Chapter CCI: Nope
August 19, 2552 (UNSC Calendar)/
New Alexandria, Viery Territory, Reach, Epsilon Eridani System
"You can be a mason and build fifty buildings, but it doesn't mean you can design one."–John Malkovich
"Hey."
"Hey," I replied. "Who are you?"
"Really, Frank? Really?"
I rubbed my eyes to try and see the person clearer. It was clear enough that it was a she. The voice made that much a certainty, but that's about all that I could gather. It was too bright for me to really tell anything else about this person. She did sound slightly familiar.
"Mom?" I asked, taking a shot in the dark.
Even if I was dead it didn't make sense that she would be waiting here for me. She was still in a permanent coma or vegetative state or whatever it was back on Earth. Maybe I was in purgatory, that made more sense. Perhaps I was in limbo, that state that you find yourself when your prognosis could go either way.
The woman chuckled and shook her head. Her shape became clearer with that movement. I could make out the gray officer uniform that naval personnel used. Her hair had been flung around when she shook her head. It was regulation length, maybe a bit longer than military propriety dictated.
"Nope. Try again."
"I don't know," I sighed. "Some version of Hanna?"
This time the silhouette chuckled. It wasn't mocking or anything like that, in fact it seemed very much like the chuckle that Pavel or Amber would give when their daughter asked them a question that only a young kid would ask.
"Wrong again," she replied. "Third time's the charm?"
I smiled. Now my memory was finally coming back. With the sound of the voice came numerous other memories of good and bad times alike. Sleepless nights, youthful love, passion… I also remembered the other things, the more mature parts of a relationship, if you will. I smiled at those memories, but the smile disappeared as the love I associated with her turned into a feeling of failure.
"Layla," I said. "Layla Wickett."
"Bingo."
"I never knew you were such a smart-ass," I commented calmly, sitting down. Weird, there was nothing to sit down on in this void, but yet I still did it. "But then again, it's been what?"
"Twelve years, five months, and eleven days."
"Did you keep count?" I asked.
"You did keep count," she replied calmly, almost peacefully.
"I still think about you," I said. "I mean, I don't love you, at least not like that, but I still think about you."
"Weird," she noted. "You don't seem to write about that in your journals."
"I don't write a lot of stuff in my journals," I shot back.
She smiled and tilted her head slightly, as if waiting for me to notice. It took me perhaps a few seconds to realize that this conversation was one that I was having with myself, deep inside the recesses of the fucked-up piece of crap that happened to be my brain.
Layla seemed to realize that I noticed, too. She sighed and sat down, suddenly much closer to me. I could now see her features very clearly. It was still a little bit blurry, but almost standard holo-definition. She looked at me with a small frown that made her look cute.
"So I'm still alive?"
"Yes," she said.
"Alright. Pavel will get me out of this one, then," I said with complete and utter confidence. I even surprised myself.
"Maybe so," she said, although she agreed, seeing as she was just a product of my imagination.
"Then what are you here for?" I asked. "A life lesson or something?"
"I don't know," Layla admitted. "You tell me."
"You know, I'm curious about that one," Schitzo said, placing his hand on my shoulder. "Are you actually here for a reason or can you just poof away and let me go back to my monopoly of hallucinatory haunting?"
I chuckled despite myself.
"Not yet," she said.
"Not yet," another voice said. This one came from behind me.
I turned around to see a vague and blurry person that I couldn't really make out properly, but the moment my eyes landed upon him I could tell who he was.
"Hey there, little brother," he said.
His face became clearer and I saw a smile fit for nightmares. A ringing noise throbbed inside my ears, getting higher and higher until everything-
Not pain, but complete and utter confusion. I opened my eyes and saw nothing. I blinked furiously, trying to get my eyes to see again. It didn't work. I was panicking, I couldn't see and I couldn't move. If this was hell, then it was off to a pretty good start. I could feel the soreness in my body though, so I knew that in all likelihood I was still alive. A quick death would've been too merciful for me. You don't let thirty civilians die to save your own sorry ass and get a clean death. The universe doesn't work like that.
My brain went from full-blown panic into a state of cool down. I realized that I wasn't dead and began wondering what was going on. So far my surroundings weren't giving me any indication of what might've transpired a few seconds ago, but if I could just focus and remember…
Something flickered brightly before disappearing once again. I guess you could say brightly is the wrong term, but that's close enough to the reality of what I saw. I frowned in concentration and my eyes slowly made out what seemed to be like a pattern of sorts. A second later I could make out a few of the grooves that were present in my helmet's visor. I tried moving once more, but my limbs didn't budge.
It was only after this attempt that that small light flickered again and turned into a HUD. My visor flashed red and orange, giving off confusing readings. From what I could gather I was still very much alive. My legs were marked as moderately damaged and so were my arms. Curiously enough, my torso was nearly intact according to the readings my suit was giving. My head, however, had sustained a blow of some sort, which was probably what had knocked me out and was making it so damned hard for me to remember just exactly how I had gotten myself into this position.
"Radio," I muttered to myself, glad to be hearing a human voice. "Radio, radio."
Nope. The HUD clearly marked my transmission unit as useless. It must've been damaged in the accident or event that put me here in this situation.
"Ah, crap."
Ok, where am I?
"Reach," Schitzo said, sounding a bit unsure about it.
Nah, why would I– shit.
"Shit indeed," Schitzo said, bitterness heavy in his voice. "New Alexandria."
"That's good enough for now," I said. "I can work out the rest later."
"First you have to dig yourself out." He paused; he seemed surprised by his own choice of words. "Dig…"
Damn.
Damn!
I started shaking and trying to kick and move arms and legs. A felt a little movement, but for the most part I was completely pinned. I pressed my hands against something hard and pushed. This time there was some groaning as rock slid against rock. My muscles throbbed with horrible pain, but a few smaller rocks fell, holding the bigger slab that I was pushing up in place. I let go and took several deep breaths before pushing at the slab again. It rose maybe three inches before more little pieces of rock came in. With those little rocks came a ray of sunshine and the very familiar sound of a battle.
"Help," I croaked weakly. "Help."
There was no reply. Explosions, both small and large, shook me. For a moment the small ray of sunlight that came through that little hole was blocked. I started panicking.
"Help!"
