Chapter CCXXIV: Salang
November 11, 2552 (UNSC Calendar)/
Salang Pass, Afghanistan, Earth, Sol System
"THe human skin is but a weave of pain and boredom; you cannot rest from one of those sufferings without falling in the other one." – Jaime Sully
"Well, I'll be damned," I said, looking at the tunnel. It ran the length of the side of the mountain, with columns instead of a wall. That wasn't the entirety of the tunnel, but it was a good portion of it. "I don't know if that makes it easier or harder to collapse."
"Why do you say that?" Miranda asked.
"We'll draw them in through the tunnel," I said.
"It bypasses the pass, higher up," Grass told her. "It can fit a lot of people there."
"I see…" she muttered. "So we don't have to blow it all up, do we?"
I shook my head. "Just the sides right there and the ends, seal them in. Might even drop in some canisters of poison for the kicker," I told her.
"How are we going to draw them all in? They'll suspect foul play," Pavel said.
"It'll have to be quick," Caboose spoke up. "Let them gain the whole tunnel quickly. Maybe a chase or something, throw in a couple of weak barricades. Once they're at the very end we stop them, blow it up."
"Sounds risky," one of the other ODSTs said. "A lot can go wrong. It's a long tunnel. Almost three clicks long."
"We'll have support for this one," I said. "Bagram Airfield."
"I'm not sure, sir," the man said. "They might throw us to the wolves. It's what they did in Kabul once it became clear it was going to fall."
"What happens once we move out of Salang?" another trooper asked.
"We'll probably be on our way east," Pavel said. "If they link up with the forces on the north they'll go back to Kabul, regroup there and then head east to Pakistan."
"So we're really just stalling for those guys on the border?"
"Yeah," I said. "And we need to do a great job of it."
"If we hold them long enough maybe they'll launch an offensive, link up with us instead?"
I laughed. "We'd need to hold them for a solid month at least. That's not going to happen. If the Covenant fought with any concern for their lives maybe we could stretch it a week or two, but we'll be on our way out of here in three days at the most."
"How do you know that, sir?"
"I've been doing this a long time," I replied.
My own men didn't seem particularly comfortable with my words, but they knew it well. Still, sometimes men liked to hear everything was going to be alright. It was good for morale. But it was worse for morale if they thought everything was going to be alright before suddenly realizing they had been lied to. Strained leadership's position.
"We're landing!" the pilot said. "Moving up to the other side."
"Alright, move out!" I ordered. "Let's go!"
Tarkov was right there, landing on the Pelican before ours. He spoke briefly with a wounded sergeant before turning in my direction and striding like he meant it.
"Castillo, we moved half our forces through to the other side and twenty men up to the pass proper. The Covenant are going to be here in a few minutes."
Well, the two passes were technically within sight of each other.
"Are we blowing the tunnel?" I asked.
"Yeah, we're drawing them in, stalling them. We might have to give them the pass, though."
"The pass is where we stall them, Tarkov," I said. "Otherwise they can just move their ground forces up the top."
"Still, it'll take them a few extra days," he told me. "We don't have the capabilities to hold Salang Pass. There's no defensive emplacements there, Command is not giving us much else. We have our tanks, the IFVs and that's about it."
"They're your men, Tarkov, but we need to give them time."
He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I'm not putting them through any more if I can avoid it."
I grinded my teeth together before giving him a short and curt nod. "Very well. Have you started setting explosives on the tunnel?"
"The men just started," he said. "It should take around an hour to get the whole tunnel rigged."
"The covvies are pretty much around the corner," I said.
"Then we'd better get moving."
I sighed and turned around to my squad, examining the men that Tarkov had put under my command as they looked at me with looks of expectation.
"Alright men, we stay outside the tunnel and hold back for exactly one hour! We're going to be moving back through the tunnel at a brisk jog once the rigging is done, draw them in. This is vital, we need to sell it. BY that I mean that everyone here needs to get as many kills as possible. Think of it as a contest, shall you? Whoever wins and doesn't die is the best. Everyone else is a rotten chicken."
"Talk about inspirational," Pavel said as the men began moving. "At least we got some barricades. And an extra Warthog."
I looked at the vehicle. That's the one that my men and me would be using to move out at the end of this little holding action. Five men 'Hog with a nice little roll cage. Pavel on the back with Caboose and Miranda, Grass in the front with me on the wheel. There was a Scorpion inside the tunnel, just far back enough that it could fire down the road without hitting us. Another Warthog with your standard turret remained there. The three vehicles were going to be the last thing, plugging this thing shut and firing on the Covenant as they came at us. They'd have to send Choppers and Ghosts at some point, try and take us out. Hopefully our Scorpion would keep everything at bay.
It was at that moment that I realized that the Warthogs were there as a shield in case they got a Daemon to get a shot at the tank while inside the tunnel.
I groaned.
"They're here!"
That they were. Prowlers and Ghosts. They opened up on our fortified positions as soon as they got there. The Scorpion hit the two lead Prowlers right as they sent their troops down. One of them exploded, the other one just stalled as the shell tore its back apart. The turret was still usable though, we' d have to keep an eye on it.
"Keep an eye on the turret!" I shouted. "Miranda, that's you. Don't let the Ghosts move up, keep them boxed down the road."
The road wasn't very wide. It had been built five hundred years ago, same as the tunnel. Sure, there had been several hundred renovations and other similar construction projects to modernize the road and tunnel, but it didn't take from the fact that it was some new pieces on a 1980 chassis. Not a terribly good one at that. I mean, it had probably been a fine engineering project back in the day, but nowadays it was pretty ugly. People used it, but only because they had to. Mostly tribesmen moving around from one side of the Kush to the other I think. I'm no expert in Afghan geography.
