank?" "Sorry," I said. "Got lost in thought."

"Hanna alright?"

"Yeah…" I took a deep breath and looked around. Pavel's eyes widened slightly as he waited for me to speak. "Pavs, can you love two women at the same time?" Pavel recoiled from my words. "Frank, you worthless fuck."

I chuckled slightly and sat down on a tattered couch. "My thoughts exactly."

"Who's the other one?" he asked. "Please tell me it's no one we know."

"You don't know her," I replied. "Look I'll–did the guys from ONI get here already?"

"Wha–don't change the subject!" I looked at my watch. "No, seriously."

Pavel mirrored my gesture and examined his own watch before letting out a curse. "They should be landing soon. We aren't done talking about this."

"No…I know." I stood back up, feeling like my rest had been all too brief. I moved towards the elevators and all the way to the top floor. On the way there I wondered how they kept the elevators working when the covvies were hitting power plants as fast as they could find them. I did note that the speakers weren't playing muzak arrangements of popular songs anymore. Oh well, at least I didn't have to use the stairs.

The doors opened to reveal Miri and Andy standing on either side of them with their weapons held casually across their chests. Further down the hallway Marv was chatting with a man in an ONI uniform. Scratch that, the man was trying to bull his way past Marv while my man told him he couldn't allow that without proper authorization. Marv could be many things, but I had never expected him to play the obstructive bureocrat part.

"You're late," Miri whispered quietly.

"Ah, are you Lieutenant Castillo?" the ONI man asked over Marv.

I nodded and walked towards him, gently pushing Marv aside. "Lieutenant Khan, I presume?"

"The same," he replied.

"Apologies for the delay Lieutenant," I said before he could say anything. "I had some matters to attend. Are you here for the corpse?"

"I thought that everything had been made clear in the message?"

I chuckled humorlessly and gave him a fake smile. "Of course. Follow me."

I led the man through the office space and into a small room that had once been a supply closet. The only thing the room held was a large metallic box with a legend marking it as ONI property and a number. Inside the box there was a rare specimen indeed, a nearly intact San 'Shyuum corpse.

"You can come down," Khan said into his mouthpiece. "Bring the lifting equipment."

I waited while Khan's men made their way from the rooftop. I was surprised to see two men in an unfamiliar armor appear with assault rifles in their hands. Behind them was a small tank-like drone designed to lift heavy equipment and a bunch of labcoat-wearing eggheads.

"Eggheads?" Schitzo asked.

That's what they called them in an old crime show from Jericho VII… Why the hell do I have to explain myself to you?

"Load up the worm-neck," Khan ordered. "And please be careful." The technicians moved it to the drone with the utmost care while the men with the fancy armor watched. It was a strange configuration, but it didn't look nearly heavy enough to be Spartan armor. Perhaps it was one of the latest specialized designs. I disliked the men wearing them for the simple fact that I didn't have that configuration available for my choosing. It looked so badass.

"Off we go," Khan said. "Let's go."

"Excuse me Lieutenant," I said, grabbing his arm. "I'm aware that ONI has a standing bounty for intact San 'Shyuum specimens… I don't want to sound…well, let's just say that my men aren't exactly millionaires."

Khan nodded and produced a datapad. "The reward money will be transferred to your unit's accounts based on…rank?" "Equal parts," I told him. As much as I would've liked a larger share of the reward, my men would appreciate the gesture. I watched as Khan tapped the commands and departed, the two armored ONI agents keeping watch on the package.

Marv walked up to me and shook his head in disapproval as the ONI group disappeared inside an elevator.

"Did he give you much trouble?"

Marv shook his head. "Nah, standard ONI attitude. Threatened me a couple of times, but I think that he mostly wanted to get this thing done with." "ONI agents are people too," I reminded him. "Barely, but they just want to be done with their jobs as fast as possible."

"Never looked at it that way," Marv admitted. "To me they have always been like lawyers."

"Hey! My dad's a lawyer," Andy complained.

"My condolences," Marv said. "It must've been tough being raised in an environment like that."

I laughed loudly and slapped his shoulder as Andy struggled to form a reply. Miri looked away and suppressed a chuckle. The only two girls in the squad usually stuck together on most matters, but Marv's joke had been pretty funny. Andy gave up on a comeback and instead sniffed and looked away.

"Um, El-tee, now that we don't have to guard the stiff…" Miri began.

"Feel free to get some sleep," I told them. "I'll let you know as soon as we're assigned a new mission. If you want you can try and snipe grunts with Sandor." They looked at each other and shrugged. They had been guarding this floor for over a day catching little sleep and being bored half to death. Poor guys, but Hoff had quickly called 'shotty not' and Sandor had made a point to act hurt that I'd make him stand watch right after his armor had literally shattered on his chest.

