Chapter CCXVIII: Threesome
November 2, 2552 (UNSC Calendar)/
Quarantine Zone, Delta Halo [orbiting Substance], Coelest System
"Not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when I think threesome."– Sergeant Naveen "Snark" Avninder
It was human.
That was my first thought. A fraction of a second passed and then I realized that I had been wrong. It had been human. Sure, the head and limbs were all there, but not in the way they should've. Perhaps it took me a bit longer to realize that I wasn't facing something human because from the waist down it looked just how you would've expected a Helljumper to look. Boots and armor were all in relatively good shape, but once you got to the waist things started getting frightening.
The thing landed a meter away from me, letting me take a closer look. The armor had been partially covered by a growth that looked like both a tumor and a nasty keloid scar growth. The color wasn't right though, it was the color of rotting flesh. The right arm of the former Helljumper carried a battle rifle that hung almost all the way to the ground, the left arm had become a monstrosity that could best be described as a cross between a tentacle and a spider leg. They popped from the middle of the forearm, which was now encompassed by the same growth that covered the belly.
I ran my index finger through the fire selector of my rifle, switching to full automatic.
The thing that made my stomach lurch, however, was the torso and head. A massive tumor had pushed everything out, with the chest piece hanging near where the armpit had been and the rest of the armor ripped or completely covered by it. Three red tendrils as long as my forearm reached out, trying to grab me. The head wasn't where it should have been, it was back and to the right, hanging limply and swinging slowly from the impact of the landing. The ODST helmet's visor had been shattered and removed almost completely, allowing me to see a face that was nearly intact except for an expression of pure horror and eyes closed in fear. The back of the head seemed to be fused to the growth on the shoulder.
My first shots hit the rifle arm of the creature. Huge chunks of brown flesh were removed by the large bullets, but the creature didn't even flinch. I raised my rifle slowly, redirecting my fire from arm to shoulder to head. I cursed inwardly when I saw the face disappear in blossoming bullet wounds before a large chunk of gooey flesh slid down the front end of the helmet, landing in the floor. The creature paused for the briefest of instants before swiping at me with its tentacles. I barely had any time to react, stumbling backwards a bit and avoiding the brunt of the impact. I was spun on my feet three times before I fell down, my shoulder and arm hurting. My rifle flew somewhere in the confusion and as I landed on my ass I reached for my sidearm.
Johnson was screaming something into the general channel, issuing orders.
Caboose fired his shotgun, destroying the torso of one of the creatures and knocking it back several feet.
I raised my pistol and emptied the cartridge on the former Helljumper. Most of the bullets tore through it, exploding against the soft flesh. They slowed it down, but it wasn't until my last shot hit the tendrils that the entire body collapsed and fell to the ground, letting me breathe and reload my pistol. I spotted my rifle on the other end of the crag and began reaching for it.
"Get it off me, get it off me!" Longworth cried.
"Stay. Still!" Miri replied.
I saw a brown little thing move through the ground at prodigious speeds. My first thought was that it was visually similar to a potato, my second thought was the realization that it had the same red tendrils on the torso of the dead Helljumper. I watched with confusion and uncertainty as it moved into the body of the creature I had just killed. A second later the dead Helljumper was once again at its feet, turning towards me. This time it only took one shot to bring it down, but I got up and promptly set to work, viciously stomping the dead enemy's torso, letting my boots sink in all the way to the ankle on the soft flesh and making a huge mess of things.
"Center mass!" Johnson was yelling. "Fire center mass! Stay away from the little critters!"
"Fire at the chest!" I shouted, dashing for my rifle as Pavel reduced another former Helljumper into a pile of mush. "Hit the red tendrils!"
I grabbed my rifle and turned around. Grass had lost her rifle and was in the process of severing the claws of one of the creatures, hacking at it viciously while holding the thing by the chest. Her artificial hand dug into the growth easily and she began pushing harder. A second later she yanked her hand, a chunk of meat inside her fist. She punched the creature's tendrils, drawing a loud pop as the body collapsed. I turned my eyes to Caboose, who fired another shell at a creature. The blast removed its left arm, and a huge chunk of its shoulder, but it did not bring it down. A second blast fixed that.
Pavel turned to look at us and then moved around the corner to provide support to the second half of the squad. I jerked my head in his direction and the rest of my men followed. Lady seemed unnerved, but she had held off one of the creatures by herself, taking it out with the second half of her magazine before stomping its head in.
"Destroy the bodies!" I shouted. "They can be reanimated!"
On the corner of my eye I caught the rest of the IFF tags, now hostile, moving towards the bulk of our forces. I was about to give Johnson a warning when one of those potato things jumped to my head. I dropped my rifle and tried to grab it, but its tendrils gripped my helmet. I saw it trying to get through my visor and felt it digging into my neck, trying to get through my undersuit. I couldn't get it away from my face, but I started squeezing with both hands until it finally pop. The small explosion that followed sent me back to my ass and scratched my visor lightly. I grabbed my rifle and growled, wiping fluids form my visor.
I turned the corner to see Miranda punching a potato-creature from Snark's helmet before turning around and hitting another with a backswing. Snark fell to the floor, leaving Longworth to drag him back as he fired his DMR at a horde of small creatures, making them pop with each hit. Pavel and Dotsenko linked up, firing their automatic weapons at anything that moved. Two more of the human creatures jumped over the cliff, landing in our midst. I knew now where to target them, but they were both facing away from me. I settled for shooting at the one closest to me. My bursts hit its back and made a brown mess. Some bullets pinged off the leftover armor, but after a third burst it fell down in a heap.
"Friendly fire, shit Frank!" Pavel complained.
"Are you hit?" I asked as Grass and Lady neutralized the other hostile.
"Negative!" he shouted back angrily.
"Center mass!" I repeated loudly. "Center mass, red tendrils!"
Two more were brought down and the sea of smaller creatures receded as our automatic fire dwindled their numbers. They exploded which such violence and viciousness that they took out more of their number if they were close enough.
"Snark's hurt!" Miri shouted.
I was closest to him after Longworth, so I dashed towards him and knelt next to him.
"Cover me!" I ordered Longworth. I was trusting him with my life.
Snark was bleeding. I quickly turned him around to reveal a massive gash in the back of his neck. The undersuit had been ripped open and something had tried to dig into his neck. A portion of the spine was visible.
"Shit," I said.
"Is it bad?" he asked, fearful.
"Not too bad," I told him, reaching into my pouch and grabbing a can of biofoam. "Hold on."
He cried out in pain as the chemical began acting on the wound. I then reached for a bandage and used it to cover up the wound. Once that was done I turned Snark back around and shook his head slightly, trying to see how he responded to the pain.
"It hurts," he said.