"Get down!"
Heavy plasma blasts hit the top of the tunnel sending some rock down. An ODST was hit in the shoulder and cursed. From the chatter I could tell that his collarbone had been broken pretty bad. It wasn't good to lose an able body so soon, especially to things like that. Still, the men moved forward a little bit, looking at the rocks above with wary eyes. I also directed a look to our right at the snow on the slopes. It wasn't a lot, it was still early for the heavy snows, but there was enough for a decent sized avalanche.
"Grass, can you tell me where it's likely that the snow is about to fall," I asked. "To our right. Avalanche."
"I'm not a mountaineer, Frank," she replied, firing a suppressive burst.
"Can you or can't you?"
She sighed. "I can give it a shot."
"And that is why we have a multidisciplinary genius on the team," I chanted. "Thanks, darling."
"Mhmm," she muttered.
A needle whistled past my head and I ducked behind one of our few metal barricades. We'd been lucky to have this much gear given to us. Hopefully we'd get some more help.
"Castillo!" Tarkov called out. "I've got word from Bagram. They're evacuating the base. We're getting Pelicans to evacuate us and a flight of SkyHawks to help hold the line and escort us out, but that's it!"
Not terribly bad for an engagement, but this was supposed to be a holding action. Now it seemed like we were trapped here when instead we could've simply flied east to avoid this whole battle.
"I know," he continued. "I told them to go fuck themselves too. Command had decided to put in all our chips on the Khyber Pass."
"Pakis must not be very happy about that," I said. "Hell, I'm not happy about this!"
Sometimes it was easy to forget that you were in the middle of a firefight when you got really angry at the brass. Usually they knew best, but that didn't mean that a few hundred men didn't get screwed over in the process.
A steady wave of bullets was flying downhill towards the Covenant, but the return fire was growing by the second. We had the luxury of virtually unlimited ammunition and solid cover emplacements, but with every Ghost we destroyed the Covenant had more to take cover behind. It was harder with the Prowlers, they were too thick for anything less than a Scorpion shot to bust through and could hide a couple of squads behind it.
Pavel was spraying down the road, hitting the squads as they moved up and peppering the Prowlers with fire in order to slow them down a bit. Tarkov's men were doing pretty much the same thing, but they weren't as effective as my best friend was. My own squad tried to set the pace in other areas, but I found that Tarkov ran a tight ship. His men were well trained and disciplined. The five Afghans that had remained with us were helping prepare for the retreat while occasionally shooting downhill to help us out. They were mostly occupied setting the explosives near the mouth of the tunnel and calling in targets for the Scorpion.
"Frank, I can't really tell with this angle, but the snow up there, down by that ridge, seems close to falling."
"Obviously not too close, if this noise isn't bringing it down," I muttered. "Thanks, Grass. Scorpion?"
She looked back over her shoulder and then shrugged. "He's certainly got the angle."
"Alright," I sighed. "I'm calling it in."
The Scorpion pilot put the order in the backburner, it didn't make sense to do that right now, considering how many smaller vehicles the Scorpion was targeting right now. I traced the road as it went down and then curved to our left before disappearing down to the right. We were lucky to have the higher ground and cover. From here we could hit them with near impunity, it was only dangerous once they turned the curve and were in front and not to our side. Our Scorpion was our biggest asset, it had an angle on all Covenant positions except those it couldn't see. There was a brief pause in the enemy advance and the tank fired. It fired slightly to the left, right above the road as it curved back here except several hundred feet up the steep slope. The round detonated with a dull bang that echoed over the mountains, barely audible over the rest of the racket. For a moment nothing happened, but it didn't take long for the consequences to show.
At first it was only a few rocks, which surprised me considering it wasn't snow, but the white goodness came a few seconds later. It became clear that it wasn't a simple avalanche, the Scorpion had triggered a rockslide, an avalanche, and had combined them both. I raised an eyebrow as the snow and rocks flew down and hit the road, burying the Covenant forces under tons of mud and snow. That wasn't the whole damage though, the edge of the road was torn off and brought down the cliff. Not that it meant much, since the other section was buried under mud and snow. We had slowed their advance.
"Good call, Grass," I said, patting her shoulder appreciatively before giving it a light squeeze. "Wow, that was impressive. Very impressive."
Cheers flooded the mouth of the tunnel as everyone complimented the Scorpion tanker before he very graciously gave the credit to me who in turn bestowed it upon Grass. By that point the emotion had died and she didn't get nearly as many comments as the Scorpion guy had gotten, but she was still close to beaming. In Reaper people didn't get many compliments, no matter how impressive the feat was. People rarely good genuine compliments from me, whenever I told them that they had done a good job I made sure that it sounded professional and polite, not genuine. I don't know why I did that, it wasn't truly necessary, but it made every compliment I gave them all the worthier.
I felt like an asshole. She should've been very proud of her achievement, especially considering just how much she had stalled the enemy advance, but the fact that she had the body language of a girl that had just gotten her first kiss really did tell me that I probably should act differently.
Oh well, it was too late for that now.
"Sometimes I think you're bipolar," Schitzo said.
I chuckled.
"Oh shush," Schitzo told me with a smile. "You know what I mean."
