Chapter CLXXV: Of Cyborgs and Tacticians
March 9, 2549 (UNSC Calendar)/
Caradhras Slopes, Paris IV, Paris System
"This is a target rich environment, I repeat, a target rich environment."
"My favorite kind of environment."
The slopes of the supervolcano Caradhras were currently filled with Helljumpers and the occasional soldier. Every last one of us was attempting to climb to the top and then back inside the crater. That way we could only be attacked from directly overhead. Seeing as our current enemy was a corvette, that wouldn't be too difficult to achieve. Darbinian had been calling for support frantically for the last few minutes, but judging from his language Command kept saying no.
"Frank, can you collect some favors?" Pavel suggested, elbowing my ribs. The real ones.
"This is one pretty big favor," I told him. "Lieutenant Dawson owes me one small favor. He's in the bridge of the Flawless…"
"Could work, if he can get the admiral's ear."
"What should I ask for?"
"Command is sending help!" Darbinian broadcast. "We're safe!"
There was some cheering, but everybody kept moving up the slopes as fast as they could. Even if they were rather gentle it was still incredibly frustrating to have to climb up the side of a mountain.
The corvette seemed to be taking its sweet time, but I saw smoke billowing from its rear. It could've been some shrapnel from the two other corvettes, but the damage to its engines was going to buy us some more time until our support came. I wonder if they would be sending Longswords or Shortsword bombers. Longswords would be optimal; they could just jump out of orbit, spin around and then come back in.
I wasn't expecting a lone Pelican to arrive. The ship flew past the rearmost ODSTs and landed amongst the lead elements on the edge of the crater. I ran until I caught up with Darbinian and one of his lieutenants. The man looked at me and shrugged slightly before returning his attention to the Pelican. The rear hatch opened to reveal five imposing figures.
"Spartans," I said, not able to suppress the smile that formed on my lips. I hated myself for it.
"Spartans," Darbinian's lieutenant spat out.
The first Spartan to jump out was wearing a helmet similar to those that EOD crews used, with tiny lenses and fang-like protuberances on the lower jaw. His chest had the numbers 005 painted on the armor. The Spartan toted a simple MA5 rifle as well as two pistols strapped to either thigh. As he jumped down the snow crunched under the weight of its armor.
Behind it came another shorter Spartan jumped down. It had a thinner frame and also had two M6 pistols on its thighs, but instead of an assault rifle the Spartan carried an SRS99-S2 sniper rifle. The number on the chest plate was 058.
The next two Spartans were of similar size, they both had BR55 rifles and SMGs. One of them was number 044 and the other was 008.
The last Spartan to jump out was something of an oddity. It had three different combat knives strapped to its chest, belt, and boot. Normally one would've expected it to carry a shotgun or a short-range weapon, but instead it had a rocket launcher on its back and an assault rifle in its hands. It chest numbers marked it as Spartan 043.
"Who's in charge here?" the lead Spartan asked.
Darbinian muttered something and stepped forward. "I am."
"Captain," the Spartan acknowledged him with a small nod. "I am Sierra-005, Command mentioned a corvette?"
Darbinian pointed. "Feel free to take a shot at it."
S-005 looked at the corvette and then back to his men. He gestured to the Pelican and S-043 jumped back inside and emerged with a briefcase of sorts. The Spartan opened it to reveal a small missile similar to those that the SPANKr usually fired, but the configuration was different.
I sighed. "I'll declare Bandersnatch."
"What's the yield on that?" Darbinian asked.
"One megaton," the leader responded. "Should take out the corvette no problem."
"Great," Darbinian said, even though he sounded like he didn't really mean it. "Well, I have wounded and I would like to give my men some rest. You five look like you can handle it, so I'll leave you here. Castillo, stay with them and make sure they don't do anything stupid."
I turned to look at him. Darbinian probably didn't know that I had grown past my hatred of Spartans. I still didn't completely like them, but I would never turn down their help or deny their usefulness. Still, he had meant that order as an insult. I sighed and let my shoulders slump slightly to make him believe he had gotten at me and nodded slightly. Pavel, take the men down to the power plant," I told my second in command. "Marv and Miri, you stay with me."
They were the two members of my unit that were the least likely to care about the Spartans. I could've asked Caboose or Zepeda to stay behind as well, but it made more sense if I ordered someone from my own squad to do it.
The five Spartans fanned out, studiously ignoring the looks and comments that some ODSTs made as they walked past them. I said nothing, simply stared down at the corvette as it kept making its way towards us.
"What's the range on that thing?" I asked after a while.
"Five miles," S-043 replied. "Well clear of the blast radius."