"I need you on your feet."
"My rifle was going right through them," he told me. "No damage."
"Then don't use your rifle," I told him.
Snark seemed to be snapped out of his shock by that and nodded slowly, wincing at the injury in the back of his neck. He drew his submachine gun and slowly moved forward, firing at the receding tide of potato aliens.
I really needed a better name for them.
"Johnson, you've got hostiles headed your way!"
"No shit!" he shouted back. "Regroup with Prophet 1-1 and Boxer 1-2 and then rejoin forces with us. I'm sending the Warthogs and Scorpion to the following coordinates, they will assist you."
"Prophet 1-1, do you copy?" I asked.
"We copy, what the hell is going on?" the leader replied.
"Meet up with us. Shoot anything that moves. We have hostiles that look like UNSC forces, be wary."
"Frank, I'm working on switching the IFF tags to identify deceased UNSC personnel as hostiles," Grass told me, heaving.
"Get on that," I replied. "Boxer, are you there? Boxer 1-2!"
"Contact!" the sergeant was shouting. "El-tee, they're overwhelming us!"
"Fall back on our position Boxer 1-2! Fire center mass, hit the red tendrils."
"Red tendrils, red tendrils! Shoot them in the chest!"
My men were already running towards our rendezvous point with Prophet 1-1. Caboose cocked his shotgun and took position in the rear. Roars and shrieks rumbled through the rocks. The creatures didn't seem to want to die, but we had one key advantage. We could see the larger ones coming on our HUDs.
I half-carried Snark, making him go at a breakneck pace with his neck injury and all. He hissed and cursed with every step, but he didn't complain one bit. Pavel and Dotsenko were clearing the way, turning enemies into piles of mush as they fired their machine guns. I was frustrated at these new hostiles; they seemed to possess enough intelligence to make use of ambush tactics and were more durable than an unshielded brute if you didn't hit the sweet spot. My men were breathing heavily, but they weren't tired enough for that, they were scared. They were scared shitless and so was I.
"Watch out!"
A creature landed in front of Pavel. My friend didn't hesitate and opened up on it, jabbing the muzzle into its chest as he depressed the trigger. The explosions of flesh and fluids reduced the enemy to a pair of legs with a vaguely recognizable torso. Pavel stomped the creature three times for good measure.
"Zombies? Fucking zombies?"
There was no amusement in his voice.
"Keep moving!" I shouted.
We were going pretty fast, only slowing down from a sprint because Snark couldn't move that fast. Despite our progress the creatures were catching up. The little ones ran along the walls and the bigger ones jumped up. Thankfully we could usually tell where they were going to land by their IFF tags on our mini-maps. We were being constantly pestered and our ammunition reserves were being depleted at an impressive rate, but we were holding.
"Prophet 1-1 is up ahead!" Longworth shouted. "They're engaging hostiles!"
"Prophet 1-1, we're coming up your three," I warned. "Do not engage!"
"Copy that! Hurry!"
Our units linked up and soon enough our firepower was doubled. I barked instructions as fast and loud as I could, getting the other squad up to speed. While I did that we began moving towards Boxer 1-3, making sure to have a wide field of fire and our sides completely covered. Luckily, two of their number had shotguns, which greatly increased our defensive capacities. Our only casualty came from an unlucky member of the friendly squad. The man cried out and fell to the ground. Before anybody could reach him tentacles grabbed and dragged him behind a boulder, where he screamed and called for help before suddenly going quiet as his vitals went blank.
"Keep moving," I said.
"They're falling back," Pavel muttered.
"They're regrouping," I told him. "Let's do the same."
We moved fast. Boxer 1-3 was still active, but they had suffered heavily. They had been engaged from three different directions and had barely managed to hold off the enemy. They had lost five of their men, leaving only three survivors, two of which were wounded. The leader was now a lance corporal holding a smoking shotgun and leaning against a rock. The two others had a mangled arm and bullet wounds on the leg respectively. Not good for us.
"They were everywhere," the lance corporal said simply. "We couldn't kill them."
"They're tough," I admitted. "But they're as killable as anything else. You understand that?"
He nodded.
"You understand that?" I repeated, loudly.
"Yes, sir."
"Same goes for the rest of you!" I shouted, trying to instill the confidence I was lacking into my men.
"Oorah!"
"Damn right!" I agreed. "We've got two 'Hogs and a Scorpion tank inbound. Let's meet up with them and clear these fucking zombies out of the way."
The silence was overwhelming. Or it would've been, if the bulk of our forces hadn't been engaged in a desperate battle for survival. The gunfire coming from their direction was truly something that would damage your hearing. I growled to myself, but the noise that they were making meant that they still had the numbers and coordination to provide firepower that impressed me.
"Vehicles close by!" someone shouted.
The three vehicles turned the corner. I smiled as I saw the promised Scorpion tank. The two Warthogs did a u-turn and waited for us to enter their midst. Before we could join them, however, one of those zombies tackled a Marine from the turret and pummeled him in the ground. Blood flew everywhere before Longworth took the creature down with three shots to the chest. The smaller aliens crawled from the rocks, popping when they were hit. The Warthog that had been attacked was overwhelmed by numbers and the two Marines cried out in pain and panic. I let go of Snark and sprinted towards the vehicle, aiming my rifle at the little creatures that danced around, taking them out by twos and threes. The screams of the two men didn't subside, instead becoming louder and louder with every crunch and pop. I got there just in time to see skin torn open and claws erupt from a forearm. Blood droplets landed on my visor, but it was less than it should've been. I heard the spine creak before it snapped, the neck popped backwards and the head fell sideways. The chinstrap made sure the helmet remained in place, but the growth that bubbled from the shoulders pushed it into the chin, cutting through the dead skin. The dead Marine twisted twice, bones groaning and popping with every violent convulsion.
I decided that I had had enough and fired at the tendrils that were beginning to emerge from the chest, making sure to jab my rifle deep into the dead Marine.
The passenger somehow swung up and stood on top of the Warthog, looking down at me. It screamed loudly, making my blood go cold. Gunfire hit it from the side, sending it to its knees and making it an easy target for me.
I groaned and dragged the bodies from the Warthog, giving Caboose the order to get behind the wheel and allowing Snark to hop on the passenger seat. The rest of the men crowded the rear of the two Warthogs as well as the Scorpion. Once we were all on top of a vehicle we began speeding back towards the main group. Our speed drew complaints from the passengers as they struggled to hold onto the tank and Warthogs, but they were half-hearted. They knew speed was of the essence here.
Johnson's group was behind well defended emplacements. By emplacements I mean rocks, but he had apparently rushed to a defendable position as soon as we testified to contact. A few Marine corpses littered the landscape, but most of them were evidently reanimated bodies. The other ones were rapidly being dragged behind our lines to keep them from being turned into enemies. I made sure to run over every single dead body that I could on our climb to the small plateau that Johnson had taken position on, making them useless to our enemies.