Rocks fell down on us as a Wraith fired at the slope above. It was too wide a miss for it to have been an accident. They were obviously trying to give us the same treatment we had applied on their sorry little butts. I looked up with concern, but I knew that the Afghan Road Authority or whatever had kept the area directly above the tunnel mouth particularly clear of debris. Sure, the snow was a factor you couldn't always take care of, but you didn't want a rockslide blocking the tunnel entrance and then hundreds of commuters to die of carbon monoxide poisoning.
"If they're all driving trucks from four hundred years ago, maybe," Schitzo said, annoyed.
More and more shots began coming in above us. Snow, steam, and water landed on us, but it was really the rocks and pebbles that bothered me. Nothing large enough to kill or even hurt too seriously, but I didn't want more people with broken collarbones. Still, for the time being it was enough that the Covenant weren't firing on us directly while the Scorpion took out the two Wraiths that were within sight. The tanker then fired one warning shot at the edge of the road before it curved again out of sight. After that it was only a matter of us working to slow down and kill the ones past the slide.
The covvies weren't particularly stupid about what came next. They sped past the Scorpion in Ghosts. Strangely, these Ghosts happened to be carrying two grunts. The little animals weren't worth a sniper round and at this range it was hard to hit them without a battle rifle. I set myself to work, but they had already put up some deployable covers. They began digging by hand, but the Covenant had diggers that were as good as ours.
It would take them hours to get one up here. Grass had given us a huge score.
"Good one," I repeated. "They're going to need to dynamite that or bring diggers."
"And dynamite could make it worse," she finished.
It bought us less time than I expected. I cursed when I saw two Locust walkers turn the corner. They were moving fast, skittering like bugs around the highway. Their shields flashed multiple times as they were targeted. One of them was almost tipped over when the Scorpion hit it, but its shields held. The two Locusts made it to the rockslide and began firing. Their cannons melted through the snow and broke down the rock. They kept firing, moving up behind the cover of the shiny little fucking walls that the grunts had set up while the little uglies cleared out the rubble from the road. They were making incredibly fast progress.
"How are we on the charges?" I asked Tarkov.
"Five more minutes," he replied. "We're basically set."
"I want those two Locusts gone before we start moving back," I said. "I hate the walkers."
"Don't we all?" Tarkov replied with a grunt. "I don't usually talk this much, Lieutenant."
"I'm sorry?"
He grunted something intelligible and resumed his work. He was firing an old DMR, a battered thing. I frowned before realizing that it was one of the Afghan Army rifles, it had a different color scheme and everything. His M7 SMG was strapped to his back until things got more personal. I noticed that most of his men carried the weapon that ODSTs were most identified with. Weird, despite the glamour of that weapon I didn't know lots of men who liked it. It was as great as they came for close quarters, but we rarely got to use it to its full capacity and it didn't have much versatility outside of house-to-house urban combat.
"Leave that to me, sir!" the tanker chimed in eagerly.
The Scorpion managed to take one of the two Locusts out before they moved through the slide completely. By that point most of our men had already evacuated to the first line of defense, two thirds of the way through the tunnel. Remaining behind were four of Tarkov's men counting the lieutenant himself, three Afghan soldiers, and my own squad. It was the exact number of people we could mount on our vehicles while still managing to keep the vehicles fully operational.
The tank killed the second Locust, but already a swarm of Covenant vehicles was making their way through the highway and the recently cleared pass. They moved slow, ripe for the picking, but they were more than we could kill. We all prepared to fall back when we needed to.
"Tarkov?" I asked.
"Wait."
I shrugged and waited, burning through my ammunition reserves as brutes ran to our position, seemingly forsaking all cover in order to get here as fast as possible. The occasional carbine or needle rifle round would streak past us through our left, but we had stopped firing on them, instead focusing on slowing down the onslaught coming directly to us. Had we had more numbers and time we would've killed scores of them as they moved through the highway below and to our side, but we needed to spring this trap quickly and leave if we wanted the airspace to still be clear. Salang was still covered by a couple of SAMs, but the little stunt that the Covenant had pulled off had still knocked out enough batteries that they could sneak in air support.
"Cover the right side!" Pavel shouted. "They're massing behind the Prowler!"
"I want someone on that jackal!" I ordered, shifting my fire. "Miranda, why are those sharpshooters still alive?"
"I'm on it, sir!"
Green explosions suddenly threw her back. She shook her head on the floor and scurried backwards as fast as she could, taking cover. One of Tarkov's men had to dive for his life when a plasma grenade landed right next to him. They were getting too close.
"Tarkov?" I asked again.
"It's time," he said.
"Alright everyone fall back!" I shouted. "Let's go!"
The first person was one of the ODSTs, he climbed on the Warthog and began firing the LAAG at the enemy infantry with as little discrimination as he could manage. The three Afghans moved back while firing their rifles before hopping on board the Scorpion. Normally one of them would've manned the turret, but this tank was one of the versions with a coaxial machine gun. Another of Tarkov's men hopped on board the last available spot in the Scorpion while the rest of us moved back at a slow pace, firing our weapons.
I turned on the ignition and the Scorpion's engine roared as it began moving backwards. The Covenant realized what was going on and began their pursuit. Nine or ten brutes died at the mouth of the tunnel as the Scorpion fired its machine gun and Tarkov's Warthog used its LAAG to great effect. My own men, Miranda in particular, targeted them with a greater degree of precision. Pavel secured his own M247L and prepared to use it. They were naked back there in the roll cage of the Warthog and they knew it.