So my squad got guard duty while the rest of the platoon got to rest. Mostly they had been catching up on old TV series, but the occasional probing raid or mortar bombardment meant that they couldn't really focus on enjoying whatever they were watching. I had been doing the same, but my distractions had mostly revolved around Katie and Hanna. Sometimes I tried to turn it into something sexual, but I usually ended up being stabbed to death by one or both of them.

My imagination was way too vivid.

The next person that wanted to talk to me was Caboose. The man was extremely talkative as of late. His voice still sounded like an emotionless robot, but the fact that I heard it so often only served to draw attention to his lack of emotiveness.

"Caboose?"

"I got some news on the situation around the planet," he informed me matter-of-factly. "I think it might interest you." I stopped walking and turned to look at him. "Indeed." He nodded. "The destroyer that flew in from the coast stopped on the outskirts of the city. It's been dropping troops constantly for the past half hour."

"Another destroyer… that's not good."

"It can be," he said. "It'll make command redirect some of the other units to help us. Either way, the Covenant troops appear to be positioning themselves to assault the Marine garrisons in between them and the city. With them on the outskirts and the rest of the aliens still in the park we're kind of sandwiched." "They're sandwiched as well," I reminded him."

"I know that… it's just that we are too."

"You just said that."

"Sorry."

"Got any more news?"

He nodded. "The Onager cannon is almost fully repaired. We can expect action before the day's done." "Who's guarding the facility?" "I didn't ask," Caboose shrugged. "But last I heard it was still dos Santos and Weller." "Hayes and Dajani?"

"Their units are being redeployed towards the new arrivals. They'll hit them hard before they can make their first attack." It would be a tough mission for the men and women of platoons One and Two, but the rest of the humans in this city couldn't afford to be distracted while some glorified Komodo dragons attempted to wipe us from the face of the planet. Hayes and Yas would keep the new arrivals busy long enough for whomever was in the neighborhood to strike. Perhaps it would be Battalion One, but I hoped that it was another unit; I still didn't want Hanna in harm's way.

"Thanks," I told Caboose. "Tell everybody, I want them ready for anything."

"Will do, Lieutenant," he replied, giving me a lazy salute and walking away towards the barracks.

"Caboose talk to you?" Pavel asked me.

"You know you missed a verb on that last sentence? You're slipping Pavel. Pull yourself together, soldier! Verbs save lives!"

"You know me, gruff and to the point."

"I'm gruff and to the point," I corrected. "But I digress. ONI took the body and we're getting the reward."

"Frank, about–"

I stopped him with a wave of my hand. "Pavel, I'm tired and my head hurts. We'll talk about this later, I promise, but right now I need some rest." My friend didn't seem too eager to let me scurry away from the matter at hand, but he nodded slowly and pointedly avoided looking at me as I left the room and found my way towards the nest of blankets and scavenged cushions that I called a bed.

By the time Miri shook me awake the Onager MAC was fixed and the Shortsword bombers were fueled and ready to go. Unfortunately for the bomber pilots we didn't have complete air superiority. Most of the city was safe to fly in, but the area surrounding Covenant strong points was under the protection of AA batteries as well as anti-missile lasers. The bombers would be going in while risking getting blown out of the sky and any bomb they dropped would be fried by the laser systems.

The lasers could be countered with unguided bombs that detonated on impact, but the SAM batteries presented a different problem. The covvie SAMs meant that we couldn't fly Pelicans or Hornets, which in turn meant that the covvies were free to have Banshees and Phantoms hanging about, even if the Shortswords did a supersonic pass they would be taking a big risk from both enemy aircraft and surface-to-air weaponry.

That's where we came in.

"Break off by squads," I ordered the moment we left the building. I could feel all eyes on us. Twenty-plus armored ODSTs with that special look on their faces tended to draw attention, especially considering that we were hefting some big and mysterious crates. Their contents weren't particularly secret; they had oversized missile pods that would bring a Spirit or a Phantom with one or two shots. They'd eliminate any covvie fliers that rose to meet the Shortswords and reduce the threat level to the pilots and the mission by about half.

Pavel and his team broke off towards a group of three Falcon gunships and placed their crates inside, securing them with straps before hopping on the turrets. Caboose and Recon did the same with their own crates with another trio of crates. Caboose gave me a curt nod as my own squad walked by. The gunships that were waiting for us looked battered and shot up. Last I heard at least two other major cities were being assailed by large covvie forces and the rest of Paris IV's military was spread thin pushing them back.

"There we go," Sandor exclaimed as we threw the crate we were carrying inside the Falcon. He pushed it so that it fit properly and then helped me tighten the security straps. "Heavy fuckers aren't they?"

"Yup," I agreed. "Hop on the turret. Hoff, you get the other one."