"Lieutenant!" Johnson shouted. "Is this everything?"
"That's all the survivors," I confirmed.
"God-damn!" he shouted, pausing in between the two syllables of the word. "Alright, everybody better listen up!"
He yelled even though there was no need to, everyone could hear him just fine through the channel.
"The creatures attacking us and taking possession of our dead comrades have been encountered by UNSC forces once before. They are known as the Flood. Intel is very scarce on them, animated corpses are known as combat forms, you can take those out with a shot to the tendrils or with some good ol'-fashioned destruction of the body. The smaller ones, the ones that look like bloated potatoes that is, infection forms, weak as the aforementioned potatoes, but dangerous if they get close. They are scary and tough, but we can take 'em. You guys were a sorry bunch before I came across, being dead will only make you worse, but now you have me on your side! Shoot for the chest and avoid the infection forms. We'll be in the Library in less than two days even if we have to fight our way through it!"
As far as inspirational speeches went, it wasn't a good one, but it certainly shed some light on the situation. Knowledge of the threat, even just a name, was worth volumes. I suddenly felt more confident now that I could name them.
The Flood.
"Hell of an ominous name," Snark noted. "Those fuckers."
"Switch out your rifle," I told him. "You said it didn't work."
"Yes, sir!"
"Get extra ammo," I told the rest of the men. "Fast."
"First order of business is getting to that ridge!" Johnson went on. "Scouts say that the ground becomes more advantageous to us after we start going down!"
It was true, less cover for them. More open ground for us to see them coming.
There was shrieking in the distance. Loud and close enough to give me a pause.
"Warthogs to the front!" Johnson shouted. "Shotguns are best!"
As soon as Caboose and Snark returned I moved to the front of our advance, I was driving one handed, keeping my right hand on my pistol, ready to shoot anything that was yellow. Gunfire erupted from the main group, but the Marines were now better prepared to face off that enemy. Our own Warthogs remained undisturbed as we moved forward, slow enough that the men could keep up on foot. Pavel and the rest of my squad had been left behind, but they seemed to be doing just fine, shooting potatoes, infection forms, with near impunity.
"I'm not seeing combat forms," Grass said.
"They're probing us," Pavel told her. "Want to see where we are strongest."
"Are they even intelligent?" Longworth asked.
"Seemed plenty smart to me," Crow said.
A trio of infection forms jumped out from behind a small boulder, but Snark popped them with his newly acquired assault rifle. The three creatures popped loudly and we went on. Caboose hadn't needed to fire his machine gun yet, but I dreaded the moment when it would be needed. He made sure to keep his eyes on the ledges of the ridges to either side of him, not wanting to suffer the same fate of the last gunner of this Warthog.
"Right flank!" the Warthog behind us shouted.
Four combat forms jumped out, they were immediately targeted, but flying bodies are hard to hit. One of them landed on the hood of my car, where Caboose promptly pulverized it. The other three landed behind. The other Warthog hit the one closest to it, ramming it under the hood and making it pop, fluids going everywhere. The other two jumped out of the way and the Warthog bumped into our rear bumper, unable to brake completely. I cursed and drove, turning sideways to give Caboose a field of fire. The two combat forms were killed before they could charge us.
"Sorry," the driver said. "Fluids must've made me skid."
"No problem," I replied.
Our advance went much like that, with both of us fidgeting nervously and weaving in an attempt to avoid the Flood creatures landing directly on top of our hood. Our Scorpions were useless in this terrain, pretty much being only a platform for a machine gun. Two tanks followed us, hanging back and letting the Marines to the side do most of the firing.
"Shit," I said. "Canyon walls get narrow."
"Can we transit?" the lead tanker asked.
"Looks like it," I said, "but we're not going to have a field of fire."
There was plenty of cursing.
"Ok, I want ground troops to move forward," I ordered. "You'll be between the two Warthogs, hopefully we'll be able to target any enemies that want to drop before they do. You should have a good chance of hitting them before they fall down."
The men bitched and then complied. I drove up ahead, with Caboose aiming as high as the gun could go and a little behind us, switching between the top of the left and right canyon walls. Snark kept his assault rifle trained almost directly overhead. The Marines settled into a two column formation behind us, leaving plenty of space in between them. The other Warthog quickly positioned itself behind the Marines and we began advancing at a jogging speed.
Flood silhouettes appeared in front of us at the top of the canyon walls, barely visible through the dim light.
The rear Warthog started firing on them, hitting one and sending rock flying everywhere. Caboose kept aiming behind us, covering the other Warthog. Combat forms dropped, two were hit as they fell, but four others made it down. Snark opened up, taking down one. I slowed a bit and let the Marines catch up. Two of them moved up to the sides of my 'Hog and opened fire on the advancing combat forms. They collapsed before they could reach us.
"Good job," I said, hitting the accelerator again.
A third of the way down the narrow canyon they attempted the same ambush, this time with larger numbers. We repeated the same process, but more combat forms appeared behind us, prompting Caboose to open fire. The gunners on the Scorpion tanks joined him, but their machine guns didn't have the same inclination that the ones on the Warthogs had. I stopped the Warthog and hopped off, joining the infantrymen in shooting at the combat forms. I took down one with my first burst and a Marine took a knee next to me, firing a long burst.
"Whoo!" she exclaimed as she killed one.
Her celebration was short-lived though. A bullet hit her in the shoulder, jerking her sideways and another bullet then made contact with her face. I fired back at the killer and knelt next to her, but the bullet from the pistol had gone straight through her right eye, leaving a massive exit wound in the back of her head. I dragged her backwards while firing and tossed her corpse into the back of the Warthog to keep her from being reanimated. I was just in time to see a mass of infection forms drop down the walls. They popped by the dozens, but there was just too many of them.
"Don't let them get to you!" I shouted.
Marines began firing at the ground, jumping up and down while trying to stomp the little critters. A Flood combat form jumped into the midst of the group and slammed one of the Marines into the wall, where the body left a large bloodstain before being promptly reanimated. I fired at the combat form's chest and ran towards it, jumping up and down on its chest with both feet before a mass of infection forms brought me down.
I rolled and punched and kicked, finally managing to draw my knife and stabbing one of the creatures in my face. The explosion nearly forced me to drop the knife, but I managed to hold on to it just barely. The short blade helped me kill two more infection forms before I could pick up my rifle. Once armed I saved two Marines on the verge of being infected, but three more couldn't be helped. All of our firepower was turned on the three unfortunate souls, reducing them to a messy pulp.
"That was Taylor," a survivor muttered.
