Chapter CLXXVI: When the Exterminator is Not You

April 30, 2549 (UNSC Calendar)/two weeks later

Valern Spaceport, Valern, Paris IV, Paris System

"Stealing our thunder... conceited sons of whores."–Captain Krikor Darbinian

People used to turn their eyes away from mine after meeting them, but now they kept them firmly grounded. The hundreds of thousands of civilian refugees that still remained in this city had all but given up hope. The last evacuation ship to have left had done so three days ago and had been neatly gutted by Covenant ships in orbit. Even after a Spartan team planted a nuke underneath the supercarrier and detonated it morale was still low.

I remember watching the vid of the explosion. All the magma bottled up underneath Caradhras Caldera had burst out a second after the nuclear detonation. The impact and heat had engulfed the supercarrier, barely damaging it. It wasn't until a few seconds later that a second, bigger explosion came. The pressure underneath the tectonic plates sent insane amounts of magma out in the open, and this time the supercarrier was damaged enough that it was rendered inoperable. There had been talks about nuking the useless ship, but Command had deemed it low-priority when compared to the rest of the problems we faced. Half the planet was accessible to the Covenant navy, and the few sections that didn't have considerable UNSC presence had become killing ground.

Even here we suffered from Covenant attacks. Now that the Super-MACs that covered the north pole and arctic circle of the planet were useless stations the Covenant could resupply their troops with little trouble, even with Spartan teams constantly raiding the supply lines.

We were no longer just outgunned, we were also outmanned.

I hated that the civilian living spaces were adjacent to those of the UNSC. It meant that I had to constantly walk through them and see their faces. I turned my gaze away and walked towards one of the gates. The entire spaceport had been walled off by the Army when the covvies attacked, but most of those walls were on their braking point right now.

"Where are my men?" I asked a grim-looking Marine.

He pointed at a group of ODSTs clustered around a Warthog. I moved over there, pushing aside O'Malley and Zepeda. Caboose looked up at me and shook his head. Lying on the floor was Lance Corporal Niles Atkins. The injury didn't seem bad, but a pair of plasma bolts to the gut would melt every internal organ without damaging your shell too much.

Corporal Han was trying to revive my man, but he didn't appear to be having much success. Next to the unmoving body of Atkins were several used biofoam canisters. Finally Han stopped his attempts and sighed sadly. He removed Atkins' helmet and closed his wide-open eyes gently. After that he reached into his neck underneath his undersuit and yanked his dogtags.

"Sir," he said, offering the tags to me.

I nodded at Caboose, but he shook his head and beckoned Han to give them to me. I closed my left fist around the tags and examined them.

81046-01928-NA.

I pocketed them and took a deep breath.

"Barracks," I told them. "Grab some chow and try to catch some sleep."

The men nodded and broke away from the battered Warthog, looking at the corpse one last time before turning their back. Caboose remained behind for a minute longer.

"They're getting smarter," he told me. "Booby traps and ambushes in places we had declared clear just a day ago."

I nodded. "How'd the scouting mission turn out?"

"Aside from the obvious?" he asked, jerking his head at our dead comrade. "It was productive. We confirmed the presence of enemy Locust units all through the middle ring as well as West End. They're massing for an attack."

"But we knew that already," I said.

"Suspected," he corrected. "Now we know."

I looked up at the sky. "Damn pylons… Join your men, you're likely going to need the rest."

Caboose nodded and shot me a quick salute before leaving.

I waited for him to disappear and knelt over Atkins. I started rummaging through his pockets, looking for anything that he would've considered of value. I found the usual personal effects, but there was no picture or holo-frame. I finished up by looking inside his helmet and put it back down when I found it to be empty. I sighed and gently positioned his helmet next to him. Atkins hadn't died with a peaceful expression. His mouth was still slightly open in pain and shock. Had his eyes been allowed to remain open his expression would've been a haunting one.

I nodded at two Marines and they lifted the body into the back of a flatbed truck none too gently.

"We'll take care of him, sir," one of them told me with what I assumed was a sympathetic expression.