I frowned. "Why don't you just hop back on the Pelican and shoot from there."
The Spartan with the sniper rifle turned to look at the leader with what I could only assume was an expectant expression. The other two with battle rifles glanced at me from over their shoulders before they returned to watching the snow. The leader looked awkward even in all that armor.
"It hadn't occurred to me," S-005 said.
"Hell no!" a voice came from the Pelican's cockpit. "I am not putting my bird up there for us to be shot down."
S-005 shrugged. "She's got a point."
"Pilots always have an excuse," I replied. "Too hot, too boring, hell, I've even heard too close to safety."
The Spartan let out a small chuckle. "I take it you were an enlisted soldier before becoming an officer El-tee?"
"An enlisted Marine," I corrected. "I've always been a Helljumper."
"And we've always been Spartans," he said quietly, as if not realizing that he had spoken out loud. "Forgive me if I'm tactless, but you seem not to mind our presence that much."
"Screw political correctness," the Spartan with the rocket launcher joked.
I tilted my head slightly. "Make no mistake, I still think you're a freak," I assured it. "But I have worked with your kind before… and have been saved by them. More than once, actually."
S-005 turned so that he was completely facing me. "Really? When?"
"Concordia in '41 and Miridem in '44." I rolled my neck from side to side and fingered the grip of my pistol. "Both times it was the same guy now that I think about it. Very heroic looking, a no-nonsense look to him."
"Do you remember the number?"
"Damn right I do," I said, tapping the side of my helmet with two fingers. "One-one-seven."
When I said that all the Spartans briefly turned to look at me before returning to their previous tasks.
"One-one-seven, was it?" he asked. "What did you think about him?"
"Quiet. Insufferable prick," I joked. "Good soldier, I guess. There was also this girl, had a rabbit painted on her armor. Flashy as hell, flipped around and did somersaults when she engaged the covvies."
"Sounds like someone I know," S-005 said. "She's also a good soldier."
"So you guys all know each other?" I asked.
"That's classified," he replied.
"Please, everything's classified nowadays," I muttered. "Half my life is classified. Everything since I turned eighteen."
"All my life is classified," he replied.
"I know," I said cryptically, wondering what it was thinking. Right now I was thinking about a little five-year-old kid being kidnapped and taken away from his family. Sometimes I wished that Cavallaro hadn't told me all that stuff about the Spartan program, but his guilty conscience needed to unload on someone and that someone had been me. "What can you talk about?"
"Sir?" he asked me, addressing me as a superior officer for the first time. "What do you mean?"
"Oh come on, you must have some humanity left in you, and humans love talking as much as they do breathing."
"That's true," Miri said.
"Well," S-043 spoke up, just finishing loading the nuke into the rocket launcher. "Sierra-058 certainly doesn't love it."
The sniper didn't even move as its name was mentioned.
"She's kind of shy like that," he went on in a joking tone, hefting his launcher onto his shoulder one-handed.
"She?" I asked. "That's a she?" The Spartan was at least half a foot taller than I was, and that was being conservative, she was certainly over the 7-foot mark.
"Damn, what did they feed you with?"
The Spartans said nothing. If my guess was right they were all thinking back to the augmentations. I remembered the process I had gone through very vividly, but these guys were faster and stronger than me by an order of magnitude. Whatever they had been given had probably hurt that much more. I sat down on the edge of the Pelican and waved Marv and Miri away. They looked at me weird for a moment before they took off, heading away from most of the Spartans, walking the edge of the crater.
I trailed them and took my helmet off when they were out of earshot.
"Can you tell me your names?" I asked. "Or is it also classified?"
"Classified. Sorry, sir."
"No you're not," I told 005. "You're a II, right?"
"Ummm, yes."
"ONI will delete any record of this mission after you're gone, won't they."
"Sir?"
"Just answer."
"Almost certainly."
I sighed. "I hate those fuckers. So full of themselves."
"They have their uses," S-043 said. He seemed to be far more talkative than his leader, but since I wasn't addressing him he didn't talk as much.
Instead of further pursuing conversation I aimed my rifle at the approaching corvette and activated the range finder on my scope. It was still ten miles away from our position, but steadily approaching. I sighed and lowered my rifle.
"Ready," S-043 said, taking a knee and aiming at the corvette.
The leader turned to look at the Spartan with the rocket launcher and moved slightly to the side before returning his attention to the enemy ship. He slung his rifle over his back and crossed his arms over his chest. I had to admit that the Spartans had this presence about them. Even just standing next to it I felt safer.
"Fire," he ordered.
