Chapter CCXXVI: We're All There Is
November 16, 2552 (UNSC Calendar)/
Torkham, Pakistan, Earth, Sol System
"I still think I am the greatest." - Kanye West
"No, I can hear you fine," I said. "Yeah, yeah, it was a concussion, things are a bit blurry still."
"Why are you in the frontlines?" Captain Flatt asked me. "You are endangering yourself."
"That's literally in my job description," I said. "And I do mean literally."
"Have it your way," she sighed; she sounded tired.
"Are you ok?" I asked.
"Not as good as I could be. I haven't slept in a long time and all I do is look at casualty reports all day and decide which units to salvage."
"Different scale, right?"
"Not even Reach was this bad," Flatt admitted. "They didn't send us the civilian casualty reports there, at least there's that."
I nodded slowly. The battle was getting more intense outside of the command tent, but it was still a lot tamer than it had been an hour ago. We had the advantage of emplacements and fortifications as well as days of preparation. The Pakistani Artillery Corps were providing pinpoint accurate artillery support and the Afghan and Pakistani ground forces were fighting tooth and nail to keep the enemy from making it through the border. The survivors of the 19th Battalion as well as several regular UNSC units were here to patch up the holes. Normally I wouldn't be incredibly happy to be working with so many different units, but everyone had agreed what the chain of command was and stuck to it. It was beautiful cooperation.
"How's everything in East Africa?"
"They're contained to the Mombasa area," she said. "But mostly because they haven't attempted to move outside. They busted through most ODPs in the area coming down and we barely have enough to cover that area, let alone pose a threat to all of the ships in there."
"Navy isn't doing too good, is it?"
"Not at all. They're at less than two thirds operating capacity."
"Overall?"
She laughed humorlessly. "It's probably even lower than that overall. Home Fleet has done damn fine in this past weeks. They have a 1 to 1.3 kill/death ratio. That's never happened before."
"I'm sure the boom sticks helped."
"I'm sure they did," she agreed. "Can't deny the advantage of 300 Super-MACs."
An explosion rocked the large tent and I heard some faint cries of pain through the walls.
"Did you find out more?" I asked, my voice quiet.
"The ship made into the system," Captain Flatt started. "It made a stop in Jupiter along with a few dozen other evacuation craft. Conditions weren't the best, they were overcrowded and not well supplied. At least that's what the report says for all transports that landed. A couple of mining craft helped distribute the load. It took them a couple of days to sort that out. I see the names of Pavel's wife and child as well as your girl and her sister in the manifest."
I sighed with relief. "That's good news."
"It is," she agreed, "but after that the trail disappears again, I'm doing my best to find what ship they hopped on after, but without a dedicated AI I have to go through thousands of names by hand. I can't do this full-time, my job takes priority."
"Can't you delegate?"
"Here? In this battle?" she asked. "I wish. I'm doing the work of ten men by myself and if this doesn't end soon I will shoot myself in the leg so they put me in a hospital and I can have a break."
"Don't say that," I told her. "As soon as we manage to coordinate all our forces and the chaos dies down it will be back to business as usual. Their armies will be completely gone and we'll only need to take care of Mombasa. We can nuke that place into oblivion if need be."
"That's the plan so far," she admitted. "But first we need to actually win the ground battle. They outnumber us, Frank. In our own homeworld. The Russian Front is gone, they're playing at guerillas up there. The same goes for North Africa. The Nigerians are barely holding their front and we can't supply them with troops so long as the Covenant still have a presence in Paris. That city is nothing but rubble now. China is doing better than most, but even their combined forces and UNSC troops couldn't save the Korean Peninsula. It's not looking good, Frank."
"We've stabilized Cuba and the Yucatan," I said. "Cleveland is back under UNSC control. We're still holding Pakistan and Northern India well enough and the British broke their record for landing troops in Normandy for the fourth time. We could be doing a lot worse."
"Agreed, but it's a coin flip. It could go either way at this point and I don't like what that means. This is it, Frank. Some thought it was Reach, but this is it. It's bigger. It's the last battle."
"We'll win this," I assured her. "I'll make sure of that. Personally."
There was a pause on Flatt's end of the line. "Thanks, I mean it. Say hi to everyone for me, will you? I know you must've had a difficult couple of weeks… Good luck."