The truck took off after I thanked them.

The best I could hope for right now was that Recon got some rest before Command sent us back into the suck.

"Here's the deal," I said loudly, getting my men's attention. There were still eighteen of us, so it wasn't so bad. "Green Team is going to be doing the heavy lifting here, so we can thank Command for that."

"Amen," Sandor said.

I went on. "The Locust units that Recon Squad found are very likely going to be used when the covvies go for the big assault on this airfield. Command thought it prudent to neutralize the threat quickly and in the most prejudicial manner they could think of. Enemy air superiority on that area put an airstrike out of the question, so they're sending the next best thing?"

"Us?" Hoff suggested good-naturedly, earning a few light chuckles from the platoon.

"The second next best thing," I amended. "Green Team will be going in, but unfortunately, there are large enemy camps on either side of the Locusts. Those soldiers need to be engaged or the Spartans will find themselves surrounded and quite possibly dead."

My men had never heard of a dead Spartan, I certainly hadn't heard of one, but I knew better from my mission back in Miridem. Seeing one of those juggernauts brought down had shaken me. I knew my men wouldn't take the words seriously, but saying them immediately drove home the importance of our part in the mission.

"We'll be coming in by truck," I said, tracing our route. "This area was last reported as clear of snipers and enemy skirmishers, but anything could happen. By the time we get to this point we'll have the attention of every covvie fucker in the block. Once those are dead they'll probably send more after us."

Some of my men smiled wickedly.

"Once those are dead… well, we'll see about that. Remember, our mission is to draw the attention of the Covenant soldiers long enough for Green Team to get in and get out. Alpha will be doing the same thing on the other side."

Darbinian's men had proven to be effective fighters in the last few days. I didn't have to like them to admit that they were useful and reliable during combat.

"Will we be counting with any kind of support?" Pavel asked.

I shook my head. "Might be we can call in some mortar strikes, but I'd say we're on our own."

"Just like Command to send us in a high-priority mission with no support," Carver grunted. He hefted his MGL over his shoulder and muttered something under his breath.

"Be that as it may," I went on. "It needs to be done. The armory's open to us so don't skimp on the equipment.

"Hey, sir, after this op do we finally get to link up with the rest of Jaguar?" Ramirez asked.

"The rest of the company is still in Udinia," I said. "We'll go there as soon as we are ordered to." I still felt that Jen had gotten the good end of the deal when her platoon was ordered to return to Udinia, but there was nothing I could do about it. "For now I want you to keep your head in the game, all right?"

"Yes, sir," they said, nodding abruptly, as if caught by surprise.

I let them walk away from the room and watch them towards the nearest armory. I examined the map in front of me, scanning it for any locations that would be of use. The point where we would be stopping was already as defensible as it got, the street was narrow enough that numbers wouldn't be as big a factor as they could've been and there were enough collapsed houses around it that most covvies would have to climb to get to us. As long as the covvies didn't make it to the buildings on the sides we would be all right.

"All right just doesn't mean the same thing anymore, does it?" Schitzo said. "I wonder what all right will mean three years from now…"

"Probably that we still survive as a species…" I muttered in reply.

Having said that I picked up my helmet and trudged after my team. The spirits weren't exactly what you would call high. Not everybody here had been close with Atkins, but everyone here knew him. It was unavoidable, especially considering that the twenty of us had been together as a platoon for a very long time. Reeves had been especially good friends with him. Right now the man was focusing intently on his task, loading bullet after bullet into his magazine. O'Malley and Zepeda were standing to either side of him, not saying anything but letting him know that he had their support.

Normally I would've looked around longer, examining my men for anything that might give away nervousness of lack of concentration, but right now the five massive armored Spartans were what drew my attention. They were strapping surreal amount of ammo to their armor, using both pouches and velcro patches. Four of them were carrying large Det-Packs and SPANKr rocket launchers.

The things looked tiny on their massive armor, but it still seemed to me like they were carrying way too much stuff.