The rocket left the SPANKr with a lot more speed and force than I was accustomedto. I recoiled slightly to the side as it flew past me and then traced its progress with my eyes. About halfway through the corvette started dropping Phantoms and those massive drop pods that the elites were so fond of.
"Well shit," the Spartan that fired the rocket said.
I turned away and took a knee just before the rocket collided with the ship. I heard the explosion just a moment before I felt the shockwave. I was thrown to the floor and even the Spartans had to brace themselves against the rapidly expanding air. I stood back up and saw that the ship was now missing its front half and the rear was rapidly plummeting towards the ground. It slammed into the slopes with a noise loud enough to make me wince uncomfortably.
"Did any of the dropships make it?" S-005 asked. "S-058?"
"Several," she replied in a surprisingly melodic voice. "About thirteen or so plus four large drop pods."
"Enough to cause some trouble," I muttered. "Shall I recall my men?"
"No, we can handle this," S-005 replied. "S-044, S-008, and 058 will handle it."
"Three against…" I made a quick operation in my mind. "Four hundred."
"Piss poor odds for the little guys," Spartan 044 said with certain satisfaction in his voice.
In this secluded spot there were two sources of light. First we had the faint glowing that came from the base inside the crater. I only needed to walk around the Pelican and I could see the damaged complex. The second source of light was the Pelican itself. The pilot had turned off the floodlights, but there were still some minor lights inside the cockpit and cargo bay that illuminated the area around it. The third and most important source of light was the burning Covenant corvette. Whatever that thing used for fuel had been burning for several hours now. The two Spartans that had remained behind hadn't moved for what seemed like ages now. They were both standing one next to the other, staring off into the darkness.
Occasionally I would hear explosions and a barrage of gunfire. After that usually came faint screams and maybe some return fire, but for the most part what followed was silence. The three Spartans appeared to be wrecking havoc with the enemy landing force. To be fair to the covvies they had just jumped out of a damaged ship that was immediately destroyed and were on hostile ground.
To be fair to the Spartans it was three against four hundred.
"Is this going to take much longer?" Marv asked me quietly after what seemed to be like an hour of silence.
"As long as it takes," I replied. "You should ask. S-005."
"Hey, 005," Marv called out. "You got a name?"
"Classified," Miranda, the Spartan, and me said at the same time.
Marv chuckled slightly. "Any-who, Sierra-005 isn't exactly a name."
The Spartan didn't say anything.
"All right then. Are we going to be here much longer? I don't want a storm to catch us in the open."
"Hold on," he said. He pressed his index and middle fingers to his helmet and started talking to one of the Spartans down there. The conversation went on for a while, but I couldn't catch anything through the big, fancy helmet.
"Send an email," I told Marv. "He'll get back to you as soon as possible."
Miri laughed and Marvin shook his head with a quiet chuckle. The Spartans seemed to be more uncomfortable around us than we around them. Weird if you think about it, the big-ass monsters could've squished us with a hand tied to a leg.
"Should be about an hour," S-005 said. "They ran into some trouble, Spec Ops elites."
"Ah," I said understandingly. "But surely they can't pose a threat to you mighty Spartans."
"You'd be surprised," S-043 muttered, leaving me wondering what scars it had underneath that massive armor.
Half an hour later a large explosion illuminated the night sky. The corvette's fuel reserves must've finally blown up for good because the fireworks were probably the most impressive I had ever seen. A fountain of fire erupted from the alien ship and came back down on the mountain slopes. I found myself hoping that some aliens were burning right now.
The two Spartans said nothing, instead just staring at the spectacle, the fire reflected off their visors.
"That armor, what can it stop?" I asked after further moments of silence.
"It shatters needle rounds most of the time," S-043 replied. "Plasma bolts are usually absorbed and carbine rounds don't really do much damage to it. Sustained fire'salways troublesome though."
Miranda whistled in admiration.
"If only they had shields," Marv said.
The Spartan chuckled and looked at the leader. "I hear you brother."
The other Spartan twitched slightly. "They're on their way back."
"Give me a sitrep Spartan," I ordered the thing.
"They say that they neutralized most of the enemy landing force, but they ran out of ammunition. Might be that a few covvies survived. Probably some twenty or so."
I sighed and rolled my neck around, hearing the cracks that my vertebrae made. "Very well then, let's head back to the power plant. Your team can canvas the area for survivors tomorrow morning."
"Yes, sir," the leader replied.
"You did a good job, Spartan," I said.
"Thank you, sir."
A fine job.
April 12, 2549 (UNSC Calendar)/one month later
The snow was beginning to melt, only on the top of the crater, of course, but it was a relief. We were far enough north that the lake would remain frozen for the duration of the year. Lieutenant Flint had assured me that even if the whole lake melted the power plant would remain intact. In fact, the foundations ran deep into the ground below the frozen lake and into the magma pools underneath the supervolcano .