Andy and Sandor were piling up the other two crates on their Falcon while Miri secured them. Recon was already done with their weapon crates and their Falcons were already taking off. Pavel's three gunships had already disappeared behind a building.

"Ready, sir?" the pilot asked.

"Off we go," I told him. "We'd better not get shot."

The pilot gulped audibly. "Of course not, sir. I'll do my best." Damn right he would, it wasn't just his ass on the line. If he got us shot down all four of us would die a very bloody death.

The two Falcons flew some sixty meters from street level, with Hoff and Sandor keeping their eyes peeled for any movement. If they spotted a covvie they would kill the alien before it could transmit our position and vector we were moving in. So far the M247s were quiet. These sectors had been fought over so often that the buildings were too dangerous to use as cover, some of them seemed like they would collapse if a strong breeze hit them.

The pilot weaved over and under tram lines as well as the occasional high bridge that connected buildings. I looked at the street down below. Some of the streets looked simply as if everybody had disappeared at the same time, with cars piled up in a traffic jam that wouldn't be cleared. The next street would have several cars still putting out smoke with destroyed tanks and vehicles (human and otherwise) littering the place. The worst ones were the streets where the covvies had landed before any response could be made. Dozens if not hundreds of human bodies littered the streets and sidewalks. Most of the bodies sported horrific burns or had missing limbs from an overzealous elite.

I had known the situation in the streets for a while now, but it was a different thing to see what three days of all-out war could do to a city.

"That's the target, sir," the pilot warned.

I stood up and leaned out of the Falcon to look at the building. It was a particularly tall skyscraper. It was a triangular with rounded edges. What was particularly special about that building was that it was tall enough to provide a very wide area of coverage in relation to the neighboring buildings. The problem was that since it was so much taller than the surrounding buildings that if any aircraft tried to land on the topmost landing pad would be seen by anybody that cared to look.

Luckily for us, the architect had deemed it appropriate to add several retractablelanding pads at different altitudes.

"There," I told the pilot, pointing at a landing pad that had a wrecked craft on it. Some big shot had tried making their way out during the initial attack only to draw enemy fire. Poor bastard. "Don't touch down, the pad looks structurally weak."

"Aye, aye, Lieutenant."

The Falcon slowly spun and Hoff jumped down as I started undoing the straps securing the crate. I shoved it towards Hoff and he dragged it through the landing pad as I helped Sandor out of the gunner seat and down on the landing pad.

"Hoff, secure the entrance," I ordered. "Sandor, you and Marv take those two crates. I toted the other crate and placed it over my shoulder, pulling out my sidearm while securing my BR55HB SR on underneath the crate.

"Damn that's heavy," I grunted.

The two Falcons banked away from the landing pad and held their position. "We have enough fuel to stick around for thirty minutes," one of them told me. "If you take any longer than that you'll need to find an alternate method of extraction."

"Understood," I acknowledged.

"Tell us if you see anything."

"Aye, aye."

I jogged down the stairs and inside the building. The landing pad had an elevator close by, lucky for us it was still in working order. We piled the three crates one on top of the other and clicked the top floor. This mission was progressing extremely well, we rarely got to the point where we needed to use an elevator without getting shot at on the way there. In my books that meant victory.

"Huh, no elevator music," Sandor noted. "Is that a good or bad thing?"

"Shut up," Hoff said. "And enjoy the silence."

I was glad that Andy was in the other elevator, because otherwise she would've replied with a snarky comment that would've in turn ignited yet another dumb argument.

"Come on," I urged as the elevator doors opened. "Carry the crates to the base of the stairs, but leave them there."

Once the second elevator with the rest of the squad arrived I moved to join Hoff and Sandor. The two were breathing hard from carrying the crates, but I didn't blame them, those things weighed a ton and a half.

"Sandor, Andy, and Marv, I want you three to move up and clear the rooftop before us." I produced a set of blueprints for the building in my HUD and considered the next move. "Yes, watch out behind you for the lightning rod." They quickly nodded and positioned themselves to kick the door down. Sandor promptly knocked the thing off its hinges leaving the rest of us wondering why he didn't just try opening it first. A second later all three of them disappeared behind the door and the sound of wind rushed inside. A couple of gunshots were heard and Andy called it clear.

"Two jackals, not snipers. They look more like scouts," she explained.

"Good work," I told them. "Hoff and Miri, you two keep eyes out for anything that moves on the buildings around us. Marv and Sandor, get down here and help me with those crates."

Once the crates were on the rooftop Sandor opened them carefully and examined the contents for a moment. He then proceeded to assemble what appeared to be an oversized missile pod right in the middle of the pad. While he did that I grabbed some camera-like devices and tossed one to Andy and another one to Marv. They moved out and placed them at the edges of the building. I moved towards the edge of the landing pad and took a long look down before placing the camera on the railing and securing it. The cameras would locate any flying craft and identify them as friendly or otherwise, the cameras would then send the information to the missile pod and guide the missiles to their targets.