I looked at the phone for a few seconds after she ended the call before sighing and setting it down just in time for another explosion to rock the command tent. This time even more violently than last. I grabbed my helmet and put it on, making sure to pick up my rifle and an extra bandolier as I left the room. The main room of the command tent had been vacated in order to be turned into a room for the wounded. The only reason we had done that was because there were other buildings in the town where the brass could coordinate and do their own thing. This place was more secure than most non-polycrete buildings and half of those that were made out of the magic formula despite it being labeled a tent.
The moans of the wounded and barking orders of medics and surgeons flooded my ears as soon as I stepped inside. I kept my eyes down, making sure to avoid stepping on any fingers that would invariably end up broken or sliding on blood. I tied my bandolier and adjusted it, feeling the weight of the extra bullets on my left shoulder.
"How's the team?" I asked as I stepped out, wincing at the sound of a shell screaming right overhead.
"We're restocked and ready to go," Pavel replied immediately. "Tarkov and his men are taking a huge beating, Pakis aren't willing to move the lines, they say the situation is too risky."
"En la madre…" I sighed. "He's holding back the worst of the assaults."
"I know," Pavel said. "They have us moving back a little bit to his left, not close enough to provide direct support though. We're bolstering a machine gun nest."
I moved towards my team, catching up to their position behind a t-shaped polycrete wall. It was about ten feet tall and maybe twice as wide. The rest of the pieces that had made it up had been pummeled into powder, at least in the neighboring vicinity. A few other men were using the remains as recliners or pillows, hoping that a shell wouldn't land on them while they recovered from their stint at the frontlines.
"Everyone good?" I asked.
Nods.
"What is the news?" Pavel asked.
"Good," I replied. "Nothing definitive."
"They're gonna send us forward soon," Grass said.
"I know," I said.
They gave us the word a few minutes later. It was an interesting sight, hundreds of Marines and soldiers got up from wherever they were resting and began moving forward. We each had carefully planned paths from cover to cover, using some of the buildings and additional barricades to avoid sharpshooter fire and the occasional artillery piece. Nobody moved through the main highway though, not even the tanks. We jogged forward through Torkham until we reached a small gap in between the border wall and several buildings that had been pounded into near nothingness.
Each unit called the squad or platoon they were being brought in to replace and gave them the signal. The fire from our frontline intensified and the artillery strikes sped up some, buying cover and time for us crossing the mostly exposed gap. I ran while avoiding the sketchy areas that could result in a broken ankle before reaching a new set of fortifications near the border wall. The machine gun nest in question was on the top of a small hill nearby. The men had dug it into the hill, placing a decoy tent and sandbags on top. Even then their position had been shelled to hell and back again. We would be setting up on one of the slopes of the small hill, near the base.
"Lieutenant Castillo!"
"That's me," I replied over the sound of gunfire.
"We're being hit mostly by brute-led infantry, small squads try and move forward every now and then, they're coming from behind points A and B, I tagged them for you. We occasionally get a Prowler attempting to strafe or a Chopper that got lost. Gotta keep your head down when you hear the Wraiths."
"Anything else?" I asked the tired sergeant.
"There's one jackal sniper out there, got one of my men, but we weren't able to catch it."
"I'll do my best," I assured him.
"That's all I ask, Lieutenant."
I waited a minute or so for my men to set up their positions before telling the sergeant that he was good to go. He thanked me one more time before they left under the cover of gunfire and artillery. So we began our second stint on the front line.
Lately we had been used in a manner that was not typical of ODSTs. In fact, this had been a trend that had started early in the war and had only gotten more and more common these last year. ODSTs were tools for attack. Much like a hammer or a knife. I've used the comparison multiple times, describing my unit as a scalpel. A couple of swift cuts to the back of the knee or the jugular are all it takes. The Army is a sledgehammer, able to crush opposing forces with one massive blow but also able to use the handle to fend off similar attacks. We were still used in our intended fashion more often than not, but we tended to find ourselves as just another unit in the line very frequently. It wasn't bad, but our talents and expertise were not fully used this way. I still knew that we were infinitely better than any other squad that could be put in our place, but we could only be so good in this position.
"Miranda, I want you on watch for the sniper," I said. "Pavs, strafing to a minimum, I want accuracy."