The Spartan fireteam, which we had ended up referring to as Spartan Fireteam (I know, very creative) had remained with us. The Pelican had made several supply runs and we now found ourselves rather cozy, with a pair of SAMs on either end of the crater as well as an AA gun covering the base. An air assault was highly improbable considering the range those SAMs had.
Darbinian was still in charge and his men were still assholes, but no more fights had broken out since the Spartans arrived. I still got some glares from that asshole Fritz, but the scab on his nose always made me smile.
"Hey El-tee, catch!"
I turned and caught a football in between my two hands just shy of it hitting me in the back of the head. A smiling Hoff offered his palm to a soldier standing next to him and received what looked to be like a pair of chocolate bars from the grudging soldier. I examined the scratched football, wondering not for the first time where he got it from. Still, the point here was that he had risked hitting me just to get some candy.
I tossed the fall away from him as far as I could, which was pretty far considering my super-dense muscles.
Hoff sighed and patted the soldier on the shoulder before he set into a jog to go recover his prized football. I considered tripping him as he went past me, but decided that it wouldn't be very officer-like of me. Instead I kept on walking, focusing my attention on the female Spartan on the rooftop of the complex. She was always alone, even when the other Spartans were close to one another she chose to be away. A lone wolf.
Lone wolves died.
I shook my head and walked up to Pavel. He was unarmored from the waist up. Most people were these days. Except for the Spartans, of course. I hadn't seen any of them remove a single piece of their armor in the whole time that they had been here. While I could relate to the feeling of safety and protection that undoubtedly came with that armor, I could also relate to the aches and pains that would come with sleeping with it and keeping it on for extended periods of time. The things probably looked like vampires underneath all that metal.
"Hey Frank," he said. "Slow day?"
"Yeah," I replied. "Who's got watch?"
Pavel looked at one of the two SAM emplacements on the edge of the crater. They were pretty far away, but still within eyesight. "Not sure, both emplacements are being handled by Darbinian's men. I think one of Jen's squads is due tomorrow. Speaking of… have you had time to talk with Api, Serge, and Beckel?"
I shook my head. "Just in passing. You know I do the catching up in bars. With lots of alcohol involved."
Pavel sighed and shrugged. I enjoyed watching him shrug, if only because he looked like a puppet when he did that. His shoulders went all the way to his ears.
"Fine, fine," I conceded. "I'll see about catching up later. Right now I've got to talk to Jen, something about reorganizing her platoon."
"Most of one squad is dead, I'm surprised it took her this long."
"We've been busy."
"Not for the last month."
I grunted and cracked my neck. It had been bothering me lately. I let my hands fall down to my waist, with my right hand leaning on the butt of my pistol. My sidearm hadn't been fired for over a month. My rifle was pretty much the same. I hadn't even taken it out to hit the targets that the Spartans set up. The things said that it was to keep them sharp, but we could hardly afford to waste ammunition on snow elites when the real deal might come crashing down any minute.
"How are your men?" I asked.
"Bored. They've taken to tossing snowballs at one another lately."
I chuckled. "All right, give them my regards."
"Give them yourself," he said. "You're a lieutenant, not a general. You can talk to your men."
"That's why I have my NCOs for."
With that I took off, leaving Pavel to his own business and instead headed towards Caboose. The man was usually found in the second floor, admiring the landscape out of a broken window. He was drinking water from his canteen and holding his MA5K on his other hand.
"Sir," he said, raising his canteen in greeting. "Good day to you."
"Thanks. Anything to report?"
"No. O'Malley's still getting those headaches. Ever since she got hit, says she can handle them."
"Keep an eye out for her, will you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Anything else?"
"Montri and Atkins have been getting a little bit friendlier with the Spartans, especially the one with the knives…"
"Sierra-043," I said.
"That's the one." Caboose turned to look at me closely for a second. "How is it? I mean, being next to them?"
"Intimidating," I replied simply.
He looked around. "Is it weird being around them? Since… you know…"
I shrugged. "Not really. It keeps me human, knowing that they are even more of a freak than I am. Why do you ask? ONI concerned about my reaction to them?"
He shook his head. "ONI stopped asking for reports on you a long time ago."
I did a double take. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"You didn't ask."
I grunted and looked out the window. The jagged edge of the crater truly was an impressive sight. From down here it look like a particularly prominent mountain ridge, but I knew that you could climb it easily enough without any gear. It was easier when the Pelican ferried us up, but most of the time we had to climb up in order to conserve the hydrogen fuel cells.