"That's a long fall," Miri noted from a few feet to my left.

I nodded thoughtfully. "Miri, be a dear and tie a cable to the railing." "You don't expect us to-"

"Expect the unexpected!" Hoff interrupted from across the pad. "If ten seconds of tying a rope save my ass, I'm all for it." With those wise words from our resident quarterback everybody reached into their butt pouches and grabbed the cable inside. The thing was as thin as a… well, as a cable, but the synthetic material that it was made of was supposed to support anything up to a Warthog. Camila had used one of these very cables several years ago to rappel down a building.

I finished tying the thing off and made sure to leave the rest of the rope coiled on top. That way I could grab onto the end of the rope and jump out of the building before slamming into a window and inside a building.

"El-tee, what are the actual odds of someone firing on our position?" Marv asked.

"Before we can evac?" I asked him. "I dunno. The two Falcons can climb up here pretty quickly, but that SAM doesn't have unlimited ammunition and we'll be a pretty big target once they realize what's going on."

"Won't this baby shut down any enemy aircraft?" Sandor asked me.

"Not all of them," I corrected. "Just the ones that pose a threat to the bombers." Sandor shrugged. "Oh well, it wouldn't be a Helljumper mission if it didn't have a risk."

"Damn right," Hoff agreed.

"Am I seriously the only one that would prefer being back home sipping some hot cocoa?"

"My home is a pile of molten glass," I replied with a shrug.

"Mine's about to become one," Hoff added.

I squinted, trying to make out what he meant before I remembered something that I should've remembered at least three days ago. "Shit man, you're from Paris IV."

"Yup," he said.

"I forgot," I admitted. "I–"

"Don't worry about it El-tee, my hometown hasn't been attacked yet and all my friends and family have secured places on evacuation craft."

Both he and I knew that having a seat in a slipspace capable ship didn't guarantee that you'd leave the system alive, in fact in only guaranteed that you'd become an even bigger target.

"I'm sorry Ryan, I didn't know." Miri started saying.

"I said don't worry about it," Hoff said, his voice was not quite snappy, but there was a definitive edge to it.

"Mouths shut and eyes open," I grunted out an order. "Hoff and Miri, be on the watchout for the all-clear signs from Recon and Heavy Weapons."

Everybody nodded and I started pacing around the SAM, attempting to spot anything that might present a threat. While the five Helljumpers in full battle gear did present a threat, they didn't present one to me, so I scratched them out of the list. For the time I was glad that this was the tallest building around, there were about a dozen or so skyscrapers taller than this one in Paris IV, but most of them were on the other side of Elysium Park and none were close enough to us that a jackal would get a nice vantage point to my head.

While I waited for Pavel's and Caboose's squads to finish setting up their own SAMs I examined the city. Power plants and the occasional hydrogen fuel station were still putting out a lot of smoke. The city's sky had always had this muddy brown tint to it, but now the sky was almost perpetually grey from so much smoke. There were huge fires that covered entire blocks or more and then there was the giant fucking ship hovering over the city's park.

It was a sight that didn't bode any good to the city's future, but I knew better than that. Given some time this city would be free of aliens and then it would just be a matter of more time until everything was fixed and back to normal.

"Recon Squad is signaling the all clear," Miranda said.

A couple minutes later Pavel's squad reported the same thing.

Once the whole platoon was ready I opened a link to dos Santos. With so many satellites shot down and radio antennas destroyed it took a while, but the helmet itself had an incredible range when it came to radio.

"Dom, it's Frank." "Hey Frank. News?"

"SAMs are installed and primed, tell your Onager operator that he's free to shoot any moment now."

Dom chuckled on the other end of the line. "Great, I was starting to consider picking my eyes out to see if something would change."

"That boring, huh?"

"Yup. We should've been down in the city. After we took down that covvie AA gun they whisked us away to nowhere's asshole. I can appreciate the calm and the silence, but standing around gets on your nerves."

"Tell me about it," I replied.

"Yah. Hey, the Onager was modified to shoot a shell twice as large, that's one of the reasons why it took so long to fix this goddamned thing, The blast and flash should both be bigger and brighter than normal, just a heads up."

"A'ight, thanks Dom."

"You're welcome. See you around." Dom cut the line, no doubt warning everybody that they were about to see some shit blow up.

As soon as Dom and whatever techs were manning the cannon got organized they'd call the airfield and the two Shortswords would launch with full loads. If everything worked according to plan then the bombs would go off less than a second after the third blast from the mass driver hit the ship's shields.

"Hey El-tee, do you have any of those oldies that Rob likes in your helmet's drive?" Sandor asked me.

I smiled. "Yeah, got a couple of new ones. Wanna listen?"