I started pushing back as hard as possible. Something must've moved some of the rocks, because this time I was able to lift the slab overhead a significant amount. My right arm started shaking and gave, but my left arm held just long enough to move the huge piece of what appeared to be a floor out of the way. I could see buildings and the sky from my position. It seemed wrong; I don't think I had been outside before all this came down on top of me. I ignored the feeling of wrongness and just worked at getting myself out of this mess. I don't think I had ever used that phrase more literally.
The gunfire got louder and louder. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was getting closer to me. At first I panicked, but then I realized that it only meant that someone with a human weapon was approaching me. I started crying out for help while frantically waving my only free arm. The renewed effort to save myself seemed to finally rack my brain back into order.
A building had collapsed on top of me after a shitload of hunters had fired on it. Well, maybe not a building, but a good section of it.
"Over here!" someone shouted. "Over here!"
I looked around, but my head still couldn't move. I tried pressing against the rock, but my right arm had been pinned down and my left didn't have much leverage against anything really. I furiously kicked with my legs, but they could barely move an inch in any direction. I finally relaxed when a very familiar helmet appeared overhead. Pavel looked down at me and dropped his M247L next to me before gripping the slab of stone pinning my chest down. He groaned as he lifted, but the piece of rock moved easily enough. It had to weigh at least a couple hundred pounds, probably more. It was easy to forget that Pavel was a very strong man in his own right sometimes.
"Come on," he grunted.
I helped him as soon as I could. I moved my right arm up and pushed. The weight was a lot less this way, and the slab promptly rolled over to the other side. My arm felt numb and would certainly bruise, but it was in fine working order.
I was surprised when a section of the floor right next to Pavel fell, seemingly into oblivion. I still couldn't move my head very much, but Pavel was quickly fixing that, kicking and pulling rocks and debris away from my body. Halfway through the process he seemed to find my rifle, which he violently pulled out from underneath a pile of debris. He handed the weapon to me and kept pulling at the rocks on my legs while I focused on those on my upper body.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Whole damn side of the building collapsed when the hunters fired," Pavel grunted. "We thought you were dead."
I nodded slowly and sat up. From this slightly higher angle I could see that I was still above ground level, but not by much. In fact, it seemed to me like I was a little bit closer to the ground than I should've been.
"The side of the building came down like a rockslide," he said. "Your floor went down with it, but looks like you stopped short of the lobby."
"Good," I said. "Good."
I didn't remember any of that. I only had the vague image of a large number of hunters approaching. After that my mind was a blank. Before that, it was all very blurry. I must've hit my head quite hard if I was going through this kind of memory loss. I would probably have a headache from hell by the time all this was sorted out. Death was also a plausible alternative when I considered just how bad things looked from here.
"He's here!" Pavel shouted. "Help me out."
I craned my body around to see Bee moving up, discarding his laser as he approached. He moved next to Pavel and positioned himself to move another large piece of wall or floor from my legs. They both shoved it after a quick count to three, succeeding in moving it a few inches. The shift in weight applied pressure to my leg, but my armored boot kept my ankles and feet from being damaged in any way. Bee and Pavel shifted positions so that Bee was tackling the slab and Pavel was pushing with his legs. They shouted with effort and cursed, but they freed my pinned body.
"Oh shit," I muttered for what felt like the umpteenth time in the day.
"Oh shit," Schitzo said simultaneously.
"Ah, shit," Pavel grunted in between two breaths of exertion.
There was a nice little piece of rebar coming through the inside of my right thigh, about halfway between the knee and the dick area. It had been quite close to the big guy down there. The moment I looked at it and realized that I was wounded I started feeling the pain, it wasn't bad, which meant that it must've pushed more tissue aside than it pierced, but it was a piece of rebar in my leg and I was starting to feel it.
"How close to the edge is it?" I asked.
"Not close enough," Pavel replied after quick examination.
I sighed. Had it been close to the skin he could've simply cut open the wound and pulled me out sideways. It was painful and very messy, but it minimized the risk of further tissue damage, especially with rebar, which was grooved and could pull at muscle and blood vessels. Me being at this particular angle, cutting me out was an easier way to remove me from the metal spike impaling me through the right leg, but it seemed like my friends would have to lift me.
"Alright, make it fast," I ordered.
"Don't struggle," Pavel told me, crouching next to me and slinging my arm over his massive shoulders.
Bee whistled and grabbed the bottom of my leg just next to either side of the injury. He looked at me and then back to the wound when I nodded to him. I made sure that my jaw was clenched and that my tongue was safely behind my teeth. I didn't have anything to bite down on and I sure as hell wasn't going to take my helmet off with plasma flying all around us. They pulled me up, as hard and fast as they could.
I screamed. It wasn't as bad as I had feared, but it was pretty bad. Blood poured out of the injury, hitting the debris below me. I looked down at the crimson liquid. It was streaming out of my leg. Not fast enough that I would be rendered unconscious in a few seconds, but fast enough to pose a legitimate threat to my survival.
"Where's Andy?" I asked Pavel as he placed me on the ground.
"Apply pressure to that," he said.
"She's otherwise engaged," Bee answered my question. "Can you walk?"
I shook my head. "Grab your weapons and get me out of here."
They nodded. I might've been injured, but I was still the boss.
They carried me in between the both of them for a few meters until we were completely safe from enemy fire even while standing up. At that point they let my uninjured leg down and I hopped to help them. The feeling of wetness down my leg was unnerving me. I had an especially rough time listening to every last drop that fell on the ground. My enhanced hearing allowed me to make sure I heard that, but it was a possibility that I was simply hallucinating the sounds.
Bee and Pavel both carried me as fast as possible. It was slightly awkward considering that both of them were a little shorter than me, but nearly my whole arm length was used if I tried to wrap my hands around their shoulders. I was pretty damn satisfied with my body proportions, but sometimes the shoulders on those guys made me wonder just exactly how much time they clocked in at the gym without telling anybody.
Something struck me as odd then. I couldn't pin it down, but there it was. I was alive, very much so. I was being moved away from immediate danger. My team was moving me out of danger, which meant that they themselves weren't in life-threatening danger. At least not the kind that would've forced them to abandon me to my fate. It took a flight of stairs and a trip through a dust hallway with broken lights for me to remember what was wrong.
"Wait, we have to get Preacher!" I shouted.
"It's coming down!" Marv radioed in. "Move!"
"No! We have to get Preacher!" I insisted, struggling.