"And Sarah. Where's Sarah?"
"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit…"
"Let's keep moving!" I ordered, my voice wavering. Our number had been cut by a third and the enemy hadn't even used firearms. "Almost there!"
The rest of the canyon run was without incident and we came out the other end just next to our target area. The Scorpions rolled forward and to the sides as the Marines struggled to get away from the cliff and into open ground. My map showed more units reaching their targets, but everyone avoided the narrow canyon we had just gone through.
"Some of those combat forms were elites," Caboose told me after we stopped. "That's bad news."
"They have a whole assault carrier to feed from, maybe more."
As if on cue, a Covenant ship appeared in the distance, orbiting the Halo ring near where the prophet's carrier was. Seconds later another appeared and more, and more. I tried to keep count, but there was just too many of them. A gigantic space station joined the massive fleet of ships. There were thousands of them, it was the largest Covenant fleet I had ever seen. It was the largest Covenant fleet anyone had ever seen.
"Aw shieet," I muttered. "They do not concern us," I said, louder. "The Library is our only concern. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir!"
I didn't believe that myself. The Flood scared the shit out of me on multiple levels, but I was still sane enough to understand the danger that a fleet of that size posed to us: hell, to humanity!
There were some uneasy mutterings, but the fleet began moving behind the edge of the Halo and into the distance. Out of sight, out of mind.
"Help!"
It was one of the tankers. A Flood combat form had landed on the hood of the Scorpion and had bashed the poor gunner to death, decapitating him with a strike. I saw the head fly and drew my rifle, aiming from my position on the Warthog. I was about to open fire but the combat form was faster, using its claw tentacles to aim and fire the mounted machine gun in our direction. I dropped from the Warthog and rolled underneath it, coming out the other side. Bullets hissed and bounced off the armored hood, but several of them shattered the plastic windshield. Caboose returned fire with his heavy machine gun but jumped off when he was fired upon. His distraction bought me enough time to aim and take out the Flood form.
"You two!" I pointed at a duet of Marines. "Move up, destroy the combat form and secure the body."
"Oh hell naw," one of them said.
"Now!" I roared, pointing at the Scorpion.
Caboose was hopping back in the turret and the Scorpion driver was moving even further away from the rocks behind us. Several units were already moving down the slopes of the basin and into more open terrain, Warthogs were doing the same, slowing down to fire on combat forms. I looked to the right to see a flamethrower torching an entire line of boulders. The range of fifty meters indicated that it was a portable flamethrower, but the thing was bound to have a devastating effect on the Flood. At least on the infection forms, that is.
"Burn the fuckers!" someone shouted on the battlenet.
I couldn't agree more.
A rally point waypoint appeared on my HUD, prompting me to get moving again. The surviving Marines hopped on my 'Hog and on the Scorpions, allowing us to move faster that way. We were one of the first units to reach the rally point, meaning that we had to fire at the Flood forces charging our positions. It was now becoming evident that more and more of the enemy consisted of elites. I was just happy we hadn't seen brutes or worse yet.
I hated the fact that every time I looked away from a section of the battlefield the corpses disappeared. Reanimated and hidden from view. It was nearly impossible to kill them for good with a battle rifle, even Caboose and the Warthog's LAAG had trouble destroying them, but the beer bottle-sized bullets certainly helped. The problem is that he couldn't afford to fire short bursts at the unutilized corpses, instead having to fire at the active ones and at the infection forms.
Roars and shrieks filled the air.
"Frank, we're coming up on your six," Pavel shouted.
"Roger that!"
Pavel and the rest of the squad were in good shape, if a little bit covered with brown fluids. With them were a couple of Marine squads and a damaged Warthog with five bodies in the back. If we kept being hit this hard we wouldn't be able to take all the bodies with us. One less on our side would effectively mean one more on their side.
More troops conglomerated on the area, moving the Warthogs and tanks to form a barrier around the infantry. Heavy machine gun fire drowned out most attempts to communicate. The Scorpion tankers simply kept their main guns silent, not willing to waste the HEAT and HE shells on soft targets.
"I'm seeing Sentinels!"
What the hell's a Sentinel?
A few people voiced my question out loud through the battlenet, but soon enough it became clear what they were. The drones had decided to come into the picture again, firing at the infected human and Covenant. I watched as beams shot from the little robots and burned through the fleshy Flood creatures. A few men whooped and hollered even as the combat forms leaped a hundred feet to strike down the Sentinels. I kept myself from joining them though, I hadn't forgotten that they had already killed one of our men.
My fears proved to be founded and the Sentinels began attacking us as well, turning this into a ménage-a-trois.
"Not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when I think threesome," Snark noted.
I agreed, but was unable to voice that as a red beam hit the windshield and almost severed my head. I ducked, feeling the heat in my back. When I got back up there was a hole in the windshield and in the seat. I got on my feet and fired from inside the 'Hog, targeting the closest Sentinel. Caboose did the same thing, shooting tracers right above my right shoulder. I made sure not to move too suddenly, last thing I wanted was to lose my head to friendly fire.
Snark cursed as his SMG peppered the robots. It wasn't inaccurate by any mean, especially in his hands, but it wasn't as powerful as his SRS. He could've used the rifle here.
"What the hell is that?" Crow shouted.
It was a Sentinel, but bigger. Simple as that.
The larger Sentinel fired dozens of tiny rockets at a Warthog. The occupants barely had time to get out of the way before the explosion destroyed the vehicle. Two of them were set upon by the Flood before they could get to safety, screaming and twisting in agony as their bodies convulsed.
"That's a target," a tanker answered Crow, lifting the barrel of his Scorpion.
The first blast took out one of the shield-like holograms in front of the robot and sent it backwards A second shot from a different tank took it out. Crow fired a rocket at a Sentinel, sending it careening to the ground. The Scorpions began rolling forward, using their coaxial machine guns as well as their main guns to target a trio of large Sentinels that were coming to join the party.
"Frank!"
I ducked just as bullets flew past me. Snark fired at the Flood that had shot me and Caboose cursed, falling on his ass.
"I'm hit," he said, more angry than anything.
I turned to look at him, but he was already coming back to his feet, pulling himself up. From the looks of it he had been shot to the side of the belly, near the kidney if I had to guess. Blood poured from the wound, but he ignored it and instead fired on a group of elite combat forms.
"Shit, they keep the shields!" he shouted.
Plasma was beginning to join the gunfire staccato, making the sounds of battle slightly more familiar. Everything else was still beyond my comprehension. I watched as one of the larger Sentinels descended upon the lead Scorpion. The robot used its two clamps to grab the tank and started flying back up. Concentrated Warthog fire destroyed the robot just as it began crushing the Scorpion, bringing it down with a loud explosion.