"Yeah!" Sandor and Hoff exclaimed, perhaps with a little bit more excitement than the situation warranted.

My HUD opened up a couple of different folders until I found what I was looking for. It had taken some time to get around the firewalls that prevented me from listening to music during combat missions, but sometimes it was worth it, having a soundtrack brought out the little kid in me that never actually had a chance to be.

The song started rather unusually, which was a given for all of Bee's music. Rapid violin screeching gave way to electric guitar backed by trumpets or something like that before an upbeat rap started.

Am I wrong, cause I wanna get it on, till I die

get it on, till I die, get it on, till I die

Y'all, y'all remember me

I could picture the looks on my men's faces as they listened to the song. Rap from five hundred years was absolutely nothing like rap nowadays, both consisted mainly of rapidly spoken lines and shared the same themes, but the way that the lines were delivered just varied incredibly. Old-fashioned rap had this authentic feel, as if the raper was making things up as he went. Sometimes the lyrics were nonsensical and some other times they were works of art.

Once the next part started I could see my men moving their heads in rhythm to the song. Even if the lyrics weren't the best I had ever heard the combination of them and the music worked just fine. The funny part was that this version of the song was from some old movie or other. Bee claimed that it was a great film, but I had yet to see it myself. The song was interspersed with the sound of gunshots and ridiculous lines from the movie. Again, it just worked, at least for me.

Only wish to breed

I explode into a million seeds

Ya'll remember me

Legendary live eternally

"Oh, so this song is about sex," Schitzo said. "Go figure."

"Hey El-tee, we've got enemy aircraft moving up," Miri warned, peering intently through her scope.

"Relax, that's why we brought that massive bazooka there for," I told her.

Miri's shoulders relaxed only a little bit. It was a good thing, a Helljumper had to be at least a little on edge on every mission. Reaction times were quicker that way. The rest of Very Special Forces Squad also looked ready for anything despite their bobbing heads and the upbeat rap song in our helmets.

We all had to look away from the ship when the first round from the Onager collided. The shell had been accelerated to what one would call relativistic speeds. The drag from the atmosphere slowed it down considerably, but it still managed to conserve enough force to rock the entire Covenant destroyer from side to side. The next blast came a few seconds later, and the white sphere that appeared a the moment of the impact was burned into my retinas.

"Let the games–" Hoff started.

The interruption came in the way of several missiles flying out of the SAM. The missiles were pretty small, only slightly larger than the M19 warheads that the SPANKr used, but they had a warhead that was twice as powerful and used some kind of fancy fuel that allowed them to fly faster, further, and for a longer time. The increased velocity meant that the rockets penetrated more armor before detonating, inflicting even more damage.

Very fancy, very expensive rockets.

I trailed the orange flashes of a couple of missiles and had to squint to see the Banshees that they hit explode. The missiles had crossed the distance in about a second and a half.

Very, very fast rockets.

"Damn," Marv noted drily, elongating the vowel on the word.

Take them to places, stake they face then erase 'em and brake 'em

Murder motherfucker's at a rate and then quicken the pace

Blast me but never ask me to live a lie

Am I wrong cause I wanna get it on till I die

Damn I know how to pick songs.

"The Shortswords!" Andy exclaimed loudly.

I turned to see three shapes flying fast and low. They weren't going as fast as they could've gone, but they were at least doing Mach-2. The destroyer rocked violently for a third time as the Onager fired once more. The SAM behind me was now firing at a rate of several missiles per second, hitting Phantoms, Spirits, and Banshees all around. I could see the contrails that the missiles left trailing back to the buildings that Pavel and Caboose were in, marking them as targets.

The bombs flew from their bays and slammed into the unshielded front section of the Covenant destroyer. The CPV-class destroyer's energy projector took the brunt of the bombs. Naturally, it was completely destroyed by the sheer amount of conventional explosives that it received, but what really did the job was the superheated plasma that was stored right next to it. The plasma blew up in a second, bigger explosion that tore a huge chunk of armor off the ship.

"Sir, we've got bogies incoming," Marv announced calmly. "Several Phantoms and a dozen Banshees." I turned to look at the SAM and saw it smoking standing there calmly.

"Well shit," Sandor expressed himself eloquently.

"Falcon gunships, come in."

"This is Dragon-1, we are moving up."

"Shit, no! Tell them to get out of here!" Andy yelled. "Now!"

"You heard the lady," I shouted into my helmet immediately. "Get out of here!"

I turned to see the reason why I had sent our best hope of getting out of here alive away. It turned out that Andy kind of had a point. She had correctly deduced that several of the lead elements would get here faster than the Falons could climb to our altitude.

Sometimes it was easy to forget that the slow-flying Phantoms and the Banshees that could almost stand hovering could fly faster than the speed of sound.

"Jump!" I ordered.