"Yes, sir."
"Got it."
The Covenant were really throwing out a steady flow of troops at us. We weren't the ones doing the most damage by far, but we called in artillery strikes every so often, helping the Artillery Corps rack up the highest kill count in this battle. Miranda and I kept our firing to a minimum, making sure that we only took out high value targets without exposing ourselves to the sniper that had left two corpses in this very trench.
Pavel and Caboose were doing most of the heavy lifting here, with two machine guns going at very infrequent intervals to try and lure the Covenant out of cover. They were by far racking the highest kill count. Grass was doing her own thing, helping direct their fire and noting whatever she saw. Caboose looked slightly uncomfortable in his job, especially because he didn't get to handle a SAW as often as Pavel used his M247L. Nobody would've been able to notice if they didn't know them as well as I did. His accuracy was way down from what he could manage with his MA5K and the reloading process was a little bit sketchy. After an hour or so he'd be a lot smoother, but not an expert, at least not by ODST standards.
"They're stacking up to our right, by those walls," Grass said.
"I see them."
"Are they trying to hit the nest?" Miranda asked. "Should we tell them?"
"They see them," I replied. "See how they're firing bursts around the walls? I'm not sure if that's a frontal attack or a distraction."
"They don't have a chance if they go head-on," Pavel said. "But they're not that stupid. At least they shouldn't be by this point in the battle."
"Keep an eye on them, Grass," I ordered.
She seemed like she would reply, but two separate beam shots hit our positions. I ducked, feeling fortunate that the shot had been weakened and deflected by the sandbags in front of me. The beam still managed to make some contact with my chest piece, tossing me back even as I dropped to the ground. I grunted as I fell on my ass, seeing Grass crouching a few meters away, clutching her rifle as blood came out of her arm. Miranda popped fully out of cover and fired six times in rapid succession before a beam narrowly missed her neck. She pivoted ever so slightly and squeezed the trigger once before crouching behind cover, a flurry of plasma screaming overhead seconds later.
"Lieutenant!" Miranda said, moving towards me.
"Check on Grass," I said, pulling myself up so that my back was straight against the trench wall. "Now!"
"Frank?" Pavel asked.
"I can't breathe," I muttered.
A second later my friend was kneeling next to me and helped me release the clamps on the chest piece. I took in a huge breath of air, ignoring the pain in my sternum as my lungs finally got in some oxygen to my body. I closed my eyes and nodded slowly.
"Are you alright?" Pavel asked.
"Back to your station," I replied, wincing from the pain. "It was just a hard hit. Armor was compressing my chest."
"You sure?"
"I am, back to your station."
He nodded and took off without questioning me further. He knew me damn well. Probably better than I knew myself.
I cracked my neck and took off my helmet. It was not a particularly smart decision, but I needed to be able to look down at my chest. I pressed my chin downwards and saw that the vest under the chest piece was a little bent inwards, nothing big, only just noticeable. The surrounding area was slightly scorched, again, nothing big, but this time it was very noticeable. I pressed my finger against it and felt the heat through my gloves, but more importantly I felt the pain in my sternum. It wasn't horrible so it wasn't cracked. I knew how that felt.
"How's Grass?"
"She's-" Miri began.
"I'm fine, shot grazed my upper arm. Messy wound, nothing serious."
"It's gory, it will scar," Miranda said. "No tendons were hurt, muscle will probably have trouble moving certain ranges."
"I can shoot."
"Patch her up," I told Miri. "Make sure it's tight and clean."
"Wow,"Schitzo said. "Word choice."
"The wound," I added.
"I know, sir," Miri snarked.
I took a couple of deep breaths, getting used to the pain in my chest. It was slowly receding. The beam had acted like a very hard punch. My sternum would be bruised and sore for a while, but the pain wasn't going to get much worse. I reached back for my chest piece, which was still producing a fair amount of steam. I blew on it to cool it down before trying to see if I could still wear it comfortably. Granted, there was a hole the size of my thumb in the middle, but the area around it was perfectly fine. The underside was slightly bent inwards, but the beam had mostly melted through, except for the final bit. I sighed and strapped it back on, grunting uncomfortably at the pressure on my sternum before putting my helmet back on and grabbing my rifle.