Those things were supposed to last a lifetime; the pilot was just a lazy bitch that happened to outrank us all.
"You know Grigori," I began. "Maybe it's about time I apo–"
I was thrown forward and half my body went outside the window. I managed to hold on and pull myself back inside, my arms straining from the effort. I turned to see Caboose getting back up from the floor and grabbing his rifle.
"What the hell was that?!" I asked him, drawing my pistol
Caboose put on his helmet. "Explosion in one of the dishes, seems like it was brought down."
"What?!" I exclaimed. "Come on!"
We ran through the hallways as more explosions rocked the complex. I finally made it into my room and started gearing up as Caboose did the same thing. I made sure that all the straps were tightened before grabbing my battle rifle and pulling back the bolt. Caboose finished strapping his webbing to himself and nodded at me.
"This is Castillo," I said. "Someone tell me something!"
"Plasma hit the satellite dish, took it out," one of Darbinian's men replied. "Smaller rounds landed on the building. So far we've got a few wounded and no deaths."
"Where are they shooting from?" I asked.
"Not sure, we're still trying to reach out to the SAM emplacements."
"Shit," I muttered while opening another line. "Platoon Five, rally on my position!"
"We're gearing up Frank," Pavel came in. "We'll be there in a minute."
I left the building and came to the courtyard. It was filled with Helljumpers and a few soldiers running frantically in all directions. I turned in a 360 degree but failed to spot any Spartans.
"Sierra-005, come in," I said. "Do you copy?"
"I copy Lieutenant, do you have any intel on the current situation?"
"Negative Spartan, I thought you were the war machines."
"We're only human, sir," he replied. "We're heading to the south end of the complex."
"Only human, right."
Plasma bolts started landing all around me and I threw myself to the ground as an unlucky soldier was pierced by the blue plasma. I heard the screaming of Banshees followed by a loud explosion.
"They took out the AA gun!"
"How the hell did they get past us?!"
"Contact right, contact right!"
"We've got elites!"
"Shit, shit, shit," I growled, pushing myself back to my feet. I looked up just in time to see an elite uncloak and raise its energy sword. I still had my souvenir energy sword strapped above my combat knife, but a rifle would shoot that much faster.
My first burst did nothing to slow the alien down, but the blast from Caboose's shotgun certainly slowed it down. I looked over the dead elite and nodded thanks at the man. He nodded in reply and we started moving. Helljumpers were coming into small groups wherever they could and ran towards cover when they couldn't. The few soldiers out in the open were dashing towards thee watchtowers and sandbag emplacements. Caboose and I moved towards an HMG on a tripod.
"Watch out!" he cried out.
Both of us ducked as a pair of Banshees did a pass over our position. The bolts missed, but I didn't think our luck would hold. I looked up at the Banshees and saw trails of vapor appear. Two elite corpses left the cockpits even as I heard the boom of a sniper rifle. My eyes traced the contrails to the girl Spartan. She had just shot two pilots from their Banshees in less than a second.
I raised my hand in thanks and kept on running towards the HMG. I manned it and started firing at anything not human. Caboose helped me with his own rifle and located targets for me.
"Cloaked elites, they took the SAMs!" a voice came in on the general UNSC channel. "They–"
I looked up to one of the SAM emplacements and cursed. They must've disabled them before attacking the power plant.
"How the hell did that happen?" Caboose muttered under his breath.
"Doesn't matter," I replied, shooting down an elite that had just impaled a soldier. "Let's kill these fuckers."
"This is Sierra-005, we're moving to the SAM emplacements," the Spartan came in. "We need to put them back online if we've got a chance of survival."
"Understood," Darbinian's voice replied. "Make it quick Spartan!"
"Yes, sir!"
Our Pelican took off and weaved in through the Banshees and Spirit dropships with no apparent trouble. It grew smaller and smaller and finally appeared to make it to safety.
"Contact right!" Caboose warned.
"Shifting fire," I replied accordingly, sending three elites diving for cover.
"They're in the building!" Pavel shouted. "They're headed for the control room!"
"Klaus, you've got to keep them from getting there," Darbinian said.
"I thought I'd hold the door open for them," he replied. "I know my job."
"Then start doing it!"
I grunted and kept firing at the enemy positions.
Two ODSTs dove into cover behind me. They had almost all of their armor on except for the forearm pieces. One of them was clearly from Darbinian's unit as his patch marked. The other one was no other than Serge Brisbois himself.
"Cover my back," I ordered immediately. "Caboose, I need to reload!"