Am I wrong, cause I wanna get it on, till I die

get it on, till I die, get it on, till I die

Y'all, y'all remember me

Hoff and Miri were the first ones to follow my order, being the ones nearest to the edge. Andy and Marv followed, the first one taking a moment to hesitate before wrapping the rope around her forearm and jumping down.

"Lieutenant," Sandor began, peering over the edge. Already the lead Banshees were shooting at us.

I grabbed my rope and shoved Sandor over the railing. I think I might've heard a curse, but I was already jumping over the railing myself. For a moment I was in that beautiful place where gravity wasn't pulling me down. I could see the abandoned cars below me, some of them with broken windshields and some others were completely wrecked. My feet kept moving in an attempt to find solid ground below them, but before my body realized what my head already knew gravity did what it was supposed to and brought me back to the ground.

The rope went taut, my left arm felt like it was going to be wrenched out of my socket, and I was swinging back towards the building.

I managed to half-turn towards the mirrored windows and brought my feet up. Normally I would've shot at the glass in order to weaken it before punching through, but I was holding onto the rope with both hands and I was swinging towards it with enough speed that it would make no difference.

My boots shattered the glass and I saw the crystals fly inwards. I let go of the rope at the exact moment that my helmet collided with the ceiling. The rope had been a foot too short, and I did a backflip before landing belly-down on the glass-covered floor. The next thing I knew my legs were pulling me down. I must've passed out for a second or something, because I barely managed to claw at the carpet before Sandor came out of nowhere and grabbed my forearm.

"Watch out!"

Like there was anything I could do, hanging several hundred meters above the ground and with bloodthirsty pilots trying to hit me.

The windows all around us were shattered when plasma bolts burned through them. I kicked at the one below me only to suddenly find it gone.

"Swing me!" I yelled.

Sandor wasn't one of the brightest minds of this generation, but he was by no means an idiot. He roared in effort as he swung me outwards and then let go.

"Reaper!" I yelled loudly. "Fuck! VSF, get moving, I want everybody to meet two floors below the one I'm currently on! Move it!"

A few stray plasma bolts hit the floor next to me before I turned a corner and was out of sight. I pressed my hands against my knees and took a couple of deep breaths. That had been a close call, a few of those bolts had flown close enough to me that I knew I would be getting some blisters. Once I had taken three deep breaths I stood back up and ran towards the emergency stairwell. I could hear furious steps above me, but I kept running down, jumping down the last set of steps before stopping and pulling out my rifle.

"Lieutenant!" Sandor exclaimed when he almost slammed into me. "I didn't see the rest, everybody came in on different sections. I think Hoff crashed through a floor above me."

I made sure that all of my squad's lifelines were beating steadily, albeit at an accelerated rate. Everybody was still alive, so that's good.

Marv and Andy arrived together, with Andy breathing hard and Marv looking like he was expecting covvies to come out of the walls. A second later Miri arrived, tripping over herself before Sandor caught her right before she fell. Her armor was scorched on places but otherwise she seemed intact.

"Miri, are you ok?" Andy asked her, kneeling next to her and examining the scorch marks on her armor to make sure that she wasn't hurt. "Burns?"

"No," she took a couple of deep breaths.

"No, I'm fine."

"Where's Ryan?" Marv asked.

"Hoff," I spoke into my helmet. "Hoff!" There was no response. I cursed and looked up his location and cross-referenced it with blueprints of the building. He was four floors above and still within visual range of the windows. If anyone wanted to shoot at him they would have no trouble hitting him.

"Marv, with me," I ordered. "Come on!" We climbed through the emergency stairwell as fast as Marv could move. The man was damn fast for being a regular human, sprinting up the stairs at a pace that would've pressed pre-augmentation me into trying to keep up. Once we were on the same floor Hoff was we took a brief moment to regain our breaths and I nodded at Marv.

"Go." He kicked down the door and burst through. The sound of continuous plasma firing filled our ears. It wasn't until we turned the corner that we saw a Spirit dropship hovering right outside of the windows, firing its rear turret at one fixed point.

"Frags, frags!" I yelled. "Try hitting the turret!"

Marv and I both pulled a grenade from our webbing before tossing it as hard as we could at the Spirit's turret. The two grenades hit the turret, but while one of them bounced straight towards the ground the other one bounced upwards before exploding a few feet from the turret itself.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Hoff yelled from somewhere to my side.

If he was swearing he was alive.

The Spirit shuffled on its positioned slightly before closing in on the building. The side doors opened and two elites in bright blue armor jumped out before pulling energy swords. They did their roaring thing and charged towards us even despite Marv's full-auto barrage.

Once I joined his fire the two elites rolled sideways and took cover behind a pair of cubicle walls.

"Keep their heads down!" I ordered, reaching for another grenade and throwing it. "Hoff! Hoff! Where are you?"