Pavel stopped. I thought that he was gonna turn around and comply with my order, but instead he just grabbed my good leg and gave Bee the word to double the speed. I tried to get out of his grip, but my right leg hurt too much. The ceiling on the hallway started breaking apart little by little, with dust coming from the cracks that were forming and little pieces landing around us.
"Hurry!" Bee huffed.
I stopped struggling. Instead I tried furiously to have my helmet link up with Preacher's. My radio transmitter was broken, which in turn meant that the whole helmet wouldn't be able to send or receive any wireless transmissions until it was fixed. I gave my helmet the order to search instead through my tacpad, which had a limited wireless capability. It took almost ten seconds, but finally it picked up Preacher's location. The poor man was still alive and not too far away.
"He's still alive!" I said. "Pavel!"
"I know!" he shouted back, not making the move to stop.
"We have to get him!"
"Frank–"
"I'm not letting anybody die," I growled.
"This is not your call," Pavel replied. "This is my call."
I started to argue, but he kicked open an emergency exit and sprinted out of the building and into a small side street. About halfway through the street I heard the entire building come down behind us. I twisted my neck around in an attempt to see what was going on, but all I saw was the cloud of dust coming at me and everything else was blocked out of sight. Preacher's vitals went flat before disappearing.
"Fuck, Pavel!" I shouted. "We could've gotten him out!"
"No we couldn't have," he replied. "He was deeper and in a position more exposed to enemy fire."
"You knew where he was and didn't attempt rescue?" I accused.
"He was a marksman," Pavel said. "You're the team leader."
"Gunny's right, sir," Bee chimed in. "We can't function as effectively without you. No offense intended, Gunny."
"None taken," Pavel said dismissively. "Frank, shut up now. We're not in a situation where we can argue about this."
I clenched my jaw and remained silent. He was right. It made me feel like an asshole, but in this situation my life was more valuable than Preacher's.
Just one more number, isn't it?
"Andy!"
The medic got here soon enough; she was tired and breathing hard. When she depolarized her visor I saw just how bad her face looked. Andy was an attractive woman, some might even call her beautiful, but right now she could've been confused for a corpse. Her skin was pale, cracked, and dehydrated. There were bags under her eyes reaching halfway down her nose and her brow seemed to be drooping in an attempt to get her to close her eyes. In addition to the signs of extreme fatigue she had a small cut crossing the bridge of her nose and what appeared to be a bruise on the left side of her forehead.
"Sir," she said, "good to see you alive."
"How long was I out?"
"Nearly an hour," she replied. "In fact, a little bit over an hour."
"Damn," I said.
Andy began removing my armor, giving Pavel and Bee a quick nod that signaled that she had this under control. The two hulking special operators disappeared into the dust without too much trouble, gunfire and plasma silencing the sound of their footsteps. Andy looked down at my exposed leg and raised one eyebrow slightly. The wound was an ugly-looking one.
"They should've cut the rebar," Andy muttered.
"Well, the situation didn't allow for it."
She shrugged and began to look into her pouch for medical supplies. She produced a small can of biofoam as I examined the hole. Blood was bubbling out of it a small, irregular hole. It didn't look like much, but the tears in the skin around it gave it a decidedly nasty look.
"Frank," Andy said, calling me by name, "this is going to hurt a lot."
She extended the straw-like end of the biofoam canister and positioned it in the wound, pressing it lightly against the raw skin. I groaned when I realized what she was going to do.
"Is it necessary?" I asked, fearing what was to come.
She nodded. "We need you to be able to move, sir. It's bad down here."
I sighed. "Do it."
She breathed out and then breathed back in before bringing her fist down on the bottom of the can like a hammer. The straw-like mouth went through the wound, taking the open path, but damaging the raw and lacerated tissue as it went. For the second time in a few minutes I cried out in pain, but this time it wasn't over yet. She started applying the biofoam, slowly pulling back the can along with the straw so that every single centimeter of that wound would be nicely covered with biofoam. The vicious stings that opened up tissue in order to merge it with the artificial foam were infamously painful, but they would be what would save my life. More often than not a soldier owed his life to biofoam.
Finally Andrea finished her butcher's labor. I took a deep breath and started shaking. I was surprised that I hadn't attempted to attack her in an instinctual burst of self-defense. I leaned back on the cold, hard pavement and closed my eyes. My whole right leg was burning with pain. Some of the pain was the dull leftovers from the rebar piercing the muscle, but most of it was the burn and sting that the biofoam caused whenever it was applied.
"God."
"Call me Andy," Andy joked.
I chuckled at her joke; it was good, simple humor.
"I need to see if you can move well enough without help, sir," Andy said after chuckling briefly. "No need to sprint or even jog fast, but it would be great if you could walk by yourself."
I stood up, refusing her help when she offered me her hand. Waves of pain shot through my leg and body when I had to use my right leg for support, but once I was up it was surprisingly easy to stand without having to favor my left leg too much. I took a small step forward and my leg buckled, but I managed to remain upright. The pain from the biofoam was already disappearing, leaving behind only a lingering sense that something was not quite right in my leg. It was a weird feeling, having a hole in your body plugged up by biofoam. It was a painful feeling.
"Do you have painkillers?" Andy asked me.
I nodded. "Take two," she ordered. "The effort will make the wound worse and slow the foam's progress significantly, but it should be enough to get you to a medical station. They should be able to fix you up pretty quick there."
"What's the damage?" I asked her.
"You were lucky sir, most of the tissue was pushed aside, but laceration couldn't be completely avoided. Sections of your quads have been pierced and damaged. Some blood vessels were punctured, but nothing major. It was more the amount of vessels than their significance.
The pain was already disappearing. Those painkillers worked fast.
"Don't overexert yourself," she said. "Ready?"
"Ready," I confirmed, feeling eager to avenge Preacher's untimely death with as much prejudice as I could manage. "Give me a sitrep."
"The covvies are down to five hunters, they're taking care now. One of our Armadillos is gone and our Scorpion had to pull out due to the presence of enemy anti-tank infantry. We're moving it around, trying to outflank the enemy, but it doesn't look too positive."
"How's our other IFV?"
"Able, but running low."
"Falcon?"
"It never got here," she replied. "Captain Flatt said it was shot down."
"Damn. What's the plan?"
"We're fighting for our lives sir, we haven't been surrounded yet, but drones show troop movements to our sides. It's gonna happen soon."