It didn't take long for Ghosts and Prowlers to be sent after us, and once that happened the chase was on. Our tank was struggling to target and hit all the Covenant vehicles as we moved through the narrow tunnel. My head vibrated with every single shot and the tunnel seemed to rock violently with the explosions. Tarkov's 'Hog fired almost continuously, with the man on the gun attempting to take out whichever vehicles the Scorpion wasn't targeting.
Pavel was firing short bursts, aiming for the grunts and brutes piloting the Ghosts. He wasn't having much success, but he was discouraging them from moving too close. Miri was the one that managed to hit more of the drivers. Occasionally I would catch a glimpse of a brute's skull flying in pieces through my rearview mirror. She was a good shot. It impressed me just how far she had come from that shy girl that I first saw. She still had some of that in her, but the way things were going it would soon disappear and she'd be just as jaded as the rest of us.
The columns on our left flashed by. I knew that they'd soon become a wall as the tunnel actually went into the mountain instead of just on its side. I turned to look at them and the mountains beyond, but just as I examined the sight a blast from something hit one of the columns and pieces of rock landed all over the two Warthogs. I cursed as a rock hit the side of my head, making me turn the wheel and nearly slamming into the wall.
"Shit!" I cursed.
A second blast hit the ceiling of the tunnel and this time the rocks hit me in the back of the head, making me hit the wheel and flooding the tunnel with the sound of the horn. I cursed again, this time in Spanish as I punched the wheel with my left hand. Tarkov stalled just as a fuel rod blast landed in front of his 'Hog, right where he would've been had he not slowed down. The explosions were being caused by Banshee fliers coming at us through the sides.
"How long until there's a wall between us?" Pavel asked.
"Just a little bit more!"
The Scorpion fired one shot, taking out a Banshee before it could fire on us, but allowing the ground vehicles inside the tunnel to gain some ground. Tarkov's gunner was grazed by a shot from a Chopper. It was merely a graze, but those rounds were large and they left his whole side bleeding and torn. He cursed and sat down, pressing his side to stop the bleeding.
Everyone was cursing. More so than usual.
The ODST on the passenger seat turned around and climbed back to the turret, being careful to avoid stepping on his friend. He fired a long burst at the Banshees as they came at us again, but the last portion of the burst embedded itself against the tunnel wall. Safe at last. Only from the Banshees, but it was a start.
Now we had to contend with the ever-increasing number of Ghosts and Choppers chasing at us. They had to boost in order to keep up, but once they did they'd stop to fire a few solid bursts at us. We could usually swerve to avoid them, letting them hit the ceiling or simply fly past us, but they'd get one lucky shot eventually and that's all it took to kill a man. The Scorpion was great at slowing it down, but with the four men on board it couldn't absorb the punishment that we'd have to take. Just a little bit more until the next outpost, once there we'd be able to hop off, kill all the vehicles and maybe spread out. I hope they had left at least a Warthog there waiting for us. One of those IFVs would've been ideal though.
We slowed down before reaching the barricade. The Scorpion stopped to let the men hop off and us on the Warthogs pass through. Several heavy plasma bolts hit the frontal armor, scarring the tank with black scorch marks. I stopped the 'Hog and dusted myself off, clearing the floor of some pebbles that had made driving more complicated than I would've liked. Pavel was cursing as he reloaded his weapon. Miranda and Caboose were quieter, but Grass immediately began ordering the few men in the barricade to prepare to cover the entire tunnel with bullets as soon as the Scorpion passed them. I saw what looked like an abandoned pickup truck waiting to move some of the men along with the Mongooses. It was enough to carry everyone out of here without the need to put men on the Scorpion.
"I don't care what you hit as long as it's something!" Grass shouted.
Tarkov was barking something in Hungarian to his men as they moved the Warthog up so that the Scorpion could pass before settling into a position that allowed them to fire down the tunnel. The man grabbed his wounded underling and helped him up on the back of the pickup truck just as all of our guns lit the tunnel up. It was loud. Incredibly so.
It only got louder as the Scorpion joined, mostly with machine gun fire, but the occasional shell would send vibrations down my spine, making everything seem out of focus for a moment.
Explosion after explosion came as the Covenant vehicles exploded. I saw Shadow transports drop of troops that took cover behind the wrecks and returned fire. They had mostly heavy weaponry in order to bust through our defenses, but they couldn't get enough troops in the tunnel with the Scorpion racking up an insanely high kill count.
"How's your side?" Pavel asked.
"Better," I told him. "It burns."
"You need a hospital."
"There'll be one at Khyber Pass. From what Tarkov says it is a fortress right now."
"You'll need new armor as well."
"That can be managed."
"…Any word from those ONI guys?"
I shook my head. "Not last time I checked. I'll be sure to let you know once we are on the air."
"Alright. This is my family Frank, I need to know."
"They're fine," I assured him. They have to be.
Blast after blast of plasma launchers and fuel rods hammered away at our defenses, slowly chipping them away until we began sending some of the men back. They took the machine guns with them, we weren't willing to abandon those valuable resources just yet. Pavel and the gunner on the Warthog were lifting most of the weight here, but Miranda and I were doing a lot as well, shooting away at the grunts with our rifles. I had switched back the Oracle scope to the regular one on my battle rifle and I could feel it as it bounced around inside one of my empty pouches. I felt it hit a can of something when an explosion blasted the portion of the barricade I was taking cover behind and sent me a full three meters backwards, landing on my ass.
"Fuck!" I cursed, loudly. "The hell?"
"Daemon!"
"Get out of here!"