I nodded at S-005 and headed to the spot where the 9 mike-mikes were. Most of my mags were already full, but the armory had special drum magazines that would prove to be useful in a high-intensity combat mission. I sighed as I grabbed one and started picking bullets from the case. Loading these things took a long time, even to a man that was used to doing this.

The girl Spartan walked up next to me, the floor thudding as she walked. She stopped next to me and started filling one of her sniper rifle mags with the massive 14.4x114mm rounds. She quickly loaded four into the magazine and started on a second one.

"Five-eight," I said in greeting.

The Spartan stopped for a brief instant and nodded in acknowledgement before she resumed her work. She was done before I had gone halfway through my own magazine. I kept shoving bullets into the thing until it was finally full and then slapped it into my rifle. My men were all but done, finishing tightening their armor straps and double-checking their weapons.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Waiting on you Frank," Pavel replied for the platoon.

"Very well then, let's head to the trucks. Andy and Sandor drive."

We divided into two teams of nine and hopped on the old trucks. Three Spartans got inside a Warthog with a missile rack on the back. They cold probably take out two Locusts with the rockets on the 'Hog, but the rest would be a touch harder. The other two followed behind in a Mongoose that was weighed down by their weight.

"Come on," I said, banging on the top of the driver's cabin. "Let's go."

The trucks took off. Darbinian's men were behind us in another pair of identical flatbeds. They immediately veered to the side while we kept heading in a straight line. Progress was slow, but all the piles of debris had been moved to the side of the street. If anybody tried to attack us they would have to zig-zag through them, slowing their progress and making for easy targets. Unfortunately, it also mean that we had to navigate through them if we wanted to get out.

A couple of plasma bolts hit the truck's hood, urging Andy to increase her speed. We busted through one of the smaller piles of debris and finally stopped when I gave the order. Sandor and Andy turned the trucks to give us the maximum amount of coverage against an attack from the front and we piled out the back. I pointed at locations for Miri, Hoff, and Montri and they promptly started climbing to get a decent vantage point. The rest of the platoon immediately broke off so that our fire was the most effective.

"Nothing comes through, we've got lots of ammo," I said. "Use it!"

The snapping sound of machine gun fire grew louder for a second until my team ran out of visible targets. I could see an enemy checkpoint several blocks away, but we'd leave that one there in order to give the Covenant a chance to regroup and attack.

I sighed. Playing bait wasn't as heroic as it sounded.

"Enemy on the right!"

I could hear my men breathing hard as they pounded the covvies with everything we had. At a time grunts would be hit by three different machine guns, tearing them to shreds. We had a ludicrously high amount of ammunition, so we could give ourselves that luxury. The problem here was that if the Spartans of Green Team took a little bit longer than expected we would be dry and on the run.

"Ghosts are moving up!" Hoff cried in warning. "Right side, right side!"

Sandor moved up, carrying his stolen rocket launcher. He took a knee and fired two rockets in quick succession, blowing up a Ghost and sending a squad for cover.

"Reloading!" he said.

The other Ghosts were met with a barrage of gunfire. One of them skidded through the street and slammed into a light post as the elite driving it was killed, but the other one punched through, using a pile of debris as a ramp to jump over us. As it flew it boosted overhead, landing amongst my men. I ducked out of the way as the Ghost sped away from our position, attempting to turn around and hit us from the rear.

"Miri, go for the fuel tank!" I ordered.

I raised my rifle and aimed at the small hovercraft. I muttered a quick thank you when the elite turned the thing around in a way that it exposed its fuel tank to us. Miri and I opened up, but the Ghost was moving and the target was small enough that we didn't have much success. Just as the guns were almost lined up with us a shot hit the bottom of the tank, tearing it out and spilling some weird-looking fuel.

"It didn't blow?" Miri asked, surprised. "They always blow!"

The elite jumped out of the Ghost, but it was too late for it. Miri took out its shields and I finished it with a series of bursts to the chest.

"Nice work," I told her. "Marv, get over here!"