"Someone get me out of here!" the tanker shouted. "My gunner's dead!"
I could see the rear treads moving from here, but they were barely working, the thing must've damaged them when it began crushing the Scorpion.
"Don't let them get on top of you!" Johnson shouted. "Them uglies have some tricks!"
That was putting it lightly.
I hated this beyond anything I had gone through. One moment I would find myself struggling to lower the shields on a combat form only for a Sentinel to help me finish the job and then I'd have to duck behind cover to avoid the beam from that same Sentinel. Next thing one of the bigger Sentinels would shoot some needle-like beams accompanied by lobbed mortar rounds. The big ones were really beginning to take a toll on our offensive capabilities, opening the way for the Flood to take more of our troops.
Rockets flew at the last surviving large Sentinel. The shields were overwhelmed by the multiple explosions and the Scorpions fired at the thing, taking out for good. The rest of the Sentinels regrouped and started falling back, firing on the Flood as they went, taking out a few of them for us. We were back to a more traditional fight. Against zombies. Fast zombies.
"I hate fast zombies," I grunted.
"Bee always hated them too," Snark said from the passenger seat. "Said they took from the traditional zombie genre and made everything lame."
Lame was not the word I would've chosen right now, more like deadly.
"Anything about zombies that can handle weapons?" Longworth asked.
"They lose their zombie status as soon as they get smart enough to use tools," Snark explained. "At least that's what Bee kept saying."
"Go for the head and all that, eh?" Longworth told him. "Fucking useless now."
I had to agree with him as I targeted a rapidly moving combat form, missing two bursts before hitting it in the chest with the third. The creature collapsed unceremoniously and Caboose pounded it with machine gun fire, tearing the upper body to pieces and reducing its capabilities if it were to be reanimated. More marines were beginning to crowd around us, using whatever meager cover they could find to fight off the dwindling Flood troops. We must've burned through half of our ammunition reserves, but the Flood fell back and gave us a brief respite.
"Reload!" Johnson's tired voice boomed through the battlenet. "Don't lose your frostiness!"
I jerked my head at my men, who promptly moved towards the ammunition drones that we still had with us. They brought back crates of ammo as well as an EMR to be placed in the Warthog. Snark would make full use of the powerful battle rifle if he needed to take down any Sentinels.
As I replaced my empty magazines with full ones a wave of information came to my helmet. The larger Sentinels had been codenamed Enforcers, the ones with shields were Aggressor Sentinels. We also got more information on the Flood, albeit in a very limited manner. A new form that we hadn't seen yet was introduced to us, a bulbous mess that was called a carrier form. It looked like a pimple with legs. The image showed the creature collapsing before blowing up violently, sending infection forms everywhere. With each enemy came a vague set of instructions on how to best take them down. Sentinels were vulnerable to overloaded plasma pistol shots. How we had acquired that intel I had no idea. Carrier forms were meant to be shot at until they blew up, preferably away from any allies.
"Lady, hop on the driver's seat," I ordered. "Hold position."
She jogged here and nodded, not giving me any lip for once.
I moved towards Johnson's position, ignoring his vicious shouting of orders.
"McKenzie, get those extra magazines!"
"Johnson, what now?" I asked.
"Well we move forward, Lieutenant," he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Ringworld.
"Johnson, see that thing?" I asked. "It's another goddamned wall. Last thing we need is to come into that thing and have no way in."
"I didn't take you for one to give up, Castillo."
"I don't want my men to die."
"I've had a third of the battalion die in the past hour, Castillo. Do you think I take this mission lightly?"
"What's so important about this building anyways?" I asked. "We should be nuking this place from orbit."
"That is not an option," Johnson said. "Frank… would I sacrifice so many men if this wasn't worth it?"
"You don't seem like the type…" I reluctantly admitted.
He placed a hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes. "This mission is the most important thing you'll ever do in your life, and I am willing to let every single man woman and even myself die if it means we succeed."
I returned his look. "Classified?"
"Classified."
"Promise me Johnson, promise me that it is as important as defending Earth. Promise me that we didn't come to this stupid place just because Keyes is a glory hound?"
"She wants to live up to her father's name, that's for sure, but this," he stomped the ground. "This right here, is more important than Earth, than Reach, than Paris IV."
I took him at his word. I had to. If anyone exaggerated that much he was a fucking idiot or a nutjob. Johnson was neither.
"Do we still have drones in the air?" I asked.
He nodded. "We've detected two entrances in the second wall. So we're good there. Additionally, it seems like the Covenant have also penetrated the wall and are headed to the Library."
"A race?" I asked.
"A race," he replied. "Higher stakes than you could even imagine."
"I'd better put my running shoes on, then," I muttered. "I'm trusting you on this one, Johnson."
He nodded in acknowledgement and turned his attention to his own personal squad, giving quick orders and ignoring my presence. The dismissal allowed me to rejoin my men, who were clustered around the Warthog and were taking turns reloading their weapons. Snark was gently tapping the back of his neck, probing the injury and shaking when the pain was worse than he had anticipated. For the most part my men were in good shape, with the exception of Lady, who was still battered from that ambush by the brute. I could see her limping slightly, perhaps from a twisted ankle.
"What I wouldn't give for some air support…" Pavel said.
"Shield wall," Grass said. "Remember?"
I drew my pistol and pulled back the slide, realizing that it was empty. I ejected the magazine and replaced it, grabbing another one to keep my load at its maximum. We hadn't made good use of our grenades, but they were still beginning to dwindle little by little, leaving us with an absurdly high number of smoke screens and even a few flashbangs to fight an enemy that didn't appear to make use of eyes.
"Hear that?" I asked.
Little by little the sounds of plasma weaponry arrived to our ears. They were distant, but it was clear that at least a squad was engaging an enemy. The return of gunfire indicated that the enemy in question was the Flood and they were fighting the Covenant. This had just turned even more interesting.
"We don't have time to waste!" Johnson shouted after hearing that. "Let's move!"
Engines roared and Marines shouted. The dead were piled up on Warthogs, face down so that the gunner wouldn't accidentally stomp on them while aiming. I kicked Lady out of the driver's seat and made the engine roar before moving forward. We were getting closer to our goal. Once we were in the interior wall I assumed that we could bunker down and rest. Not a lot of people would be willing to go against a force like hours in a well-defended position. The Flood had fallen back, which indicated that they were not stupid or that they at least had a self-preservation instinct.
Shrieks came from our right flank. They noises were more familiar now, but they didn't scare me any less.
I looked in their direction to see a dozen combat forms pop from behind cover and jump. I shouted a warning when I saw one of them was toting a rocket launcher. The missile flew before anyone could do anything about it, it turned slightly before hitting one of our remaining Scorpions in the front left tread. The Marine that had been sitting there was torn to pieces and the armor of the tank was damaged, but it could still move.