Caboose pulled me to my feet and nearly tossed me towards the Warthog as the Scorpion began rolling backwards. Pavel and Grass hopped on right after I did, pulling Miri up as I began moving forward. Tarkov got his two men on board the Warthog and they began shooting, but their bullets were ineffective as they bounced off the sloped armor on the Covenant heavy tank. Both tanks fired at each other nearly simultaneously, but the armor held on both ends.
I rolled my neck, the Daemon had a stronger armor than the Scorpion. It usually took about three or four shots to bring it down, while the Scorpion could be put out of the fight with one or two shots.
"Get behind me!" the tanker shouted as a second shot nearly destroyed Tarkov's Warthog. "I got this!"
I didn't hesitate to comply. The tank could sacrifice itself for us and I'd be more than happy to let him do it if it meant that my men survived this. I accelerated through the left and took cover, leaving enough room for Pavel to fire over the tank's treads as much as he needed to.
"That's the end of it!" I said.
"Not just yet!"
"The tunnel, you fucking moron!"
The Daemon fired, hitting the back tread of the tank on our side. The explosion sent the Warthog flying, nearly tipping it over. I struggled to keep the vehicle upright as it balanced precariously on two wheels. My men used their weight as leverage, but we were going too fast for it to make much difference. The tank slowed down a lot, but it got another shot off, hitting the Daemon right next to where it had been hit before. The Scorpion was still moving, miraculously.
Tarkov's Warthog sped by past us and towards the end of the tunnel. The Scorpion and the Daemon each got off a third and final shot, killing each other in two bright fireballs. The shockwave and shrapnel mostly hit the underside of the Warthog. I screamed as I thought we were going to tip over but instead we landed on all four wheels and spun out of control before finally regaining it before crashing against the opposite wall. I whooped, but a brute Chopper fired and hit out rear tire, sending us into yet another rolling sequence. This time we made right before the end of the tunnel before stopping, our front facing the wrong direction.
The brute Chopper was approaching us quickly, bearing down. It stopped firing its cannons and obviously seemed intent on tearing us through pieces with the gears in the middle of the front section that gave it its name. I drew my rifle, propped it up and squeezed off one quick burst after aiming. The bullets flew through the middle of the vehicle and hit the brute driver in the face, killing it.
"Being an asshole goes both ways," I quipped as the Chopper slowed down to a halt next to me.
"Everyone get out!" Pavel shouted. "To the Pelicans!"
It wasn't that simple, of course. It rarely was. Plasma bolts streaked past us as the Ghosts began catching up and hit one of the men waiting for us at the tunnel's exit. Several of the ODSTs were forced to dive for cover and stop moving forward, leaving only one man firing back at the Covenant.
I hopped off the Warthog and took cover behind the gigantic Chopper before moving forward. I dragged the bloodied corpse of the brute out of the seat and hopped on the oversized chair. The Chopper immediately levitated and it turned violently as I moved the controllers. I shook my head and looked through the gap in the middle of the front section, using the crude iron sights to aim down the tunnel before I started firing the heavy cannons.
My first targets were other Choppers as they had the more powerful weapons and were less maneuverable than the Ghosts. I killed one and sent two others running back. One of the brutes I managed to hit with two rounds, tearing its chest and head from the rest of the body. I began moving forward as I fired, trying to regain some ground.
"Get back here!" Pavel shouted. "Frank!"
I ignored him, they needed me to buy them some time. Two Ghosts began approaching and fired at my Chopper. The blasts were mostly harmless as they hit the front section, but a couple nearly hit my head. I fired back at one and moved towards the other, preparing to hit the accelerator that would activate the spinning saw-like gears in the middle of the engine. I screamed loudly as the first Ghost exploded and then hit the button a dozen meters in front of the other vehicle. My neck jerked backwards as the craft accelerated viciously. I prepared myself for the collision but I could barely feel the bump as the spinning blades completely destroyed the small scout vehicle.
I began backing up, firing at other Choppers as they came at me. I managed to destroy two before my own vehicle started putting out smoke, but I didn't want to risk making a run for it this far from the end of the tunnel. I muttered to myself when I saw a Prowler full of brutes approaching me at full speed. I tried backing away faster, but the vehicle was too damaged for more speed. I prepared myself for an impact and hit the boosters just as the enemy vehicle was about to hit mine. The impact was pretty hard, but the spinning blades absorbed enough of the force that I wasn't thrown out of my seat. My Chopper slid backwards for a little bit before coming to a halt.
"Puta…" I groaned, reaching for the side of my head as I dizzily slid sideways. "Damn."
I caught myself before falling down and shook my head.
A brute hopped on top of the Chopper's front section and aimed at me with a needle rifle. It growled something that not even my translator could make any sense off before aiming.
I clicked the boosters and watched as the brute's lower body was completely destroyed by the still-functional blades in the front. I was sprayed with an unhealthy amount of blood, covering me completely in the sticky liquid. I hopped off the seat, alert and ready for the other brutes on the Prowler. Before anything else transpired another Prowler stopped into position next to me. The turret on top spun to face me, but Miranda clocked the brute manning it with two straight headshots.
I shot at the passenger, emptying my mag and bringing it to the ground. Suddenly Caboose was next to me, firing a shell into the wounded brute before pivoting around and hitting the other passenger as it began to come around the front of the vehicle. I shot at the driver with my pistol, sending it scurrying for cover. Caboose chased it down the other side just as two brutes from the first Prowler hopped on either side of me.
I hadn't seen them coming. One of them absorbed the rest of my pistol rounds before batting aside my arm. I kicked it in the balls and slowed it down some, but the second one had already raised its spiker to bring it down on my head.