By that point Grass was almost done with her bandage and had moved her arm around experimentally to see how it felt. Miranda was firing again and I joined her, targeting the newly aggressive Covenant assaulters seeking to pounce on the opportunity.
The machine gun nest to our right was roaring non-stop. It was beginning to get more than a little bit annoying to be honest. It wasn't the traditional come and go of a regular battle, it was more like a constant drone that never faded or increased. If it had been white noise it might've been pleasant. The thing is it wasn't white noise, it was a dozen machine guns of different calibers and makes all firing simultaneously.
"They are really going overboard to our right," Pavel muttered.
"Us or the Covenant?" Miri asked.
"Them," he said. "Look, they're all firing at us from over there, they're about to do something."
"I don't like it," I admitted. "They're not stupid enough to just come out without any armored support."
"They don't have much in the way of fighting vehicles, do they?" Grass asked. It was a rhetorical question.
"No," I replied nonetheless. "Shadows get close. Not really armored."
"Not really that armored," Pavel corrected.
We could've continued the conversation, but everybody got an automated message that there was an impending artillery strike in this sector of the line. We waited a couple of seconds and ducked precisely when told to. The sensors or scouts or whatever had done this warning was spot on. A couple of seconds after we could hear and feel the dozens and dozens of artillery shells landing right upon us. Waves of plasma tore the earth and barricades apart, but we were all deep inside our tranches. The Covenant artillery oftentimes relied in volume over accuracy, but even then they lagged far behind our own artillery corps in all but the strangest of situations. Shell after shell landed on our positions, creating large, glassy craters and occasionally incinerating some of our number.
The hill to our flank was taking a huge pounding, but it didn't take a genius to understand that the area that was going through the worst was where Tarkov and his men had been posted up. For whatever reason the covvies had decided to make their break through there and they weren't going to change their mind. They had committed and there was no stopping them now.
I began talking to Command about it, but Tarkov and his men had already realized it and had asked for support. Some of the troops that had just gotten rest were being phased back to the front in hopes to contain the assault. The response made us realize that the massing of troops to the right was a lot more serious than we had initially believed. I managed to convey the information to my men over the sound of the exploding shells. Even with the helmets dampening the noise to keep it from hurting our ears it was difficult to make out anything other than plasma shells blowing up right over our heads. That and there was still this fear of being completely incinerated without being able to a thing about it.
"What are we supposed to do about that?" Miranda asked loudly.
"Fuck if I know!" Pavel grunted. "We don't even know what they're going to do!"
I peeked over the edge of the trench, risking my head. My eyes widened when I saw a column of Covenant transports speeding through the open ground, hopping around on the uneven terrain. Shadows were moving forward in an uncomfortably tidy column three transports wide at the front. Their guns were silent, not firing even as friendly fire landed all around them, managing not to destroy them.
"They're crossing!" I shouted on the open channel. "They're crossing over!"
It didn't take much, one warning and a couple of people peeked over. The gunners in the machine gun nest had dipped their heads down out of pragmatism and laziness. I didn't blame them, no sane commander would have their troops go through that barrage of artillery without letting up. There was always the chance of shrapnel or misfire. Plasma didn't let out shrapnel and I doubt the brute commander really cared about its subordinates.
We started shooting back. By God did we start shooting back.
I watched as an incredibly high amount of ammunition was emptied into the first row of Shadows, blowing up the one in the middle and nearly shredding it to pieces as the entire machine gun nest fired at the same time at the same target. The two other spread out a little bit to avoid the barrage, but they suffered the same fate. Still, it was difficult to hit all the transports. They were closing ground fast. A few Ghosts were dropped off from the bellies of the Shadows and sped forward, boosting through their own artillery. One of them was destroyed when a shell landed on it, but the three others braved machine gun fire to jump over the trenches and crash through the damaged walls. The gunners were forced to address the immediate threat, eliminating the four scout vehicles within seconds, but giving valuable ground to the column going through. Plasma cannon fire started flying back at the nest, less powerful but more accurate. Miranda and I started hitting the gunners, hoping that we could kill them fast enough. Mortar shells and the occasional rocket hit the Shadows, but still they came. Prowlers and Choppers joined the fray, pummeling our positions with heavy fire and reestablishing a certain rhythm to the battle. The only difference was that the artillery still hadn't stopped and now we had our own artillery corps firing hip shots at our general area. A couple of shells even landed behind our trench, sending shrapnel over our heads.