Both of us ran towards the Ghost and pushed it all the way to the front, so that one side of it was behind cover and the other exposed. We ducked under a couple of bursts from plasma rifles, but soon enough Marv was sitting low on the driver's seat and firing the powerful twin plasma cannons at the covvies. The cannons didn't have a big angle, but they could suppress a big portion of the street.

"Come on, come on," I muttered as I fired. The Spartans would tell us when they were done, but I really wanted them to do this quickly. Normally the sound of a dozen different Locust walkers blowing up would be clearly audible, but right now we were making so much noise that I doubt even the covvies could hear it.

"Frags, frags!" I ordered. "I want it loud!"

Explosions joined the cacophony of noise. Already we had killed at least forty covvie soldiers and they showed no sign of stopping. They were angry and therefore stupid, recklessly moving forward when hanging back would've made more sense. The elites had been offended and they wanted our blood. Sometimes their weird culture made fighting them a lot easier, sometimes it just made it a whole lot harder.

"Sharpshooters on the rooftops!"

"That's your cue Zepeda," I shouted, looking around for the jackals. I ducked as one of them fired at me and cursed myself for being stupid enough to stay out of cover like that. "Kill that one first," I ordered.

Zepeda was a crack marksman, but he couldn't shoot at something that he couldn't see. It took a few moments for the sharpshooters to expose themselves again and only then did Zepeda start shooting. I had no doubt that every bullet that he fired met its target, but the covvies were starting to press harder.

"Shadow transport moving up," Hoff called out. "They're grouped behind it."

I looked up to see the unusual vehicle slowly moving forward, its powerful top-mounted turret firing almost continuously. My men had to take turns ducking from the plasma fire. At this range it was improbable that we would be hit, but when the plasma bolts hit whatever you were using for cover it was a sure sign that maybe you ought to actually use that cover.

"Zepeda, hit the driver if you can," I said. "I want someone to fry that thing with the Splaser as soon as it makes it past that lightpost right there, got it?"

"Yes, sir!" PFC O'Malley said eagerly.

I had been expecting Bamber to reply to that order, but she was long since dead.

I pushed the thought away, no use in dwelling on it.

"Jackals are massing up!"

"Carver, break them!"

"My pleasure."

I wasn't able to see the explosions, but they sounded nice.

"Hit the Shadow!"

"They're trying to bust through our flanks!"

"Redirecting fire!"

Holy fuck we were being loud.

"Finish that fucker!"

"Reloading!"

"Frag out!"

I started firing wildly, using the drum magazine on my rifle for what it was ment for: continuous and overwhelming fire. I gunned down a squad led by an elite before they could move up past the checkpoint, somewhat stalling the flow of renforcements. Miri and Hoff were wreaking havoc with the enemy leadership. The elites wisely kept their heads down now that we were targeting them almost exclusively.

"They're sending in grunt ultras!" Miri shouted. "White armor, white armor!"

The grunts were tenacious and could prove troublesome. They were the cream of the crop, veterans of several battles. Those little guys had my respect, serving under races that saw them as nothing but cannon fodder and making it past those first few ranks and to squad leader was a feat that deserved praise. I was almost ashamed that it would be up to us to cut that illustrious career short.

Two grunt ultras fell to the street with holes in their heads a couple of seconds later. The survivors moved on, barely noticing the losses and instead urging the grunts to move on. The elites saw what was going on and started providing covering fire. I ducked as shards of rock hit my helmet.

"Too damn close," I muttered.

"I'll be damned if we're killed by a bunch of upjumped grunts!" Pavel's voice boomed loudly. "I want every last one of those gas suckers with their faces on the pavement."

The plasma fire intensified.

"What the fuck are you waiting for?" I shouted. "You heard him!"

I threw a grenade to encourage my men. The explosion brought a couple of cries of pain and appeared to invigorate my men. I smiled and popped out to fire at the covvies. The lead grunts were the first ones to go and the attempt to storm our position promptly fell apart after that. The few grunts that we didn't get ran back to safety under the protective fire of the elites.

"I'm tired of those hingeheads," I said. "Tag their positions. Carver, you're up."