I could lose my left arm, draw my knife and stick it in his throat before turning around and doing the same to its friend. Shit… This is going to hurt.
The bayonet blades hit my forearm armor, but it was only a light tap. A tomahawk axe had appeared on the head of the brute. The axe was buried pretty deep in the brute's face, almost a third of the blade was out of sight. I grabbed the axe as the brute fell to its knees and turned around, swinging as hard as I could without really aiming at the other alien. I made contact with something and the brute roared. I turned the rest of my body and yanked, pulling the axe from the brute's chest and slamming it down hard on the side of its neck, producing yet more blood to cover myself with.
I looked down at a large ODST on the other side of the useless Chopper. He was still awkwardly holding his rifle from when he had thrown the axe to save my ass. One of Tarkov's men. I gave him a nod of thanks and respect before tossing his weapon back to him. He deftly caught it in a reverse grip and put it in a specially made sheathe before nodding in return.
Caboose appeared on the other side of the Prowler.
"You're getting sloppy," I said.
"I can't be everywhere at once," he countered.
I looked at my forearm armor where there were two considerably deep scratches and shrugged to myself before the three of us began moving back to the exit of the tunnel. I hopped past the flaming Scorpion as plasma flew out direction. Some of the other ODSTs had moved up to fire in return while Tarkov was organizing the surviving men. One of the Mk. 87s was being clamped into a Pelican as the wounded from the pickup truck climbed up into the cargo bay. The Pelican began taking off, but as it flew into the distance it was hit by several plasma blasts, producing smoke from its right wing. I couldn't see whether it crashed or not, but the lack of hails probably meant that they had made it out safe, even if injured.
I ran faster, but I could only watch as heavy bolts from an unseen source pounded the pickup truck, making it explode. Several of the men were hit, mostly Afghan troops who had tried to return fire, but a few of the ODSTs still there were also wounded and killed. The Pelicans on the ground tried taking off, but one of them was destroyed before it could get off and the other one was hit several times before it could escape, bringing it down near the entrance of the tunnel. Several ODSTs climbed inside, trying to see if the pilots were still alive.
"Goddamnit," Pavel shouted. "Back into the tunnel. Get that 'Hog behind cover!"
Tarkov shouted something in Hungarian as well, urging his men to find refuge from whatever Covenant craft was shooting at them from the side of the mountain. I slowed down to a stop and fired back at the numerous vehicles and soldiers that were approaching. I jogged back to the Scorpion and took cover behind it. Caboose and the other ODST joined me and the three of us opened fire, seeking to stall the enemy while we figured out a way to take out the Covenant ship on the outside so that we could blow this tunnel to kingdom come.
"Tarkov, how were the explosives rigged?" I shouted over the roar of my rifle.
"Single switch!" he shouted. "We needed to bring it down all at once!"
"Fuck me!"
We could've stopped the flow of enemies. Even if we didn't get as many we would still block the road for long enough and could focus on the gunship or whatever.
"Someone get some rockets on that Phantom!" Pavel shouted. "Who has rockets?"
"They're in that Pelican over there!" someone replied.
"Fucking hell," he cursed.
The other Pelican was a good hundred meters of open ground away from the closest one and nearly twice as that from my own position. We still had the Warthog, which could provide for a viable option, but Warthog on a straight path with no cover against the Phantom would end up dead no matter what. There was a small possibility that the jeep could make it through intact enough that one or two men could climb out of the wreck and into the Pelican, retrieving the SPANKrs and hitting the Phantom. Once it was gone we would haul ass and call in an evac.
"Tarkov, where are those gunships we were promised?" I asked.
"The SkyHawks just called in, they were engaged by Seraphs ten minutes out! Two of them managed to keep heading our way."
"And our exfil?"
"I'm contacting Bagram, th- Shit! Someone suppress those turrets!"
The Covenant had stopped brazenly advancing now they knew they had us pinned down against an anvil. They'd simply take their time and bring in the heavy weaponry. I hit two jackals trying to move up to a destroyed Chopper and ducked behind as the return fire suppressed me. Caboose was spraying brutes with his carbine while the other ODST fires his MA5B. He had propped it up on the Scorpion with a bipod. That brought a raised eyebrow. Nobody had bipods unless they were sporting a DMR or SRS-99. We were doing a fairly good job, taking turns and popping out of cover at intervals, letting each other reload before firing again. We didn't have unlimited ammunition, however, and would need to get more or fall back.
"Frank, we need someo- No you fucker, what the hell are you doing? Stop!"
I turned my head as the Warthog roared, jerking forward violently as the driver floored the accelerator. The driver was alone, having decided to take the risk without consulting anybody else. I shook my head. Two bolts hit the back of the 'Hog before the guns properly zeroed in on the vehicle. It took all of one second before the thing exploded under the sustained fire from three plasma cannons. It had barely made it ten meters in front of the first Pelican.
"Asshole doomed us," Pavel said, rather loudly and offending several of the aforementioned asshole's friends.
"I can't hit the gunners," someone complained.
"They're fucking brutes, that's why. They have overcharged shields."
"Someone thought this through," a third person mentioned.
They had indeed. Showing an unusual degree of resourcefulness for brute-led forces. Not to say that this was an entirely surprising development. The brutes, like all sentient creatures, learned from their mistakes. Maybe they were dull and a lot slower than other races, but despite their ingrained instincts and berserk rage they somehow managed to find the will to survive.
Fucking fuckers.