"We need to pull back," I said. "And do it fast."
"Give the order," she said.
I waited to be close enough to the heat of the battle. The dust was still pretty thick, but it shouldn't impede the volume of my voice. "Listen up! We're pulling back towards the warehouses!" I shouted. "A Company move back to form defensive fields of fire, the Armadillo will cover our retreat!"
"What about the hunters?" the NCO in charge of the survivors of A asked.
"We'll have to deal with them as they come," I said. "How are we on rockets?"
"Low."
"Spartan Laser?" I asked Bee.
"Down to the last two shots."
"Why didn't you take out the hunters?" I asked him.
"Enemy air and armor," he replied simply.
I made some quick calculations in my head. We had enough firepower to take out two hunters with one shot each, that much was simple. The anti-personnel rounds that the Armadillo had would be able to knock out another two or maybe even all three if it came down to it, but it wasn't a guarantee, and a lucky shot from the hunters could even neutralize the ability of the IFV to use its turret. Our single strongest advantage was out of the equation and the anti-tank infantry was very likely still in the area and would be a threat to the Armadillo. All in all, the situation didn't look too good, especially when you remembered that there was no longer any marksman support. Preacher was gone along with all the marksmen that A Company had sent up the building.
Things were most certainly not looking up.
"Fall back!" I shouted. "I've never seen a group less eager to get out of harm's way!"
The men redoubled their speed, leaving only a few soldiers to hold the line along with my men. I waited for the Armadillo to shift into a position where it could provide decent covering fire and then gave the word for the rest of the men to fall back. The Armadillo would cover my team and those soldiers that had remained, then the other soldiers would cover the Armadillo and then my men would cover those soldiers. We would leapfrog backwards until we deemed it safe enough to move constantly.
I remained further back, motioning for Andy to stay with me. As soon as the men and women of A Company began passing us we started moving back. I could move, but the biofoam had to men my muscle some more before I could move well enough to jog. The Armadillo's machine gun roared, but its main autocannon remained silent. I listened to the sound, still unable to see through the dust from the collapsed building. I could make out silhouettes a lot better, but the cramped nature of the Sea District meant that the dust would take a little bit longer to settle down.
"Sniper, sniper!" Pitcher warned.
"Got him!" Miranda called back.
"Shift fire, shift right."
"Frag out!"
It was nothing out of the ordinary. It was standard battle chatter. For some reason it felt almost surreal, with me not participating, instead hanging back in relative safety like a coward. I did feel like a coward.
"Move the Armadillo back!" I gave the word.
By this point the dust was beginning to clear up and I was now a viable target. My leg was almost well enough for a jog, but I didn't want to risk it giving under me as soon as I put too much weight on it. Biofoam was a miracle of modern medicine, but it wasn't nearly as magical as some people thought it was. I moved faster now, my leg moved like it would've done had I had a week of healing unaided, if not more. That didn't mean that it was healed though, the wound was still there, and it wasn't about to go anywhere for a while.
The building that had come down had taken Preacher and at least four other men with it, but the dust it brought up had worked in our favor for a good amount of time. We had minor thermal capabilities on our weapons and rifles, if we coupled that with the overhead drones, we could pinpoint enemy positions pretty reliably. As soon as the dust began settling we became targets once again and the Covenant forces soon had the advantage. Jackals had set up in the windows and had good vantage points on us.
"Speed it up!" I ordered. "We're in the open here!"
The warehouse that Marina and the Pelicans were in was pretty defensible. It had good solid walls and a small wall around it as well. Even despite the relative height of the buildings around it the covvies wouldn't have the chance to shoot us unless we royally fucked up.
"Banshees!"
I dropped to the ground, the Banshees were coming from behind as opposed to the covvie infantry. Three soldiers that were too slow to react were incinerated in a fuel rod explosion. Another soldier was thrown backwards by the same explosion, landing in an abandoned sedan. The fliers strafed our positions, sending my team and A Company scurrying in every direction. I was sprayed by heated gravel, but the bolts weren't targeting me. It became obvious that the Banshees were only thinking of us infantry soldiers as a convenient secondary target. This coming from brutes, it was very surprising. The Banshees slowed down, exposing themselves to our limited return fire.
Bee was the first one to realize what they were doing. It was his job, after all. He rolled over, shouldering his Spartan Laser as he did. He took a fraction of a second to aim and he was loading the laser before anybody else realized that the Banshees were gunning for our single biggest advantage here. The Armadillo swerved violently from side to side as the driver realized he was in danger. Two fuel rod detonations rocked it, heating the armor enough to make it steam. The third Banshee was pierced by the Spartan Laser before it could fire a shot.
I allowed myself to breathe, but my relief was short-lived. The two Banshees were still in position to get off one final shot.
The Armadillo was hit twice, exploding in a green fireball. The hydrogen generator caused a secondary explosion, completely incinerating the inside of the IFV, effectively eliminating any hope for survival. With the explosion came shock and panic. My men were infinitely better trained than the soldiers of A Company and also happened to have more natural skill as well as overall talent. If they knew that we were fucked they weren't above running.
My men started sprinting back towards the warehouse even before I gave the order. Only when I shouted repeatedly to abandon all semblance of order and run for our lives did the men of A Company do the same. We had limited suppressive fire capabilities, but the Covenant had air, artillery, and sniper support. Two soldiers that were too slow were cut down by beam rifles that pierced their armor and bodies like thin paper. I started running as fast as I could, but there was a tightness and pain in my leg that even the painkillers couldn't make go away. I kept going in a straight line as fast as possible, forsaking any attempt to fire at my attackers. Plasma shots flew past me, but I couldn't be certain that I was their target.
"Come on, Frank!" Pavel yelled, turning around to help.
"Go!" I told him. "Go!"
"No way," he replied. "You're not gonna die because you were too slow."
I grunted something, but a pair of carbine shots discouraged me from complaining. I put my right arm around Pavel's shoulder and gave him a small nod. He started sprinting, elevating his shoulders with every other step. I used the small lift to propel myself up with my left leg, jumping as far as I could in an attempt to keep up with Pavel. My right leg was well enough that I could use it to help myself stay upright. We only needed to make it to the corner and we would be able to get a more effective defense set up as we moved back. Only a few more meters.
Pavel slipped and fell.
He didn't just slip, he cursed and cried out as he fell.