What followed next was an excellent display of what human ingenuity and engineering could do if properly applied. Twenty something different silhouettes appeared, each with a distance marker on top of their head. Carver positioned himself behind the front wheels of one of the trucks and set his grenade launcher to the task. He moved a small knob and nodded.

Our gunfire intensified for a brief second, allowing Carver to pop out of cover and fire.

His grenade went high. The explosive flew over the cover that the closest elite was using. It didn't fly any further than that. When the microcomputer inside the explosive detected that it had crossed the assigned distance it detonated violently, sending concussive waves and shrapnel directly towards the elite. That was the beauty of it, the grenade could actually be detonated in a way that most of its force was directed towards a certain point.

"Beautiful," Carver said. "Next!"

Six more elites died that way before the rest realized what was going on. Marksman fire intensified around Carver's position and once again we were hard-pressed to fight off the vicious shooters. Zepeda dispatched four of them when they became too careless, but the rest had relatively free reign, having pinned Hoff and Miri's positions. Montri was still safe, occasionally popping out to shoot at a jackal that got too eager for a kill.

The Covenant line had moved forward several dozen meters. They were now close enough that shotguns were effective against elites. A few more meters and we would be able to smell their ranky breaths.

"Don't start slacking," I shouted, making my voice as booming as possible. "I want runners for the trucks, give out ammo to everybody. We need to keep this up for as long as possible!"

Two grunts lost their legs as a fragmentation grenade detonated underneath them. The plasma grenades that they had primed and were preparing to throw detonated in the ground, engulfing another unfortunate grunt. When the dust cleared Sandor chuckled slightly.

I smiled, I could not fault him for smiling at that feat.

"How much longer, sir?" Andy asked while reloading.

"Hold on, I'm getting something," I said, turning my head around and crouching behind a piece of floor. "Castillo, come in."

"Lieutenant, this is Green-Three," Sierra-044 checked in. "We're about three quarters of the way done, but there's a Locust walker headed your way."

"Shit," I cursed. "How high up?"

"Two blocks from your current position," he replied. "One of its legs is damaged, but it's still plenty deadly."

"All right, thanks for the heads up," I said, signing off. "Listen up Five! There's a Locust walker headed our way! It should be coming up about two blocks from here! The moment it shows its ugly head I want everyone firing at it. Carver, Montri, Sandor, you're the main ones. Hoff, can you throw a frag that far?"

"No problem," he replied.

"Good, be ready."

The enemy attacks just intensified, they had bunkered down and were now mostly doing what we were. Firing continuously at our positions in an attempt to hit one of us when we got careless. We had killed almost eighty aliens during the opening of the battle, but for the past fifteen minutes we hadn't gotten anything more than a wounded jackal and a grunt that would need a prosthetic. They had gotten smarter. I hated when they did that.

"Zepeda, do you have any high-value targets?" I asked him.

Red light.

I sighed. "What's the highest rank you've got?"

"Elite minor."

"Not worth it," Caboose spoke his opinion.

I nodded in agreement. "Don't hesitate to shoot anything with a big helmet," I told the sniper.

The comment actually got a chuckle from the man. "I never do."

"Did he just…laugh?" Montri asked.

"Don't think so," O'Malley replied almost immediately. "A chuckle doesn't count."

"You know Abri, the way that you butcher the English language with that accent never ceases to amaze me," Corporal Han told her.

"Fok jou, kont!" she replied.

"Well I certainly don't need a translator for that," Hoff joked.

"Was that Afrikaaners or English?" Montri asked her.

Their friend had just died and they were joking around in the middle of a battle that was critical for the city. Good, they could deal with the pain and loss later, right now I needed them to be in tiptop shape.

The covvie onslaught slackened a little. I ordered my men to slow down their rate of fire and climbed up a pile of debris to meet with Hoff.

"What can you tell me?" I asked.

"The ones up front are crouching behind cover, they don't look too eager to leave it."

"And further back?"

He peeked over and shrugged. "Offering some token action, but that's about it."