"Salvage that!" I shouted as Caboose worked on mowing down the rest of the attackers.
"It's too far away!" Pavel shouted.
I didn't have any particular need for a rocket launcher right now, especially considering the fact that for all their deadliness the Flood were unarmored enemies. The fact was that the Flood could use that rocket launcher against us again and again just by reanimating corpses next to it unless we removed it from the equation.
"Hold on!"
I floored the accelerator and sped towards the rocket launcher. I ran over a combat form that was too slow to avoid me as Caboose maneuvered his LAAG to take out the enemies around us. Snark fired his SMG at infection forms that tried to swarm our Warthog as we sped past them, popping them by the dozen. Bullets hit the windshield, making it turn nearly opaque as it was cracked. The hole in front of me from the sentinel beam was the only thing that kept me able to see where I was going.
"Fuck. This. Shit." Snark leaned back as he said that and propped his feet on the dashboard before kicking at the weakened windshield. There was no way he would be able to break the ballistic plastic, but he could tear its weakened hinges. "Duck!" he warned.
Caboose complied just as the battered windshield flew off and backwards, hitting the turret in the rear. Caboose was back on point in no time, though, firing at a duo of elite combat forms.
"Snark! Get it!"
I slid into a stop a few meters away from the rocket launcher. Snark jumped from out of the Warthog and killed a combat form with a long burst. I popped up and fired at several infection forms rushing to take a bite at my friend while Caboose kept the larger threats at bay. I saw one of the carrier forms that we had been shown waddling towards Snark from behind cover. I began firing at it, trying to take it out, but it seemed to just absorb the damage. Snark grabbed the SPANKr and ran back to the Warthog, jumping inside. I turned back around and floored it, leaving Caboose to kill the carrier form. It fell forward and exploded.
The explosion was way more violent than I had expected, lifting the rear of our Warthog and sending infection forms in all directions. Three of them landed in the hood of the 'Hog. I drew my sidearm and swerved, trying to get them off. They held on and began rushing towards me. I managed to pop one before the other jumped at my arm. Snark bashed one against the dashboard, killing it, before grabbing the one pinning my right arm and bringing it down to his knee repeatedly, finishing it for good.
"Caboose?"
"All good!"
He was shot, but if he told me could fight, I didn't see why not.
I floored it back towards the main body of our group, tracer fire flying both ways even as plasma joined the fray.
"Grass! Hop on, Caboose, you're out!"
I stopped the Warthog and Caboose climbed out, holding his side and putting pressure on it. Miranda caught him as Grass climbed up and picked up where we had left off. Snark tossed the SPANKr to Crow, who caught it with both hands before handing it to a Marine who promptly put it on one of our surviving ammunition drones. I slowly moved the 'Hog forward, using it to cover my men and praying that no bullet would hit me.
"No exit wound," Miri announced as she hastily checked Caboose. "Shit."
I could relate to that. None of us had practice dealing with bullet wounds. Some might say that shrapnel is very similar and they wouldn't be entirely wrong, but our bullets were designed to bend and shred into a dozen pieces. I was just thankful that he hadn't been hit by a pistol round or he'd have a fist sized hole in his belly. Oh sure, blood and flesh would immediately fill that hole, but they would just be a pile of mush.
"Pull it out?" Lady suggested.
"At least the main shard," Grass shouted over the roar of the LAAG. "Pull out anything you can."
Caboose was tossed on the top of one of the closest ammunition drones and Miri produced a set of large tweezers before a Marine approached and handed her a scanner.
"Where's your corpsman?" she asked him.
"Dead, ma'am!"
Miri cursed and scanned Caboose, using the scanner to pinpoint the location of the shrapnel. Without any further ado she went in. Caboose cried out before catching himself and then just grunted. Miri was being very blasé about the whole thing, operating on a man in the middle of a battlefield while her operating table slowly rolled in uneven terrain. My bad, Caboose was the one being blasé considering the situation.
"Nice word… blasé," Schitzo said, experimenting with it.
It was then that our right flank was hit by three different purple mortars. We were lucky to be away from the explosions, but several Marines didn't have that same fortune. Two were immediately vaporized and several more were thrown around like ragdolls. The Scorpion that was the target of the shots escaped with some heavy damage and a dead gunner, but the tanker promptly returned fire, presumably killing one of the unseen enemies.
"Scatter!" Johnson shouted. "Get away from the tanks!"
It was only a temporary measure while the Revenants were taken out, but it would expose the infantry to the Flood and the Sentinels. Our enemies didn't fail to notice and their assault intensified, killing several Marines that now had no cover. The tankers furiously tried to outmaneuver the Revenants, but the pilots were doing a good job at staying behind cover while firing back.
"Frag out!" Snark shouted.
I slowed down a little bit to keep from being reached by the shrapnel and watched as the explosion took out three combat forms, leaving them completely useless to the infection forms that moved past them. Grass was mowing down the little potato-looking monstrosities, popping them in the hundreds while occasionally redirecting her attention to a Sentinel or an Aggressor. I was just happy that we weren't facing any more of the larger Enforcers, their mortars had been terrible to deal with.
"Those Revenants are crewed by live covvies!" someone shouted.
"Get out of there!"
I barely managed to see a trio of Marines dive out of cover just in time to avoid a carrier form explosion. The infection forms poured out only to be hit by a burst from Johnson's battle rifle. He grabbed one of the men from the ground and tossed him back like a doll before moving forward, shooting down two combat forms and making three others stop their assault and roll into cover. He then tossed a grenade, killing two of the three and shouted for the Marines to move forward.
We were dying like rats, but we were making progress.
"There's a hilltop!" Dotsenko shouted, breaking silence for the first time in a while. "There's no one there yet!"
It was true, the Flood had been so busy trying to kill us all that they hadn't fortified that position yet. A grievous oversight on their part, but a vital opportunity for us.
"Double time!" Johnson shouted after hearing that. "Tanks on the flanks!"
They would absorb the majority of the gunfire while the infantry ran along the center. I positioned the Warthog near the rear of the formation and Grass began firing at the combat forms chasing us while Snark fired at the jumpers that tried to land in the middle of the formation. We were down to a dozen 'Hogs, but our Scorpions were giving it as good as they got and then some. No Revenant blasts came flying our way.
"Covenant units spotted on our right flank! They have Ghosts!"
"I can't target them!"
"I need three Warthogs to keep them from approaching!" Johnson shouted. "Castillo, Blake, Lin. Go!"