I turned around and saw that he had been hit. Grazed is a more accurate word, but the injury had knocked him down to the floor. I turned around and grabbed the straps of his armor. I gripped as tightly as possible and used all of my strength to swing him around like a hammer throw. Pavel flew three meters at least, making it just past the corner. Once he hit the ground he pulled himself behind safety with his hands, leaving me to wobble unsteadily there. We were the last two men to make it, all those behind us were caught in the crossfire.
"Goddamn, Frank," Pavel muttered, pushing himself to his feet. "Don't ever throw me again."
"Sorry," I apologized. "Can you walk?"
"More or less," he said. "It's mostly just pain."
Marv and Pitcher were already running towards us. They helped us move faster without need for an order. I could run well enough, but that little extra support that Pitcher's body provided for my right leg sure helped. We moved through that smaller street a lot faster, fearing being hit from behind or the side. I made sure to contact the Scorpion and tell it to start falling back towards the warehouse. Marina and the other pilots were already beginning to move some materials to make barricades. They were probably rolling trashcans or stuff like that into a wall of sorts to give us a slight advantage the moment we got there.
"Why did we stop moving?" I asked, reaching the rest of the soldiers. They were all bunched up right behind the corner.
"I think there's a sniper over there," one of them said, in fact, it was Private Parker. "I can't really tell."
"That's easy," I said. "Marv?"
Marv sighed, but otherwise didn't voice a complaint. He simply helped Pavel lean into a wall and prepared himself to sprint across the narrow street. I gave him a quick nod and he sprinted across. A beam nearly took his head off, but it was a little behind. He stopped once he was behind cover and looked back to us. I gestured for Miri to move up while the soldiers and my other men moved back, giving her some space. Marvin looked at her and she gave him a thumbs up, aiming just at the edge of the building's corner. Marv removed his helmet and grabbed one edge of it. He slowly positioned it so that it looked like he was peeking and then fired a couple of blind bursts with his rifle.
His helmet was yanked of his hands an instant later. The jackal had been too bloodthirsty and inexperienced to notice the fluke. The blind bursts had helped sell it, and now the covvie had sealed its fate. Miri popped from cover and fired five times in a row. She stopped and stayed there, exposed. I looked behind me nervously, the covvies behind us were no doubt rushing to turn the corner and once again catch us in a sniper alley.
"Clear," she said.
"Move," I gave the word. "Move!"
We began our retreat once again, the wounded slowing everybody else down. I did my best to keep up, but it wasn't as easy I would've liked. Even with a little bit of Spartan in my system I couldn't move as fast as the average soldier. It only made me wonder just how bad the injury would've been otherwise. I hopped and wobbled and stumbled, but I managed to stay at the back of the group with the rest of the wounded.
"Drones are showing enemy movement behind us," Andy said. "We need to move faster."
I would've linked my helmet to the drones, but there was absolutely no wireless coming in or out of my damaged helmet. Pavel had the leadership of the squad outside of earshot. I was sure that he had been calling for support and reinforcements repeatedly. He seemed preoccupied, more so than everybody else.
"What's going on?"
"Our drones are being shot down," he told me. "Four in the last thirty seconds. Make that five, no, six."
I looked up at the sky and actually saw a small explosion above the buildings. I frowned slightly at the sight of it. Drones being shot down wasn't a terribly uncommon sight. We shot covvie drones down and they did the same with ours. Normally they were the ones that didn't put up drones and actively shot down ours, but having this many brought down in so little time was unusual and worrisome to say the least.
"Crap," Pavel muttered quietly. "Everybody take cover!"
Nobody questioned his orders. We all spread out, kicked down doors and windows, and ran inside the buildings. Pavel's warning proved to be fruitful when two blue torpedoes flew down at our previous position. The plasma torpedoes detonated violently, shaking the buildings and making a huge crater in the middle of the street. The Seraphs that had fired them screamed past, not bothering to come back for a second time.
It was what came after that sealed our fate.
Three Phantom dropships appeared just as we were beginning to move out again, each of them carrying underneath a Daemon tank. Packs of brutes jumped out and forced us back behind cover before we could hit the vulnerable tanks. They kept on firing just for long enough and soon the three tanks were on the ground.
"Where the hell's that Scorpion!?" I shouted.
"The Scorpion was hit!" Pavel replied. "He's gone!"
"Marina, can you make it to the rooftop?" I asked, slapping my forehead when I realized that she couldn't hear me.
Pavel relayed my question and then shock his head when she replied.
"Airspace is too crowded, she can't guarantee making it here or out," he told me. "She'll do it if you ask her to."
"I can't," I replied. "Fuck."
We were effectively stuck in between three tanks and a wall of buildings.
"Move into the back of the buildings," I ordered. "Get as far from those Daemons as we can and hope we can kill any brutes that try and attack."
We moved back just as the tanks opened fire on our position. The walls were torn apart by the plasma shells and the buildings shook violently. Part of the outer wall collapsed, making a pile of debris on the exits. We had to fire at brutes climbing over the top as we moved back. A second barrage basically collapsed the top of the building right over our heads. I cursed and moved out of the way of the rocks. A few hit me in the head as the ceiling failed to sustain the weight of the debris above it. I backpedalled furiously as it started collapsing. The ceiling stopped just short of crushing me.
I looked down to see a hand covered in Army gloves. The hand twitched once before the owner finally died. I hadn't seen the man trying to run, I was so focused on trying to save myself as well.
"Team-7, tally!" I shouted.
"Mata's unconscious, but everyone else seems fine!" Caboose shouted from somewhere. "We're pinned, sir!"
"Hold the line!" I shouted. "Pavel! Pavel!"
"I'm here!" he shouted back. "I'm trying to get those reinforcements Frank!"
"Don't let them get close!" I ordered. "Kill as many as you can!"
The building that I had taken cover in was a pretty short one. Only three stories tall. I was still surprised to look up and see the sky. The three Daemons had brought it down in a matter of seconds, killing many of the soldiers in the process. The poor guys were as tired as we were if not more and they simply didn't have the tools needed to survive in this kind of fight. It wouldn't mean much either way, with the way things were looking we would all be lucky to survive the hour.
"Brute, brute!"
I heard the warning somewhere to my right and looked over there to see a pack of brutes rushing over the debris with spikers in hand. They fired as they went, roaring loudly in an attempt to rattle us or boost themselves up. I hit one in the nape of the neck, sending it crashing down. The second brute gunning for me was stalled by a burst from my left, buying me the perfect window to take it out with a headshot.