The man grabbed a massive ammunition drum and hefted it, keeping it up on his knee. As soon as the HMG clicked he detached the empty drum and replaced it with the fresh one. The elites dove out of cover and threw plasma grenades at our positions. Two of them fell short, but the other one landed right in our midst. I vaulted over the sandbags as the explosive detonated. Something heavy landed on my feet.
I fumbled and grabbed the HMG, now detached from its tripod, and fired it. The first dozen rounds hit the ground by my feet, but I managed to get the barrels up and tear through the leading elite. The other two decided that as long as I had that machine gun active they weren't willing to risk it.
"Caboose? Serge?"
"We're good," Caboose said. "All three of us."
"'Twas damn close," the other ODST grunted.
"Help me up," I ordered. "Is the tripod still working?"
"Negative," the ODST said.
I ordered the man and Caboose to hold the turret's main body as I aimed. It would have to do until we could get a counter attack organized. The three of us made for a funny sight, all crouched under the weight of the HMG. They shuffle walked as I ordered them to, changing the direction the HMG was aiming at. We cut down another elite before two squads of Darbinian's men arrived.
"We've got a hingehead," I said. "Down over there."
"Understood," a sergeant acknowledged, ordering his men to toss frags. They hit the elite as it left cover to avoid the explosives. "Spread out, defense pattern Alpha!"
The ODSTs complied and fanned out, firing at anything they saw.
"Sir, what do we know?" the sergeant asked me.
"Jack shit," I replied. "Where the hell did they even come from?"
The sergeant shrugged.
"See to your men," I ordered.
He saluted and took off after the two squads under his command. I nodded at the other ODST from the 7th and the man immediately followed his comrades.
"Serge," I acknowledged the man with a nod. "Good to see you alive.
"Good to be alive," he replied.
I looked around and immediately spotted what I was looking for. A watchtower, relatively damaged but still useful. "Caboose, grab two drums of ammo and head up there," I ordered him.
"Yes, sir."
"Serge, can you lug the HMG by yourself?"
He nodded and took the massive machine gun from my hands and propped it over one shoulder.
"Good," I said. "Up the watchtower."
We moved quickly, I quickly discouraged any elites from attempting to hit us with a few quick bursts from my BR, but the aliens appeared to be busier with other things. Fritz and his men had mostly been out in the open and had been further decimated during the attack. All that remained of the power plant's original garrison was a mere dozen men, Fritz amongst them.
"Banshee!"
We all ducked as the craft flew overhead, but instead of firing at us it let out a fuel rod against a short building. We climbed the rest of the way up and I mounted the HMG on the side of the tower. I tracked the Banshee with it and started firing as it exposed its side to me. The Banshee exploded in a fireball after I hit it with enough bullets and came crashing down on the snow, behind two elites with beam rifles.
I ducked as two beams crisscrossed the space where my head had been a second before.
"We've got them, sir!" the ODST sergeant came in. "Take out those fliers, we can handle the squids."
I quickly thanked him and peeked over cover to confirm that the elites were indeed keeping their heads down. I grabbed the HMG again and started firing at the Banshee fliers, discouraging them from any further strafing runs. More machine guns started clattering at the aircraft, and a few of them came crashing down on the snow.
"Frank, we've got the control room locked up and safe," Pavel came in. "My squad can handle this, I'm sending Recon and VSF your way."
"Got it," I said. "Marv, Andrea, I want you to man the sandbags and defense emplacements on either side of this watchtower, we'll hole up right here."
"Yes, sir," came their reply.
My men arrived and took positions. Caboose climbed back down as Zepeda took his place. I told him where the two elite snipers were and he immediately aimed in their direction, hoping for a target.
"Serge, you've got any word from Jen?"
"Working with Darbinian, sir."
I sighed. At least she was alive.
Several missiles flew from one of the SAM emplacements and hit two of the Spirit dropships. The rest of them turned tail and started heading out, but the missiles caught up with them before they could get to safety. A few moments later the other SAM emplacement blew up in a gigantic blue fireball. It seemed like these covvies were smart, denying us the opportunity to use our own equipment. I didn't like smart covvies, they were the worst kind you could come across.
"Spartan, come in," I said.
"Sir," it acknowledged. "We're getting a feed from Command."
"Patch it through," Darbinian ordered.
"…ment fleet. At least fifty enemy ships. They burned through Zulu as if they weren't there. Holy fuck! They've got a–"
The transmission ended and another one began.
"Enemy reinforcement fleet is headed directly towards the north pole. Our ODP's aren't discouraging them, they're bulling straight through the barrage. Shit, they're going for the generators."
I looked up to the bright blue sky and failed to spot anything. Right now a battle was going on up there, but I couldn't see shit.