I nodded grimly. "Locust is about to come up… Locust is coming up!"

"Ready weapons!" Pavel shouted. "Carver, I want HEAT rounds on that MGL!"

"High-Explosive Anti-Tank coming up!" the man replied, ducking backbehind cover to switch the shrapnel rounds in his grenade launcher for more appropriate HEAT ammunition.

"Sandor, you can't miss," I reminded him. "O'Malley?"

"I've got this, sir."

"Good. Good…"

When a Scarab came in you always knew it before it happened. They were fucking huge and equally loud. You could hear their joints whirring, the ground cracking under their legs, and the overall noise of a very large vehicle moving. It wasn't very often that a Scarab could get you by surprise, it wasn't unheard of, but still pretty uncommon. Locusts, on the other hand, were small enough that they could sneak up on you.

Not this time, we had previous knowledge, we knew where it was coming from, and we were ready to fry the fucker before it managed to get a shot off.

"Rooftop!"

Nobody remembered that the fuckers could climb buildings.

A single beam of purple plasma crossed the air and collided with one of our trucks, overheating the fuel cells and detonating it in an orange fireball. Shrapnel flew in every conceivable direction and the covvie assault intensified.

"Man down!"

"I'm hit, I'm hit!"

"Medic!"

"Shoot the walker!" my voice boomed over all others.

My wounded ODSTs were left were they were and we redirected our attention to the biggest threat. Sandor shook his head and took a knee before firing two rockets at the Locust. I raised my body so that my torso was exposed and sprayed the covvies closest to us, sending them reeling back to cover and buying us some time. A red beam flew from O'Malley's Splaser and smashed against the Locust's shields. The large walker was surrounded by yellow lightning as its shields failed.

"Kill it!" Pavel shouted, redirecting his fire to the thing's joints.

"Get down!" Caboose warned.

I threw myself to the ground as the purple beam flew right above me. It crossed the street, hitting our positions and melting them down. I could feel the temperature around me go up by several degrees as my suit struggled to keep me at a comfortable temperature. Some of my men were probably having a worse time, but nobody was killed.

"Carver, kill it!"

The man fired his entire magazine at the walker. The shells collided and penetrated the comparatively thin armor. As soon as all ten grenades were inside the Locust's hull they detonated, tearing apart the driver and everything around it.

"Yeah!" he shouted in victory.

I allowed myself a small smile. "Andy, Sutton, and Han, tend to the wounded," I ordered. "Keep them engaged."

The Covenant took the loss of their single most valuable asset in stride. The elites hanging back sent even more squads up front and deployable covers started poppin in every direction. Groups of jackals started leaving the checkpoint firebase to disappear behind houses. We shot as many as we could, but when they disappeared they became invisible threats. The troops on street level were easier to handle, but easier is being used loosely in this situation, very loosely.

Already a pair of elites had bulled their way through our fields of fire and vaulted over cover. Caboose had received them with a shotgun blast to the face that left them both decapitated and leaking blood into the street. Other hingeheads seemed more reluctant to try doing that after that, but that didn't mean that they slackened on the plasma. The rocks in front of me were no doubt beginning to exhibit a redish tinge from all the heat. Already some my men were behind piles of smoking debris, looking uncomfortable in the intense heat.

"Green-One here," Sierra-005 came in. "We're down to the last Locust."

"Copy that Spartan," I acknowledged. To my team I said, "Prepare to fall back! Andy, turn the truck around!"

"Wounded go under the seats!" Pavel ordered in an imposing voice. "We need to get out fast!"

Andrea climbed into the flatbed truck and turned it back on. She quickly turned it so that we could fall back down the street and Han and Sutton started helping the wounded into the truck. Already my platoon had about half of our men out of action, some were wounded and some were helping them, but it meant the same thing. We were currently at fifty percent effective strength.

"Full-auto! Full-auto!" Lizzo roared, echoing his machine gun.

"Hit the fucker!"