"Down here!"

I moved towards his voice just as my grenade detonated. Hoff was leaning back against a waist-height polycrete wall that divided a few steps and a handicapped ramp. He was breathing hard and holding his DMR tightly across his chest. His right leg was horribly burnt. A heavy plasma bolt must've hit him directly, because there was almost no trace of his armored boots left. I could smell the charred meat all the way from here.

"Yeah… sorry," Hoff apologized through clenched teeth.

"Come on," I grunted. "Don't let go of your gun."

"I'm about done El-tee!" Marv yelled.

"Just a little longer!" I shouted back, propping one of Hoff's arms over my shoulders. "Come on Ryan, try hopping, I need you to work with me."

"Yes, sir," he replied, pushing himself up with his free hand.

"Keep your head down," I advised.

I ran with Hoff struggling to hop on his good leg. Marv's rifle clicked empty a second after we went past him. The sound seemed to be incredibly loud despite the Banshees and dropships firing all around us. If I had any doubt that the elites heard it, it disappeared when they roared and vaulted over the cubicles they were using for cover.

Hoff attempted to fire at them, missing wildly due to the awkward position. My luck wasn't any better and I couldn't afford to turn around to get off a couple of good shots. Instead I did my best to reach the emergency stairwell. The door was open and I jumped through a second before Marv came in behind us and slammed it back shut. He ejected his empty magazine and placed it through the handle before putting a fresh one in.

"Put me down, sir," Hoff requested.

I complied and placed him against a corner. He kept himself afoot with his good leg and aimed right at the door. When the door shook he fired half his magazine through it. An elite burst through the door as if it was paper and suddenly found itself facing the business end on Marv's rifle. His shields had been weakened by Hoff's DMR and Marv finished the job with a sustained burst. The energy sword cut a line on the stairs before it deactivated.

"There's still another one!" Hoff shouted.

The second elite was more careful, firing with a plasma pistol before bursting through with a huge leap. It jumped right over Marv and landed right next to me. I ducked under an attempted elbow strike but couldn't move fast enough to avoid it slamming me against the wall. The huge alien batted my rifle aside with a flick of its arm and turned to fire at Marv with its pistol, keeping my neck pressed against the wall with its sword arm.

"Shoot it!" I shouted, trying to breathe.

Hoff fired three shots at the elite, hitting it in the back of the neck. The alien roared and turned again to shoot at Hoff. The man let himself fall down to the floor with a cry of pain. A black scorch mark adorned the wall where his head had just been a second ago.

I took advantage of the distraction to raise both my legs and kick at the elite, using its own arm for support. The alien recoiled backwards and almost went over the railing, but it jumped right back at me with its sword aiming for my chest. I dodged the blow only just, with the hot plasma blade leaving a gouge in my chest piece. Marv had recovered from the elite's attempt to kill him and slammed into the alien from several steps above. The combined force of his jump and gravity made the elite lose its footing and both of them rolled down the stairs, with Marv landing on top.

The elite raised its pistol only for Hoff to fire whatever was left in his mag at the alien's head, finishing off the elite's shields. Marv then raised his rifle above his head and brought it back down with incredible force. The elite's jaws cracked and several pointed teeth flew out of its mouth. Marv repeated the process three more times before the elite stopped struggling.

"Aw, shit," Hoff moaned, looking at his mutilated leg.

Marv shot the elite in the face and moved to pick him up. "You ok, El-tee?"

I nodded. "Damn thing…" I had to take a deep breath. "Almost crushed…" Another deep breath. "My windpipe."

Should've called the rest of the squad with us…

"Come on, help me up, sir."

I nodded and rubbed my throat before helping Hoff back to his feet… ahem, foot. Marv and I made our way down rather fast considering that we were dragging a large man with heavy armor on. Hoff moaned and grunted all the way, but I couldn't blame him for it considering the extent of his injuries.

"Holy shit!" Sandor exclaimed. "Why didn't you ask for help."

"Not enough time," I grunted in reply, putting Hoff on the floor as gently as I could. "Andy, what's the prognosis?"

"He needs immediate medical attention or he'll lose the leg," she replied immediately.

"I concur," Schitzo said, looking sharp in a white lab coat.

"Let's get out of here," I ordered. "One of the service elevator shafts should go down in the middle of the building, out of plasma range."

My team didn't need another word before they got a-moving. This time it was Andy and Sandor that took the lead while Miri watched over the rest of us with her DMR. Not that it would do much good in close quarters, but it was better than nothing. The covvie pilots were still pissed off and hitting the building with everything they had, but most of them were focusing on the upper part of it. Despite that the amount of firepower they were using on the place was frightening, if they kept it up the building's supports would melt and the whole thing would come crashing down.

"Dragon-1, Dragon-2 do you copy?"