"Get back down here Spartans," Darbinian ordered. "Ships will have to lower their shields if they want to blast this base to hell. If they do that the MACs will get them. They're gonna be sending teams."
"Sounds about right," Spartan-005 replied. "Command is sending evacuation craft as well as Gryphon and SkyHawk atmospheric fighters. They'll pound any ship that comes through."
"We're not abandoning this place!" Darbinian spat. "Four of my squads were just slaughtered for this place!"
I frowned. The men guarding the SAMs were probably all dead. All of them had been Darbinian's men. Damn.
"We're out of our league here, sir," Sierra-005 insisted. "Orders are come straight from Command."
"God-fucking-damnit!" Darbinian cursed. "Get down here fast, we kill all these fuckers before we leave."
"Yes, sir," S-005 replied in a perfectly neutral tone.
Zepeda's rifle boomed once and I caught purple blood spraying the snow. I fired at a small group of elites that had left cover and hit two of them in the legs, allowing somebody else to finish them off. A moment later Zepeda fired a second time and killed the second elite sniper. That marked the last Covenant soldier in the immediate vicinity.
The Pelican landed and the Spartans stepped out, one of them had black scorch marks on his armor. The sniper immediately climbed into our tower. Zepeda gave her an uncomfortable look and shuffled over to the side. I looked at Serge and suppressed a snort. The girl could outshoot Zepeda no trouble, and Zepeda was probably in the top one hundred marksmen in the entire galaxy. I wondered how Snark would've reacted had he been in the same situation.
"Evacuation craft should be here in half an hour barring enemy AA guns," Sierra-005 said. "Once they get here we'll be leaving."
It sounded more like a suggestion than an order, but when a seven foot plus machine suggested you do something it was just a polite way of telling you that you better fucking do as it said.
Half an hour, it shouldn't be too bad.
"Don't be so sure, all it took to undo over a month of work was five minutes," Schitzo said. "Plus, these covvies must've deployed from somewhere."
Half an hour later Schitzo was proved wrong. Several Pelicans arrived and landed all over the courtyard. Most of the birds were obviously local Army or repurposed police craft. Some hadn't even been painted over yet. The Pelicans hovered on their position for a few moments as the wounded started getting in. We took our dead and gently placed them inside the blood tray as well. They deserved at least that much.
I was overseeing the procedures when Darbinian turned me around by the shoulder.
"Sitrep."
"My men were all inside," I replied. "Most of them were, at any rate. No casualties."
He nodded. "Good. My own company was hit pretty hard. Four whole squads gone."
"I heard," I said, not offering him condolences. "Your men were mostly in the courtyard, right?"
He nodded. "I've got a couple more KIAs, but a lot of my men are wounded."
"Are you asking me to cover the retreat?"
"It's not a retreat," he said. "Besides, there's nothing to cover it from, I just want my men looked after as fast as possible."
"Fair enough," I conceded. "Lieutenant Weller?"
"She's already boarded a Pelican."
"Good," I replied. "I'll cover your retreat."
Darbinian stopped and looked over his shoulder at the thinly veiled insult. He said nothing and instead kept on walking.
Pelicans started taking off as fast as it was safe for them to do so. The last thing we wanted was a mid-air collision.
"Incoming!" one of the Spartans shouted.
I braced for an explosion, but was surprised to find myself staring at a cylinder. It was one of the drop pods that elites used, similar enough to our own SOEIVs, even if they were thinner and proportionally smaller.
"Caboose!" I shouted.
I caught the shotgun in my hands just as the hatch opened. The elite behind it met the buckshot before it could even raise its weapons. Blood splattered all over my visor, forcing me to wipe it off. More and more of the drop pods landed all around. More Pelicans started taking off.
"Pavel, go, go!" I ordered. "Go!"
His ship took off and I started running towards mine. Halfway there I crossed two Spartans. Sierra-043 and Sierra-008. The two Spartans hit the elites as they exited their pods, killing them before they could react. But the elites were landing faster than they could kill them, and eventually they had to stop to take cover. The sniper started firing, but in this target-rich environment she quickly ran out of ammunition. I felt an impact on my shoulder and found myself spinning around and falling on the snow on my ass.
I was looking directly at an elite clad in golden armor with an energy sword in one hand. I braced for an attack that never came. The elite ignored me completely and instead headed directly for the Spartans. In truth, I felt slightly offended.
I struggled back to my feet and saw the elite engage the two Spartans. Sierra-043 placed its assault rifle in between itself and the elite's sword, but the blade cut clean through. The maneuver bought enough time for him to draw his two knives, though. The second Spartan delivered two kicks at the elite's legs, but the alien raised its hooves and avoided them, viciously countering with his sword. The second slash managed to cut off the barrel of the Spartan's BR55.