"Grass, Miranda, get that fucking brute off the gun!" Pavel roared, evidently frustrated. "You, you, help me dismount the door gun from that Pelican!"
I couldn't track their progress, but I did hear multiple curses in various languages. Tarkov was fighting with someone on the other end of the line while most of his men were moving down the tunnel to help hold down the line. Several ODST squads could do wonders about anything that was thrown at them. The men of the 19th were brave, experienced, and best of all: they were Helljumpers.
It was pleasing to work with such a large number of my brethren. None of them were old enough to have been on my training class. I was very surprised that Tarkov and I had come across each other here of all places. Mars would've been more fitting, but it was still surprising. He was a good and able leader from what I had seen of him. I had not seen his actual fighting skills up close, but I assumed that he had considerable talent if his men respected him this much.
His men were good, they fought in a style similar to Reaper. The new Reaper, the last five of us. They moved around a lot, even if the current situation didn't allow for movement I could tell that they were itchy for something to happen that would allow them to use the full extent of their fire and maneuver abilities, but for now they were settling for firing. They shot for long enough that any other Marine would've considered them stupid and reckless, but in reality they just had better situational awareness than most and knew exactly when it was time to get down.
I ducked behind cover before a burst of plasma could hit me.
"I'm out," Caboose said. "No more seven-six-two."
"Keep that buckshot in check," I told him. "How are you on grenades?"
"Two."
I looked down, I had three strapped to my body.
"One for me," the other ODST said.
"Ah shit," I said. "Alright, give me your frags."
"How far can you throw, El-tee?" the man asked. He had a surprisingly deep voice. It reminded me a little bit of Scarecrow. The thought brought back painful memories.
"Give him your grenade," Caboose said.
I had already dropped my rifle and grabbed my first frag. I settled into a nice little baseball pose and tried to remember just exactly what motion Hoff would go through before his throws. Another painful tug at the heartstrings that was, he had been a good man. Strong fighter. I sighed and threw it in the direction of a trio of deployable covers. I could've thrown further, but I didn't want to risk a completely horrible shot. The grenade landed right in front and bounced back a little bit before exploding, taking down the shields.
The ODST to my side took advantage of that and killed the four jackals taking cover. They didn't have time to activate their gauntlets before they died. I repeated the process with different targets, shredding a destroyed Ghost and Chopper before firing further down the enemy lines, attempting to get some direct kills.
"Last one," Caboose said.
"Pavel, how far is the Phantom from our position?"
"A hundred and fifty meters at latest count. It's not coming much closer."
I looked at Caboose. "I can make that throw."
The ODST snorted. "You're telling me you can throw a grenade five hundred feet?"
I ignored him. "Pavs, is it strafing?"
"Heavily. Your aim isn't particularly good, Frank, and you'd need to lob it high up in order to get that distance. It won't land inside. Top explosion won't do the trick."
"Ah well, worth a shot," I sighed, throwing the last grenade down the tunnel.
The explosion marked the last of the grenades in this little trio, but the rest of the ODSTs weren't particularly well stocked on the fragmentation devices. I heard three more explosions before they stopped completely. We were burning through our ammunition and equipment very fast. It wouldn't last much longer, especially considering the numbers that the Covenant could throw at us. They literally had an army on the other side of the tunnel and more coming up.
Soon they began pushing us back. We were forced to take cover further behind and then some. We made them pay with blood. Their dead were astounding. Each ODST here was a crack marksman with his weapon of choice and once they picked a target they didn't miss. The leftover Afghans were providing high-quality supporting fire and pulling their own weight with flying colors. I could see that they had a look of steely determination in their faces. They wanted to make the Covenant pay for their losses. This tunnel was all that was left of UNSC presence in Afghanistan. I knew there'd be some tribesmen hiding in the caves. There probably would be for years unless the Covenant decided to glass this place. It was their modus operandi, so the tribesmen didn't have that long if we lost the fight.
We weren't going to lose this fight. No way in hell. Earth was where the Covenant died.
"Shit, shit, shit," Pavel muttered. "Get out of the Pelican. Leave the gun!"
I saw four men dash out as fast as they could before the Phantom pummeled the crashed dropship with heavy fire. They concentrated on the turbines where the fuel cells were housed. The explosion reduced most if not all of the cover capability that the Pelican, destroying the gun in the back. The four men were all Helljumpers, which meant that the pilots hadn't survived the initial impact.
"Frank, we're going to need a miracle," Grass said.
"When did you get here?" I asked her.
"When you pulled back from there," she replied. "Good to see you."
"Likewise, honey," I said. "We're fucked."
"Yeah…"
"Ideas?"
"I'm dry," she admitted.
"Watch out!"
I turned around to see that the Phantom had closed in and was hovering a few feet above the road. It had a perfect angle to empty all three of its cannons into the tunnel. We were as good as dead.
"Now it comes down?" I exclaimed, annoyed.
Grass cursed in Finnish instead and hopped over cover, exposing herself to the Covenant infantry but securing her survival against the Phantom. It was her call, I guess. Nobody here would survive. I just hoped Tarkov would be able to bring down the tunnel on top of everybody.
I sighed and began sprinting forward, trying to do something. I would never make it before I was gunned down, but it was worth a try. I shot at the brute manning the side plasma cannon, but the alien zeroed in on me faster than I would be able to kill it. Two bolts flew past my head on the right and the next flew to my left. I blinked, preparing myself for the worst. I wondered what death would feel like. It wasn't the first time that had happened and it would be the last. I hoped I could meet my brother there, see what kind of man he would've become. My dad would be waiting there with a cold beer for me, smiling like he did when he was a little bit tipsy without being angry. My men would be standing at attention behind Marina and Hanna, who would both be grinning at seeing me again. Katie wouldn't be there, I wouldn't see her for a long time. While she came I would talk with my men, drink with them, spend time with them. Hanna and Marina would spend endless nights with me as well.