I slowed down and banked to the right, lifting two of the wheels on the 'Hog into the air. Grass kept firing at the Flood as long as she could until we didn't have an angle. After that she immediately turned the turret forward and I positioned myself into a formation with the other two Warthogs. Four Ghosts appeared from a rock formation, firing at us. We swerved to avoid the plasma even as our LAAGs fired on them. I cursed as a bolt hit the hood and the splash heated my head, making me feel like I was in an oven. Two of the Ghosts were taken out and the other two turned and fell back. One of them was destroyed before it could get out of the way and the other got to safety.
"Blake!" I shouted to the man driving the 'Hog to my left. "Chase it down and scout the enemy!"
"Yes, sir!" he replied, turning his wheel to chase down the Ghost. Ten meters in a mortar shot landed on the hood, stopping the Warthog on its track and killing the driver and passenger.
The gunner's stomach dug into the LAAG but he managed to stumble out of the wreck and make his way to our position. I approached him, but a beam rifle cut through his neck, decapitating him.
"Sniper!" Grass shouted, firing at the origin of the shot. "Seventy meters!"
The other Warthog's gunner joined her, pulverizing the rock from which we had been fired upon. Snark took it upon himself to switch out to the EMR and fired three times, cursing as the uncalibrated sights made him miss. His fourth shot must've hit, because he stopped firing after that.
"Anybody else?" I asked.
"Just the one," he replied. "Jackal."
"Hang back," I ordered the surviving Warthog. "Discourage incursions."
We did just that, but we made sure to inch closer and closer to the hilltop that our forces were currently storming and fortifying. The occasional plasma volley would fly our way, but Snark could call out a warning for us more often than not, taking out one or two Covenant soldiers before they could fire.
"They're SpecOps," Snark said. "Grunts are armored and they're being dragged behind cover when I hurt them."
"I thought you only shot to kill," I said.
"Well, they're fucking armored, sir."
I chuckled.
"Flood," Grass warned in a low growl.
The other Warthog fired first, taking out a squad of rushing combat forms, most of them elites. At the same time the Covenant units on the other side of the rock formation opened fire, but not at us. The shields on the combat forms held just long enough until they could take cover behind some boulders. Plasma grenades flew out in our direction, lifting dust and dirt and blocking our vision. We both accelerated and switched positions, but we were pummeled with plasma weaponry from the Flood. I cursed and ducked as I saw a blue bolt fly at us, Snark pressed his back against the seat and the bolt flew in front of me and over my back, missing both of us.
"Whoa!"
"Watch for grenades!" Grass shouted.
I turned to the left, hard.
"Sentinels!"
The other Warthog braked hard to avoid an explosion, making themselves a prime target for the Flood and the Sentinels. The gunner was hit three or four times and fell out of the 'Hog when they accelerated again, dead or dying. The passenger cursed and began climbing out of the open roof while the driver accelerated away from the enemy fire.
"Johnson! We need an assist!" I shouted into my helmet radio.
The man didn't reply, but a few seconds later three Scorpions turned their main cannons our way and fired on the Flood, reducing them to that ugly brown mush that was already making me gag. The Sentinels, on the other hand, were still up there. I swerved and banked when they fired while struggling to keep it steady when Snark fired back. Grass was doing a fine job of discouraging them, but they were far enough away that aiming the massive chaingun wasn't an easy task.
Two Sentinels exploded and another four were shot down as missiles flew at them from the small hilltop that our forces had taken. The rest of them slowed their assault and fired a couple of inaccurate sustained bursts our way. We began speeding back towards our lines, only breathing easily once we passed through the outer lines of Marines.
"Johnson, why are we stopping?" I asked, hopping of the 'Hog and taking off my helmet. "Johnson!"
"We have too many wounded, son," he replied. "They're slowing us down."
"Can we take those barriers down?" I asked, pointing at the outer wall. "If we could pull them back…"
"Commander Keyes has all our birds on standby, but we can't take down the shields from here. There are two nodes within our range. There's reason to believe that the Covenant are heading towards the closest one."
"How do we know that?" I asked.
"Some of our drones spotted a Phantom flying towards a hole in the wall a few hours ago," he said. "Right before it was shot down."
"How are our drones here faring?" I asked him.
"Not too good, they're faster than the Sentinels, but they're being actively hunted down."
"Shit. Any word on help from the Master Chief?"
"No word yet," he said. "Keyes said that if the wall goes down she'll bring the In Amber Clad through for support."
"What if the wall goes back up?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Then the Flood is trapped in here with us."
I snorted. "That's not how I'd put it."
"My, my, Lieutenant. I didn't think you'd back away from a challenge."
I suppressed myself from rolling my eyes, especially considering the fact that my helmet was off. I sighed and said nothing, instead moving back to my unit as the shrieks from the Flood became louder and the cries of agony intensified. We were close to the inner wall now, just a little push to get there and then some more to reach the Library.
We weren't even halfway there.
"Good news boys and girls!" Johnson said as soon as I reached my men. "We have five hundred thousand tons of pure UNSC might headed our way. Keyes is going to torch the ground between us and the inner wall."
There was a stunned pause and then cheering.
"About time those swabbies finally did something," Crow muttered, looking up at the dark sky.
"Damn right," Longworth agreed.
We heard the explosion before the missile. It was weird, the Archer was traveling faster than the speed of sound, so we saw it hit, heard the explosion, then heard the missile streaking through the air, and then felt the shockwaves. The process was repeated three times before we saw the UNSC In Amber Clad approaching in all her glory, meager as it might be when compared to a Covenant ship. I cheered as loud as any other guy, whooping when the explosions made huge craters and burned hostile Flood forms, leaving them useless. Here and there a Sentinel was caught by the explosion and were reduced to useless scraps.
"Move out!"
This time we had Pelicans covering us from above, firing heavy machine gun rounds into anything that was moving outside of our perimeter. Our wounded were being all put together in the middle of the circle and a single Pelican came down to pick up the most critical of the wounded before we got to the inner wall. Once there everybody spread out a little bit, making a nearly impenetrable perimeter. My own men took cover behind a rocky outcrop and aimed down at the outside, hoping nothing would crawl through the death land that the In Amber Clad, now floating above us, had created.
"Can the Flood reach that?" Lady asked nervously.
"No," Grass assured her. "Not without aircraft."
Everyone instinctively looked in the direction of the three Pelicans that were currently grounded and being filled with the wounded and the dead. The hangar jockeys would not be happy about having to unload so many dead men and women and just leaving them in the floor. We, on the other hand, were very happy at not having to deal with familiar faces on our Warthogs or Scorpions.
"Everyone! We move in ten. Commander Keyes will be joining us."
I groaned, but this time I wasn't the only one. Mutterings of doubt and disagreement were raised by all the survivors. Having an officer of her rank on the ground for a combat mission was not completely unheard of, but in these circumstances… And her wanting to be here, too. It was going to be hard to keep her safe.