"Who was that?" I asked.
"Me, sir! Private Parker."
"Good to see you're alive, son," I told him. "How are you on ammo?"
"Good enough to rack up some kills," he said.
I smiled slightly. "Good, where exactly are you?"
"Service closet, I think. I can't move all that much. My foot is stuck."
"I'll get you out later," I falsely promised. "For now I want you to kill as many of these fuckers as we can."
"Music to my ears, Lieutenant."
I didn't know where the rest of my men were. From what I had seen they had taken cover in the building adjacent to this one. They were probably in a slightly less defensible position even if they could all cover each other more effectively. I was left with only Parker in my immediate vicinity and some other soldiers pinned around me. Those guys would be the first to go. They were closest to the tanks and brutes. Sure enough, lobbed spike grenades took out the closest soldier in a red mist. A direct shot from one of the tanks vaporized the other soldier. Then the brutes set their sights on Parker and me.
I had relatively decent cover, my back was safe, my sides were safe, and there was a three-foot tall pile of debris blocking anything that came head on. The problem was that a single grenade landing close to me meant that I'd have to expose myself to fire from all directions if I wanted to survive.
Despite the considerable protection I had at my disposal, I could hardly squeeze of a burst without being almost killed. I managed to take out two eager brutes with Parker's help, but after that I could only fire blindly in an attempt to stave them off as long as possible. The brutes were close now, they were close enough that I could hear them barking to each other in their primitive language. I stopped, took a breath, and listened. I focused on their noises and my enhanced hearing helped me pinpoint an approximate direction and distance. It was a simple matter of tossing a grenade overhead and taking out whoever was caught in the blast. From the sound of it, not all shrapnel had hit rock.
"Man, what does it say about us that we know the noise shrapnel makes when it hits flesh?" Schitzo asked.
I don't know, I admitted.
"Yeah!" Parker shouted "Whoo!"
I could still hear Pavel and Caboose somewhere to my right, but they were shouting out enemy positions and movements. I decided to focus on my own ordeals and kept firing. The Daemons had limited angles with the massive pile of debris between us. I had no doubt that at least one of them was moving to get us from our back, but the other two couldn't do much. They had done enough already.
This went on for what seemed like an eternity. I killed three more brutes and Parker took down two. They stopped coming so strong after that and instead started playing it smart. They'd send one low-ranking brute forward to suppress us and act as a decoy while leaving marksmen further back, trying to get a decent angle on us when we fired back. If we focused on the marksmen then the brute closest to us could just toss a grenade, if we focused on the closer brute the marksman would eventually get a hit.
"I'm running low, son," I told Parker. "I can't go much longer."
"Same here, sir," he admitted. "I don't want to die."
I nodded. "Same here, kid. It was a good run."
"There's gotta be a way, sir!"
I shook my head, looking at my last magazine. It was already half-used from a previous firefight. That left me with my woefully underpowered pistol and my shotgun. I could get in a couple of good kills before I died. It wouldn't be all that bad. It would be a good death.
"A beautiful death, eh?" Schitzo asked, almost nervously. I had never heard him quite like that. "How'd Bee's song go?"
"It's gonna be a beautiful death, jumping out the window…" I whispered softly, wondering what exactly the guy meant when he wrote those lyrics.
"Probably nothing, Francisco. You read way too much into songs," Schitzo said, back to his usual cocky and douchy tone of voice.
"I'm out," I finally announced, dropping my rifle and drawing my shotgun.
"They're closing in on you, sir!"
I nodded to myself and sat back down. I raised my shotgun and waited for the brutes to approach. I was out of grenades and couldn't do anything if they threw one of theirs. It basically boiled down to just how exactly they decided to kill me. Brutes would often go for the personal kill. More times than not it was a huge disadvantage for us, but this little shortened M45 said otherwise.
The first brute that came already had its spiker raised to deliver a cleaving blow. A simple shot took half its face off and knocked it backwards. Unfortunately, it also knocked the spiker away from reach. The second one was more careful, firing wildly before it came, but the spikes went wide and it too was soon dead. The third one didn't make the same mistake, instead hanging back. I didn't see it moving, but I did hear the rocks clinking slightly on the other side of the pile of debris. A spiker appeared on the top and lowered its barrel towards me.
I acted then. If I was going to die then I might as well go with some style.
I jumped up and pressed my boot against the spiker, pinning it to the rubble. The brute glanced up at me, surprised. That expression was wiped off its face when a pound of buckshot simply turned its head into hamburger. I pivoted to fire at a nearby brute captain, but the alien had already shortened the distance and punched me right back where I had come from.
My chest hurt. I wouldn't be surprised if the punch had dented the chest piece in my armor. It was a miracle that my sternum hadn't been sunk into my chest with that hammer of a punch. The brute captain displayed the beast-mindedness that its race boasted by kicking the shotgun away from me and lowering its mauler at my face slowly. I reached for my pistol, but the brute stepped on my hands, breaking a few fingers.
"Fuck you, coward," I said.
"You're the one who's dead," it replied with broken English.
I raised my chin and prepared to die, sad that my face would be unrecognizable if my body was ever retrieved.
"Wrong."
The brute's head was separated from its body.
I blinked twice. There was nothing there.
"You alright?"
I nodded slowly, slowly putting two and two together. "Eduardo?"
There was a disembodied chuckle. "Team Falcata at your service, sir. We are getting you out of here."
"Let us handle the tanks, Lieutenant," Jonah-G012 said, also invisible. "We'll get you ammunition as soon as that is done."
I heard a whishing sound and saw Eduardo's falcata flash before it disappeared. After that everything started happening too fast that even I had trouble keeping up with the Spartans.
I limped towards the top of the pile of debris. I ignored my own safety in an attempt to catch a glimpse of what the Spartans of Team Falcata were doing. One of them, I believe it might've been Kevin-G111 was toting a full-size M247 Heavy Machine Gun and firing from a rooftop at the brutes. He didn't seem to be overly concerned with accuracy, even when several brutes found themselves caught in the gunfire most of the rounds uselessly pinged off the Daemon tanks' strong armor.
The brutes turned to fight off this new attacker, but four of them collapsed nearly simultaneously, one of them was missing its head and another had its neck twisted completely around. The other two simply jerked as blood started pouring from the back of their heads. The rest of the brutes hadn't even noticed what was going on yet, and four more were killed in a similar way before a chieftain realized what was going on.