I cursed and raised my rifle, but an ultra appeared in front of me and yanked the weapon from my hands. I drew my pistol in a manner that any cowboy would've been proud off and emptied the magazine on the alien's face. The ultra's shields held without a problem.
I rolled away, hoping that somebody else would target the elite. My prayers were answered when a sniper round cracked. The girl Spartan had saved me for the second time in an hour. The elite fell to the floor, a neat hole in between its eyes. Excellent marksmanship.
"Thanks," I said, reaching for my battle rifle.
The other elite was still engaged with the Spartans. S-043 managed a pair of slashes that left small dents in the elite's chest plate, but the elite appeared to have the upper hand. It donkey kicked S-008, sending it flying backwards. It swiped its weapon at S-043's feet, but the Spartan jumped over the blade. As the elite brought the sword back around it was shot off its hand.
"I'm out," the sniper said in her musical voice.
The elite growled and activated two energy daggers out of forearm holsters. S-043 and the elite then started punching and kicking at each other. They were both equally matched in that they both had blades, but the elite appeared to be as fast and as strong as the Spartan. I fired a couple of shots, but it immediately drew attention from other ultras. I found myself running as fast as I could and jumped inside my Pelican.
I turned to see the Spartan receive a blow to the upper chest, the plasma cutting through the armor. In return it stabbed the elite in the thigh, but none of them seemed to take notice. The huge elite swiped both its hands in an arc that the Spartan only just managed to duck underneath. Sierra-043 kicked up as he positioned his palms on the floor, bending his back completely. The elite flew backwards as the Spartan finished its flip and landed back on his feet. He wasted no time and tackled the elite to the floor. The alien wasn't done yet. It threw the Spartan off him and jumped back to his feet.
There was a blur of green and the alien suddenly found itself knocked to the floor. The sniper Spartan went for S-043 and picked him up from the floor, helping him inside another Pelican. She started climbing inside but something stopped her. Instead she turned and sprinted towards my Pelican, moving so fast that she seemed to leave a trail behind. I suddenly remembered the other Spartan chick I had seen, she had been even faster than this. Perhaps all female Spartans were this speedy.
She clambered inside just as the golden elite stood back up, rubbing its head. I flipped it off as the Pelican took off, a couple of plasma bolts hit the ceiling above me, but by that point the Pelican was safely out of range.
"Wait, why are we leaving?" Sandor asked. "Won't they still take down the base?"
It was a valid question, but what I was seeing right now was enough of an answer. A Covenant ship large enough that I didn't see where it began or where it ended. A Covenant supercarrier. I had seen one once before, and the single ship had been enough to keep an entire planet by the balls for a very long time. I doubted that it had been destroyed.
"Holy fuck," Sandor swore. "There's no way we're taking that out."
"I wonder if it knows its over an active supervolcano," Marvin mused.
The Spartan immediately perked up, she said nothing as she sat down and started chatting through her helmet.
The generators were as good as gone, but maybe something could be done about it. I wondered if you could artificially detonate a volcano as we left Caradhras Caldera behind.
Thanks to SilasWhitfield, SpartaLazor, and defarcher for proofreading this chapter. This is probably the last chapter that Silas will ever proofread and I want to thank him for all the time he spent making sure my work was better. As I mentioned before he's in the armed forces and they requested that he leave his home in order to live on base. He's not defending my country, but he's defending his and that's a good and honorable thing he's doing. For that and everything else I wish him the best of luck. We say goodbye to him with a quote inspired by a comment he made while proofreading this chapter, Although I wish it could be more. I guess now it's up to the two other guys. Wish them luck.
I told you I was going to get a chapter before the day ended. And I did. Am I good or what? Well, actually this chapter was done a while ago, but I pressed my betas hard and they delivered. Off to a good start.
So what happened here... Spartans? Check. Nuclear explosion? Check. Semi-unnecessary timeskip? Check. Suspiciously badass elite? Check. Andy getting shot? Che– Hmmm... Maybe next chapter, she's always catching bullets nowadays. Wonder what got into her...
Oh yeah, I know what I was forgetting, the threat of a supervolcano detonating. That would be something to see. I mean, I saw 2012, but the real deal would probably be a lot more exciting. From a reasonable distance, of course. Maybe even from low orbit.
Don't think I missed anything that would allow me to make some sort of witty and humorous comment... I hope you had fun while reading this chapter, because it's the last one for another ten days, although I might give you a double when I return. You know I love you guys. No homo.
Stay strong.
-casquis