I fired at a grunt that was about to throw a grenade, timing the shot so that the explosive fell where the alien was standing. The explosion engulfed it and drove an elite out of cover, where it was promptly gunned down by Lizzo and Hoff.

Hoff's head snapped backwards and he cried out. I traced the small green trail that carbine rounds often left and found a jackal aiming right at me. I jumped to the side, exposing myself to any covvie that cared to shoot.

The jackal missed its second shot by a hairbreadth. I felt my helmet move slightly as the carbine round nicked it. As I fell I rolled and came out in a crouch, my rifle already up. Three squeezes of the trigger later the jackal tumbled over the roof and slammed into the street with a crunch that I was able to hear.

"To the truck!" I ordered. "Machine guns go last!"

Recon and VSF started moving back slowly, hesitant to leave cover. I ran back to the pile of debris that Hoff and I had been using and winced when I saw that the carbine round had torn through the side of his helmet, starting just at the edge of the visor. I took the helmet off and cursed. Hoff was unconscious, but the shot had hit his cheek and carved down through the skin until it hit the jaw, tearing it from the rest of the skull. His mouth was hanging from a loose piece of muscle and skin, opened unnaturally far down.

But he was alive, and for that we could be thankful.

"Medic!" I shouted. "Medic!"

Sutton immediately appeared to my side, he took Hoff's injury in stride and pulled out a can of biofoam, turning my man on his side. "So he doesn't choke," he explained quickly. "Messy injury, painful as hell. Surgery here will patch him up, he'll have a hard time talking." Sutton talked as he worked, bandaging the wound with some weird adhesive tape and then covering most of Hoff's face with regular bandages. "He'll be alright."
I nodded and tapped him in the back. Between the both of us we carried Hoff's unconscious body towards the truck. Han helped us drag him up and threw him to O'Malley and Caboose.

"Pavel?"

"They're about to overwhelm us!"

I turned to Sutton. "Hop in," I ordered. "Fall back, fall back!"

Ramirez, Dotsenko, d'Arc, and Lizzo walked backwards, emptying their magazines as they went. I in turn moved forward, hitting the elites that tried to capitalize on our retreat with scarily precise headshots. Not all of the elites were without shields, but the ones that were promptly found themselves short a brain.

"Pavel!" I shouted.

Just as I finished shouting things started moving slowly. Spartan time kicked in. A blue glowing orb flew in a beautiful arc, landing not six feet from my friend. I grabbed him by the belt and yanked back as hard as I could. For such a heavy man he felt incredibly light. The explosion sent me flying backwards, flipping my head over my feet and then back to the ground.

My vision went black.

When I came back to it I saw Pavel climbing on the truck. The heavily crowded vehicle opened up on the covvies charging our position, slowing them down.

"Go!" I ordered, my voice faint. "Go!"

The truck drove away, hesitantly so at first, but when the Covenant fire intensified Andy didn't seem to brake.

I turned around back on my back and raised my rifle only for it to be kicked from my hands by an angry and bleeding elite. As I drew my sidearm the same elite stepped on the hand, making my cry out in pain. The huge alien leaned towards me and grabbed me by the neck, lifting me effortlessly. I held onto its wrist in an attempt to give my windpipe some more breathing room. I never thought I'd use that phrase literally…

The elite growled something in Sangheili at two other hingheads behind it and they replied in turn.

"Fuck you!" I said, ever defiant and wasting air.

I let go of one hand and started reaching for the knife on the small of my back. With my left hand I started squeezing, using my full strength, augmentations and all. The elite's grip tightened on my neck, but its eyes bulged in what I could only assume was pain. My fingertips reached the grip of my knife, but my vision was already blackening on the edges. I felt myself weaken and my feet stopped kicking.

The elite growled something more and drew a small energy blade with its other hand.

I closed my eyes and swallowed.

Wait… swallowed?

I opened my eyes just as I heard the gunshot. The supersonic round had killed the elite before I could hear it. The elite that had been holding me was missing the entire front of its head. A few drops of purple blood colored my visor. The two other aliens jerked sideways almost simultaneously as sniper rounds hit them in the head. The dead elite finally dropped me, falling to the ground.