The enormous brute turned around and growled only to suddenly find a falcata going in through its mouth and out the back of its head. Eduardo's silhouette slowly became visible and the Spartan-III twisted his large sword, producing a sickly noise as the brute's skull shattered into dozens of fragments. He pulled back his sword and sheathed it as he drew an M90 shotgun. Two brutes tried to fire at him, but he was out of the way before the spikes even left their guns. Three blasts later the two brutes were twitching on the ground, dead.
Kevin was using his MA5K carbine with deadly efficiency, closing in the distance with a shot or two before viciously jamming the weapon into the brutes' eye sockets or mouth. Once the S-III had you in his sights then you were as good as dead. The other two Spartans on ground level were more conservative in their approach, but equally devastating in its execution. Alex-G301 and Miranda-G192, the two girls on the team, instead opted to use pistols to neutralize the brutes, hitting them in the neck or face before they could fire back.
It took them precisely ten seconds to kill thirty-three brutes that I could count. The three Daemon tanks were boarded and rendered useless five seconds later, when the Spartans jumped up and wrenched the hatch from its hinges with barely any effort. After that it was a simple matter of tossing an incendiary grenade inside and pressing the ruined hatch hard against the hole to keep anybody from leaving.
Smoke started billowing out of the Daemons and all three tanks skidded into the pavement, dead.
Even as that happened, the Spartans placed small shaped charges into the Daemons' turrets, detonating them and rendering the tanks completely useless.
I watched in amazement, my mouth trying to form of words.
"Thank you," I said finally, regaining my composure and stumbling down the debris. "We still need to leave, though."
"Agreed, El-tee," Jonah-G012 said. "Do you have a fallback position?"
"We were en route when all this happened," I said, slinging the rifle across my back and reloading my shotgun slowly and methodically. "Where'd you come from?"
"Airdropped," Jonah replied almost dismissively. "Low altitude, armor lock, I won't bore you with the details."
I tilted my head, wondering exactly how they had gotten here. I shrugged to myself and started shouting out for my men to come out and start moving. Most of them were eager to comply. The soldiers of A Company followed the order as well, but their numbers were greatly reduced. It wasn't that they had been too slow when Pavel warned us, but they had moved to one of three buildings that had been most damaged. I had been in the back, my men in the front, and the soldiers in the middle. The middle was obviously the most targeted area.
"Some help!" Parker shouted out. "I'm stuck!"
One of the Spartans jumped at the task, wrenching Parker's stuck foot from the debris and carried him out.
"I think I can walk, he was saying."
The unnatural angle of his foot determined that he was lying.
"Warehouse," I said. "We're short on time."
"Sir," Jonah-G102 began, "we need to move now. We no longer have the element of surprise on our side and are outnumbered."
I nodded. "We'll move out as soon as everybody's here."
"I think we're good, Frank," Pavel said, jogging up to me. "You good?"
"Barely," I said. "I can breathe and I can walk."
My chest was throbbing, but I could function well enough. We had enough Pelicans to move out my unit and the few survivors of A Company. The five heavy Spartans would probably need another Pelican due to their bulk, but they were Spartans, they practically had a guaranteed evac all to themselves. Perhaps now that they were with us we would have a much better chance at getting HIGHCOM's attention.
"What the hell happened?" Marina asked as we entered the warehouse. "I thought you were–"
I tapped the side of my head. "Radio's dead. Are we good to move out?"
"Yes," she said, crossing her arms. "All we need is a place to land."
"Do you have an uplink?" I asked her.
"Yes," Marina replied, leading me to her Pelican, barely sparing a glance for the five Spartan-IIIs."
I put my helmet aside and sat down in the pilot's seat on her Pelican. She had remarkably strong signals to every single UNSC stronghold in the city. We still held most of New Alexandria, but the covvies had managed to drop astounding numbers of troops into our midst, making artillery and air support a risky matter on a scale larger than a block. Guided bombs usually hit where they were intended to, not missing by a margin of more than a millimeter or so, but when you factored in glass skyscrapers reaching a thousand meters into the sky… then you got yourself a bit of an unpredictable variable. We already had buildings collapsing on top of people and military, we didn't want more of those.
"Olympic, Olympic, this is First Lieutenant Castillo of AAG-7, do you copy?"
The acronym for Asymmetrical Action Group was usually enough to get me through. If there was any kind of computer program at all recording the call then they would immediately patch me through to somebody of relevance. This time was no exception, even when the world was coming apart that little thing worked in my favor.
"Francisco, you're alive," Captain Flatt came in. "Small miracle."
"I wouldn't say small," I replied, thinking about my leg. "Ma'am, my district is being surrounded, we had some Spartan assistance in securing our retreat, but there's no way we can hold this area much longer."
"Damn," she muttered. "The Sea District is vital to moving supplies to the spaceport."
"I'm sorry ma'am," I apologized. "It's how it is. How are you in Olympic?"
She chuckled. "Situation is bad everywhere, I was coming here to coordinate all AAG teams more properly, but then it all went to shit. I'm afraid that the only two teams remaining are yours and Nezarian's."
I cursed. "Nothing can be done," I reassured myself. "We need somewhere to go."
"I'm authorizing you to land here at FLEETCOM HQ, we're in the middle of evacuating non-essentials, but top brass is staying here."
"Well, a Spartan team and us is probably gonna be a boost in that department," I said. "We might need an additional Pel–"
The flimsy roof exploded, sending hot shrapnel everywhere. I covered my face instinctively, but the armored window held without much trouble. I looked up, but whatever had destroyed the roof was long gone. Instead I saw half a dozen brutes with jump jets and the thing that annoyed me the most during combat. At least fifty drones were buzzing their way furiously towards us, coming through fast.
I jumped out of the seat, leaving Flatt hanging. I immediately grabbed my helmet and cursed when I remembered that I had no ammunition for my rifle. Instead I grabbed the HMG on the back of the Pelican while Marina dashed back to the cockpit. She had the craft up in the air just as the brutes landed.
The Spartans had left the inside of the warehouse to defend the perimeter just seconds ago, and now they were handling whatever the covvies were throwing at us from outside.
"Turn it around!" I shouted to Marina.