"VSF, this is Dragon-1, we copy." "Where are you guys?"

"We hid down in an alley, I can just see the building from here, but damn does it sound bad."

"It sounds worse than it is," I replied.

"Really?"

"Nah, it's hell up here." We all clambered into the elevator, struggling to fit inside the cramped space.

"Lieutenant, are you ok?" Andy asked me.

"What?"

"Your chest." I looked down at the gash from the energy sword. "Yeah, I'm fine." Andy stared at me for a second and then nodded before managing to kneel to take a closer look at the mess that was Hoff's leg. She produced a can of biofoam and I could just feel Hoff tense up at the anticipation of the horrible stinging pain that would come a few seconds later. Before applying the foam she took a moment to pluck a piece of molten boot from his skin, eliciting a wince.

"Your head is awfully close to my crotch," Marv noted drily.

Andy sighed and shifted so that her head moved away from the awkward position. It now happened to be facing almost directly into Miri's crotch.

"Ah, that's better," Marv said.

The elevator was filled with the sound of chuckling before Hoff's curses and suppressed grunts of pain replaced them. Hoff stomped against the floor with his good foot, putting his weight on Marv and me as Andy kept on spreading the biofoam.

"Hold him still," she ordered, tossing the can aside and pulling a good-old-fashioned bandage. As she started wrapping it around Hoff's leg the elevator reached the ground floor. Miri and Sandor clambered out and went right and left respectively to secure the area.

"Done, let's move," Andy said.

"Come on," I seconded, motioning for Marv to move with me. Hoff was half-delirious from all the pain. By this point we had to actually drag him. His leg wasn't bleeding anymore, but it had left a nice little puddle on the elevator's floor. Whenever his leg bumped into anything he'd cry out quietly before shaking his head in an attempt to make the pain go away.

"Keep your heads down," Sandor warned once we reached a side door. "Falcons are over there."

"Head over there," I told him. "You, too Miri."

"Yes, sir," they replied. "We'll cover you."

They crossed the street with their rifles aiming straight up for a change. Andy kept watch for any covvies on the street, but Sandor and Miri crossed over to the alley without incident. I looked around and started running across the street, with Andrea looking around and scanning our surroundings with her rifle.

"Banshee."

"Double time it!" I yelled. "Andy, get to cover!"

She didn't need me to tell her twice. Andy sprinted towards the alleyway as Marv and me started dragging Hoff faster, ignoring his cries of pain as his foot hit debris or the edge of a car. A couple of plasma bolts hit right behind us, but the alley walls shielded us from any damage.

The two Falcons already had their rotors spinning and one of them was all filled up with half of my squad. The other one promptly saw Hoff strapped on and Marv and me on the gunners' seats. I was rather impressed at the precision that the pilots had managed, the alley walls were only a couple of inches wider than the wingspan of the Falcons themselves. We took off and disappeared in between the buildings before the Covenant fliers could get a good shot at us.

"Think that the other squads had as much trouble?" Marv asked after we came into sight of the FOB.

"Nah, Pavel only gets bad luck when he's with me. Knowing him he probably had the time of his life."

"Sergeant Konstantinov?"

"Not the bad luck kind of guy either, but he's rather capable when it comes to all shit hits the fan situations."

Marv chuckled lightly. "At least we all came out in one piece." I glanced at Hoff's leg. "That is yet to be seen, my friend."

Thanks to SilasWhitfield for proofreading this chapter. I hope that this chapter was more to your liking when it comes to grammar or spelling mistakes.

So we get ourselves a nice little action piece. According to Silas the strategy used by VSF Squad is similar to one that the Russian (Soviet) Spetsnaz used, planting a SAM near an airfield and then leaving. Unfortunately for VSF, the Russians cared for the lives of their commandos a lot more than the UNSC does. There's some stunts, some light shooting, and then there's Marv being a badass, living up to his name as one of the most talented fighters in the Halo universe.

Oh, and Frank spills the soup to Pavel about Katie. He got out of it, but that probably won't last for long. Unless, of course, the covvies pull off some crazy shit that prevents them from sitting down and talking about the business at hand. But that's just not their style...

Hoff's hurt, but the destroyer was knocked down. That's the chapter in a nutshell. I hope that it was to your liking.

Thanks to the readers that reminded me about the reference that I made. Now I recall actually thinking about ME3 as I wrote down the name of the hospital, but for a while it confused me. Another reviewer pointed out that some combat scenes seem kind of stale. I understand what you mean and would like to ask all of you if you have a similar opinion, and if so, to give me ideas to make the fighting scenes even better.

I'm preparing to leave the city of Udinia in a few more chapters and have some different kind of warfare. So at least you have that to look forward to. So, desert or arctic warfare?

Thanks for reading this chapter. Stay strong.

-casquis