I slammed down to the street on my ass and rolled to the side, grabbing my rifle. Two more elites were running towards me, bringing plasma rifles to bear. One of them fell as the unseen shooter hit it and the other one hesitated for just a second.

A giant green object landed right next to me, cracking the pavement and sending ripples through the street. The Spartan moved with speed that I couldn't even hope to match even if I was ten times as augmented. I saw the sniper rifle in her hands twirl like a baton before its butt made contact with the final elite. The massive alien doubled over and the Spartan then snapped its neck with an overhead swing of her rifle.

Before I could say anything she had holstered her rifle and was yanking me back to my feet.

"On your feet, Marine," she said. Her voice was melodic to the point of being hypnotic. Or maybe it was just the lack of oxygen to my brain.

"I'm a Helljumper," I said stupidly. "Let's go!"

I turned around even as Sierra-058 drew her two pistols. I heard the sound of gunfire over my shoulder and willed the pain away as I ran. I didn't bother turning around to help. She was a Spartan and could handle anything short of a Scarab all by herself. I kept on running, when the gunfire didn't grow more distant I looked over my shoulder to see 058 ten feet from me, running backwards as fast as I was sprinting.

"Show off," I muttered.

We ran like that for two blocks. When I hadn't heard a plasma bolt whiz past me for thirty seconds I slowed down a little bit, but only a little.

Finally, after some heavy running I stopped completely, almost out of breath and in incredibly pain.

"Thank you," I told her. "So very much."

The Spartan nodded, her headmoving from side to side in a search for enemy targets to kill. I reloaded my rifle and winced in pain, drawing one half-concerned glance from her.

"Don't worry," I said. "I'm fine." I was only half-sarcastic.

"Don't shoot," she said suddenly.

I turned around and saw the other four Spartans emerge from a half-collapsed house. They had dropped their launchers and their Det-Packs were gone. I was surprised that they had been able to carry that much ordinance,but I was even more surprised that they had used it all up so quickly.

"Lieutenant," S-005 greeted quickly. "Thanks."

"My pleasure," I said, trying to stand straight and look tall amongst the veritable green giants. "You did a fine job."

The Spartan nodded and turned towards the sniper. "They want you for an assassination mission. The elite that lead the strike on Caradhras."

"That fucker's still alive?" I asked, annoyed.

The Spartan nodded. "We fall back to the spaceport, wait for further orders."

The Spartans said nothing and took off, leaving me alonewith Green-One.

"Are you ok, lieutenant?"

"Not so much," I admitted. "But I can still kick your ass, so don't get any ideas."

That actually got a chuckle from the Spartan, and for some reason it felt like making a Spartan laugh was the biggest achievement in my whole life.

"Let's go home," I told him, walking in the direction of the spaceport, trailing behind the other Spartans.

"Yes, let's go home." Sierra-005, walking by my side.

Thanks to SpartaLazor and defarcher for proofreading this chapter.

One of these days I'm going to write myself into a corner with Frank and his near-death experiences. Oh well, it wouldn't be fun if it wasn't a challenge.

Anyways, I'm back guys! I know I teased about giving you a double update when I returned, but it appears that that won't come to fruition (nice word, fruition). I had very little time to write while on vacation and only managed to write about seven pages. To get this into perspective, I usually write about twenty five pages a week, now I only managed seven in ten days. If it's any consolation, I had a pretty good time.

And Game of Thrones came back. And The Walking Dead season ended in a weird note. I didn't expect the result, especially considering that I read the comics up to that point. What else... what else... Battlefield 4 looks pretty interesting, the graphics on that game are just beautiful, let's just hope that the plots on this one is better than in the last one.

Spartans working with ODSTs to take down a swarm of Locust walkers. I would've loved to write the battle from the Spartans' perspective, but you can't always get what you want. And those guys are showoff douches anyways. I hope you're glad I'm back, it certainly feels good to be back, even if school is still a pain in the ass at least 90% of the time.

Stay strong.

-casquis