Marina complied, firing the main cannon of the Pelican as she did. I don't know whether she hit anything, but the powerful nose gun of the Pelican certainly frightened the brutes and some of the drones. Once the tail section of the Pelican was facing the drones I began firing. We were really low on ammunition, so I was basically one of the only ones firing back.
"Get to the other Pelican!" I shouted, hitting two drones flying at me.
"There's more coming!" Pavel cried.
I saw as the pilot made a dash towards the Pelican, closely followed by Marv. Halfway through to the other craft the pilot was thrown sideways. I wasn't paying attention, but the sudden movement drew my eyes. I winced when I saw that he had been hit in the side of the head with a spike grenade. Marv stopped to help before realizing what happened. He rushed forward, narrowly avoiding a second spike grenade from hitting him.
The two explosions sent Marv tumbling forward and completely tore the poor pilot apart into a fleshy mess. My men were technically trained to fly the Pelicans, but it would be pretty difficult for any one of them to spin it one-eighty degrees and hold it stable while being fired upon and giving the rear gunner a decent angle. In short, our only other reliable source of firepower was effectively useless.
"Brutes are moving left," I shouted. "I'll handle the drones!"
It seemed like the drones seemed to reciprocate, because they were heading towards the Pelican in bulk. I hit at least ten before they got close, but after that they started swarming me. One of them tackled me, knocking me backwards into the Pelican. I struggled with the insect, but those things were stronger than one imagined. I struggled with it until I succeeded in getting my pistol out of its holster. A quick shot into the drone was all I needed to gain an upper hand. I shoved the wounded alien from myself and twisted its right wings with my arm. I then fired three quick shots into its head before stomping on it furiously.
Needles bounced off the Pelican's walls, reminding me that there were still other drones to worry about. I fired six or seven quick shots at one of the closest drones with my pistol before manning the turret again. I had more success after that. The brutes had been stopped short as soon as Ramirez and Dotsenko managed to get their SAWs back in the fray.
We slowly pushed the aliens back against the wall until we killed them all. I gave the word for everybody to move back to the Pelicans. I had to assume that one of the Spartans would be a more talented pilot. My men carried Mata's unconscious body into the other Pelican as Marina set down her own. I kept aiming at the massive gaping hole in the roof as an assortment of soldiers and AAG operators hopped inside. Pavel must've been in contact with the Spartans, because they burst through one of the smaller side doors a few seconds later. They no longer had their camouflage on, and their armor showed some minor scrapes and scorches.
"Go!" Jonah shouted, sliding inside the Pelican along with one of the Spartan girls, Alex or Miranda.
"Go!" I echoed to Marina. "Now!"
She took off immediately, almost hitting the edges of the hole in the warehouse roof. The other Pelican floated up almost a second later, I could see a Spartan piloting it, with Marv in the copilot's seat. Our craft shook as we were fired upon by AA Wraiths. I covered my face and then looked down in an attempt to spot the vehicles. Instead, I saw four hovering Phantoms and a dozen vehicles of all types surrounding the now-empty warehouse. I began firing on the covvie soldiers on the outside, hoping that Marina could get us under friendly SAM air cover before we were shot down.
"Come on!"
The chase went on for a full minute, with Marina outmaneuvering the Phantoms until one of them was hit with AA defense. The rest of the chasing Phantoms gave up the chase and banked hard to avoid being hit. One of the enemy dropships was destroyed before the others finally managed to get outside of the envelope. I looked at the departing dropships and breathed with relief.
FLEETCOM HQ was a crowded mess. Units of all branches were moving in every direction, mixed with civilian subcontractors and low-level employees trying to get out. We landed amidst the mess, with a wounded Marine waving us down into the landing pad. Marina parked her craft flawlessly and we hopped off. Few of the men and women even spared a second glance at the Spartans of Falcata. At first I thought that it was just because they were so intent on getting out, but then I realized that it was because they had seen their likes before. There were at least a dozen other Spartan-IIIs moving through the mass of frightened men and women.
"Well, the odds are looking good for us," Schitzo muttered. "For once."
I almost agreed with him.
Thanks to Colonel-Commissar2468 and General TheDyingTitan for proofreading this chapter. Also, ironic quote much?
We went back to our dearly beloved Frank for a while here. And Frank went back to his very first dearly beloved for a while there. Then he went a bit further back to that brother that you want to know so much about. I wonder what that means... No matter, the rest of the chapter consisted of Frank trying to be badass with a hole in his leg while the rest of his team was successfully badass as well. Lots of the soldiers of A Company were killed in the process, but they just can't keep up with AAG-7 even if they're doing their best. I wonder if Private Parker survived, I legitimately forgot to write him in there at the end. I guess we'll find out next chapter. All in all, I have to say that this was a bit of a hard chapter to write, mainly because there wasn't a lot of Frank in the action scenes until the very end. I hate to do offscreen deaths like Preacher's, but it happens in real life and it happens in The Life. He-he, see what I did there?
Anyhow, our heroes are finally safe and surrounded by the mysterious Gamma Company that the books fail to talk about. You know that when the books fail to explore something it means that I'll do it myself. A few of the Gamma teams were in Onyx while all this happens, but where was the rest of the company? Reach is the only place that makes sense. Maybe some of the teams were on Earth or Sol, but screw it, you want Spartans, I want Spartans, we all want Spartans. You get Spartans.
fantasydelver: I know that Halo universe weapons still use chemical propellants, but in my head they have always been using propellants that are five hundred years ahead of anything we have right now. It always irked me a bit that the dates in Halo seemed to be so far in the future but we still had weapons analogous to current small arms. Hell, the Scorpion would get its ass kicked by any modern Main Battle Tank in a one-on-one match if I didn't find little caveats based on future technologies (stronger armor, technologically advanced shells). Point is, I always think about small arms in the Halo universe as being significantly more powerful than what we have here, at least superior in range and muzzle velocity. I hope that clears any doubts up.
Adam 1076: don't sell yourself short. I admit that the dedication part might be a bit hard (I did write this massive behemoth of a fic in a relatively short time), but I'm sure you could write something of the same or even quality if you give it a shot. I look forward to seeing your work.
Jackarall: it's the tower in Reach. The building you try to blow up in ODST is located on Earth, and we're still a bit short of getting there.
Thanks to everybody for your reviews and feedback, you don't know how much that helps me make this story better and more appealing to my readers. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this chapter.
Stay strong.
-casquis