"Johnson," I began.
"I can't change her mind, son. I want your unit to escort hers alongside some of my men."
I sighed and looked down, kicking a loose rock down the short outcrop. I turned to look at the door that would lead us through the inner wall and then at the Pelicans as they took off. "Understood," I said.
More Pelicans flew sorties, dropping a ridiculous amount of ammunition as well as a few additional Warthogs and another Scorpion that hadn't participated in the initial attack, bolstering our numbers up somewhat. More importantly, two flatbed trucks with barricades and defensive equipment were deployed to follow us. Not that anybody intended to actually use the barricades, but those trucks were damn hard to kill and would house our wounded. Not as good as Armadillos or Tortoises, but the frigate apparently didn't carry any of those.
"How's everyone doing?" I asked my team.
"Good," Pavel replied. Sarcasm was obviously evident.
"Snark?" I asked.
"My neck hurts really bad, El-tee. Painkillers aren't doing much for me."
"Can you fight through it?" I asked him.
"Don't I always?"
"Good. Lady?"
She sighed. "I'm in a bit of pain. I didn't think it was that bad, but I might've pulled something."
I nodded. If she of all people was admitting to it then it meant it was bad enough that most regular humans would be content to sit down for a couple of days.
"Anything to report?" I asked.
Shaking heads.
"We're escorting the commander," I told them. "I don't know Keyes but I assume that she can shoot straight. Better than a cop but not as good as a jarhead. Our main priority is to keep her from getting herself killed. Our secondary priority is to keep any hostiles from killing her. See how they intersect?"
Nods.
"Johnson with us?" Pavel gruffly asked.
I nodded back. "His squad and ours will be working together for the rest of this operations. For the most part at least."
"Who's on babysitter duty?" Caboose asked.
I hesitated. I needed Snark, but he was obviously in a lot of pain from the wound in his neck. Lady was the obvious choice, but we usually preferred to have at least two men on our VIP.
"Lady," I said. "We'll rotate, but I'm putting Crow for starters."
He nodded, hefting his SPANKr and putting it over his shoulder, grabbing instead his MA5K.
"We still have the 'Hog," I said. "We'll be staying close though. Snark and Grass, you're with me. Pavel, you'll take care of the rest, coordinate with Johnson."
"Sounds good to me," he said, checking his venerable M247L for obstructions before slapping the bolt down hard. He was in a bad mood.
No wonder, he hadn't seen his wife in months and the same held true for his daughter. What made him angrier though, was their presence in Sol just as a Covenant fleet attacked. Granted, we beat them back, but that didn't mean much. They'd come back with even larger numbers and we were missing the greatest battle fought on this side of the galaxy. I imagined hundreds of ODPs taking down an equal number of Covenant ships while the Home Fleet struggled to hold off the invaders.
I shook my head, trying to get rid of those thoughts. Any victory we could get could hardly be called so. I just hoped that enough civilians had been evacuated, that way we could let them land on the planet and make liberal use of nuclear weapons, destroying their forces without fear of killing our own. The Covenant would regret the invasion for sure, but we wouldn't be any better.
And here we were, on who knows which side of the galaxy and fighting against zombies, ancient robots, and the old-fashioned Covenant aliens. From the sound of things, the Covenant had gotten a pretty decent-sized force through the wall and were now trying to get to the inner wall before we did. Unfortunately for us, that most likely meant that they wouldn't thin out the ranks of the Flood, but swell them instead. It was that delicious irony that only a true cynic could find humorous.
"That's Keyes," Grass said, pointing at a Pelican that was coming down.
We approached the bird just as Commander Miranda Keyes stepped out, clad in her grey uniform. She hadn't even changed into fatigues. I knew that Navy officers' uniforms had plates and fabrics that were designed to increase your chance of survival in case you found yourself in the middle of an exploding ship, but then again, so did the Marine battle dress. I shook my head slowly as she examined an M7 SMG and proceeded to have a short conversation with Johnson.
"We're ready to move on your word ma'am," Johnson told her. "Castillo's and my men will be by you every step of the way."
"Good, we have no time to waste," she said. "We have to get there before the Covenant."
"Stacker! Banks!" Johnson shouted. "You heard the commander, we're moving out! Take point through the doorway!"
Two squads of grizzled Marines moved up even as four Pelicans descended upon our Scorpions attaching them to their cargo bays and leapfrogging them over the inner wall. Our Warthogs dashed through the gate alongside one lone Scorpion and the remainder of our forces followed. Johnson looked at me and gave me a quick nod before slapping another magazine into his battle rifle and clearing his throat.
"Let's go men! We've some zombies to kill!"
Thanks to Colonel-Commissar2468 and General TheDyingTitan for proofreading this chapter.
Good one, don't you think? My betas seemed to think so. I have to say that I agree with them. The Flood is one of the scariest enemies that you could possibly face. I clearly remember the first time I played Halo: Combat Evolved (after playing Halo 2) and came across the little potato-looking things. I panicked so bad that I started shaking and sweating, but I fought those fuckers off like the badass that I was and still am. Thing is, my brother and I called them radishes. We would see them coming and I'd shout: "Radishes coming at us!" They do look very much like a vegetable, especially in an old TV with the Halo: CE graphics. Not that I'm complaining, I loved every minute of it.
The guys in my story don't. They're being slaughtered and have no idea how to fight against an enemy like this. Johnson does, but he can't carry several hundred men behind him. With a few of the ODSTs killed before the battle even began and yet more killed when helping John-117 beat the shit out of Regret, it is left to out squad of heroes and Johnson's squad of badasses to lead the way. Sure, a few tons of tank here and there might help, but we all know how that ends. After all, the level Quarantine Zone in Halo 2 isn't full of human vehicles for no reason.
1: I've read that it was pointing up, but then again my source might be wrong.
outcast's redeemer: I think you've mentioned this song before but I've forgotten to reply to your comment. It's a good song, in fact, I have it right on my computer. Should listen to it soon... However, I'm feeling like Frank might mix things up a little music-wise next chapter. I do love me some Katy Perry *wink wink*
just curious: I was going for an ACOG kind of look in my head, but to be fair, it isn't really a big deal. But yeah, you're basically right about the look.
A lot of people are getting bad feelings here. A few more and we might think ourselves in a Star Wars convention (nerd joke that really shouldn't be obscure). Anyways, it does make sense to get bad feelings. After all, this is fucking zombies created by an infinitely advanced race out of spite. They're unbeatable is what they are, even after the firing of the Halo Array those fuckers were still there. As for the bad feelings, you're all safe for now... as for what the next chapter shall bring, that I cannot tell you just yet.
Stay strong.
-casquis