I almost smiled at the thought of making love to both of them at the same time. I could barely see the following blasts as they began closing in on my head. I could, however, see the gas coming out of them and the snarl on the brute's face as it strived to kill me. I didn't really feel the recoil on my shoulder as another burst was fired and I knew that I wasn't floating, that it was just a sprint step and that I would come back to the ground eventually, dead more likely than not.
Scarecrow would greet me right after my family. Knowing the man he would likely embrace me in a bear hug and lift me up. Seeing him would make me unbearably happy. He hadn't been the first man I lost, but George Sutton had been the first one that I truly cared about. After him would come the members of Reaper, Platoon-5, Jaguar Company, AAG-7… Too many people would greet me there, far more than I would've liked. Sometimes I didn't remember which of my friends were dead and alive.
Was Jen alive? I think she was. Dom? Shit… Reeves had been discharged before he could die. Shit. Andy would be there to greet me, so would Serge. I suspected that I would get to hug Marv up there, too. I didn't like it much down here, but up there it would be a party. To be finally done with everything, free of the struggle that I had suffered for nearly twenty years now. It would be a relief. All of Reaper would be together again, barring Angel, who would come late to the party.
No. None of that would happen. I was going to die and nothing was going to happen. My soul would not go anywhere. It wasn't real. I'd die and I would stop being. My life would end miserably and all this would've been for nothing. Earth would fall, humanity would be wiped out from the face of the universe.
The Phantom tilted a little bit to its right and the plasma bolts all missed me. I slowed down from my sprint to try and take in the situation. Only when I saw the top left side of the enemy dropship engulfed in flames did I realize that it was under UNSC fire. The SkyHawks had made it here in time. I blinked hard as tears of joy, anger, confusion, and sadness formed in my eyes. I didn't like coming to face with my own death. It made my doubt myself, my beliefs and convictions.
As for now I decided to be happy that I wasn't going to die. I chose to take cover behind a damaged barricade and waited as the SkyHawk gunships took down the dropship. After the Phantom hit the ground in a fireball everybody ran out of the tunnel and then some. Miraculously no one was killed as we made an abrupt exit. Despite out urge to move out we did it in an orderly fashion, covering our asses and suppressing enemy fire.
"Tarkov!" I shouted.
"My pleasure!"
The tunnel blew up. It's hard to describe. It was only the tunnel that collapsed, but the sudden movement of tons of rock caused the rock above it to fall, which in turn became a rather large rockslide the entire length of the tunnel. Nothing inside survived and everything on the other side of it would be in for a spectacle. We watched as the rocks fell and rolled downhill, small smiles on our faces at the realization that we were all alive. The cavalry had arrived in the nick of time. The fashion in which it had come was truly dramatic. It had been worthy for a cheap action flick or an award winning drama.
"Sorry about the delay, boys," the pilot broadcast. "We got caught up in a little engagement due east of here. So how are ya'll doing?"
She seemed very satisfied that she had gotten here in time to save our sorry asses. I was very satisfied with her too.
"We owe you," Tarkov spoke up. "Flight leader said two made it past the Seraphs?"
"Two of us made it out, only I made it here."
"Sorry," he said. "But you have the gratitude of all the men here."
"It's in the job description. I'm moving up, scouting for enemy aircraft. I think there are Pelicans on the way?"
"Correct," Tarkov confirmed.
"Good luck."
Grass put her hand on my shoulder and I turned to give her a massive bear hug, lifting her into the air as she yelped in surprise before breaking into laughter. I spun her once before setting her down on the floor, mere feet away from the wreck of the second Pelican. She chuckled for a little bit and the rest of the ODSTs shook their heads and slapped each other's shoulders. A couple sat down, head hanging low, but the rest of us were happy to be alive, no matter how many had died, we were still going to be making a difference.
"You're stuck with me for a bit longer," I told Grass with a big grin on my face.
"God forbid," she replied, drawing a snort from Pavel, who began walking our way.
Miri and Caboose also joined the remnants of Reaper, their shoulders hunched and tired, but there was also a sort of strut to their pace. We had defeated an army. An actual army. We had had help, of course, but that didn't diminish our accomplishment.
I was going to die someday maybe I would be up in a cloud having infinite threesomes with two women that I had loved or maybe I would just be rotting in the ground, but this was not the day that I would die. No, sir.
This chapter was proofread by General TheDyingTitan.
This was a good chapter. I enjoyed writing this. At first I was afraid that I would have to add unnecessary combat in order to make it a decent length (read: my standard length), but for the most part it seemed to write itself. I particularly enjoyed writing that scene at the end. It seemed nice, fitting in a certain way.
Electric2097: I'd recommend any of the stories on my favorites or any of the stories by my favorite authors to be honest. Hitchups in particular is an amazing fan fiction (It's by The Antic Reparte).
Everyone else: I'd like to congratulate you all on helping me break the 2000 review mark. That means that of the thousands of readers I've had enough of you cared to say positive (and sometimes negative) things about my fic and I appreciate it immensely. You are as much a part of this as me and I hope you are able to realize that. I look forward to hearing what you think about this chapter and the ones to come for as long as there are people reading this story.
Stay strong.
-casquis