"Banshees!"
This was it. Their decisive push.
A red line crossed the sky before punching clean through one of the Banshees, sending it crashing down into a damaged Prowler, blowing them both up. I managed to pick up someone screaming for air support, but I was forced to shut off the general channel as the Covenant reached the machine gun nest and our own lines. The first to reach us was a brute in a Chopper shot to hell. It rammed through the leftovers of a defensive wall, sending dust and bits of rock in our direction before crashing into the trench and getting stuck in the ground as its front spikes dug in.
Grass turned and bashed the brute driver in the head and into the ground. There Caboose stomped its unprotected head into mush with two quick stomps before dropping his carbine and reaching for his shotgun. I was firing at the other attackers, already trying to pick off priority targets as they climbed the gentle slope that led to our trench.
"Grenades, throw grenades!" I shouted.
It was too hectic, and I barely heard anyone acknowledge the order before two squads of brutes and grunts jumped over the wall and rushed the trench. I fired blindly, ducking behind cover as plasma flew my way. A couple of spikes embedded themselves on the side of the useless chopper, shining brightly. Caboose fired his shotgun at something and then ducked, moving to the side from his previous position to avoid a surprise attack from the top. I tossed a grenade right over my head and moved underneath the brute chopper. I looked up at the spinning blades and groaned.
Two giant legs smashed into the ground next to me as a brute minor stormed the trench. I fired a burst into its knee and then another one at its face. The grunts it had been leading stumbled into one another, providing plenty of time for Pavel to gun them down. On the other side of the chopper Grass had drawn her machete and was firing her rifle, holding it steady with her artificial hand while she slashed at a brute's hand, making it drop its pistol. Miranda took it out before being set upon by a tackling grunt. I fired a burst at another grunt before teaming up with Grass to take down the brute as it reached for a rather large blade on its belt. Miranda shoved her fist into the grunt's mouth before stabbing it four or five times in the belly. One more grunt shook in fright, raising its hands in surrender just in time for Grass to decapitate it. Moments later we were all back on our feet and firing down the trench.
"They're moving to the nest and further down," Pavel said. "They're basically ignoring us."
That was technically a lie, seeing as they were firing on our position, but the bulk of the Covenant forces were heading to our right.
Chatter indicated that they were targeting the position just to the right of the nest, where Tarkov and his men were positioned. That area was hard to defend, with several houses and stores right behind them that would serve as great cover for the Covenant if they made it there. Most other areas of the Torkham line had a sizeable gap between the houses and the first defensive line, but not Tarkov's sector. The ODST Lieutenant and his men had been working closely with the Afghan forces for the last month and a half and had gained a reputation as a reliable unit. It was bad luck, seeing as they were now facing a completely disproportional amount of enemy troops coming at them in a difficult position to defend.
"Tarkov, what is happening?"
The reply didn't come immediately.
"We're being fired from our left and front; they made it into the trenches next to the nest! We can't get vehicles through the buildings; our Scorpions have to go around and through the front: we're stuck here!"
I wanted to help, but my own squad was defending a section of the line. It wasn't nearly as vital, but if they broke through here then they'd lay siege to the machine gun nest and overrun Tarkov's position. A couple of Pakistani Army squads were defending the area to our left, but they wouldn't be able to stretch themselves thin enough to cover our sector.
"Grass, get someone to send a tank or a Mk. 87 this way, plug in our hole while we move to assist Tarkov."
"On it!"
I could barely hear Grass struggling to communicate as I aimed down the range. There were enough targets that soon I lost count of how many kills I had under my belt. Caboose alternated between his carbine and shotgun, dispatching grunts and jackals that made it within thirty yards with a storm of buckshot. Pavel did his own thing, strafing down grunts and jackals by the dozens, leaving the hardier brutes to Miri and my own more accurate weapons. It was not that hard now that only a small number of Covenant were charging this way, but they were smart enough to keep us relatively suppressed. Still, the assault was not taking part here, and if we dedicated too many units to the spearhead and ignored the rest of our line they could break through there.
"They're sending in two Marines squads!" Grass suddenly cried. "They're taking our sector."
"What's their ETA?" I asked, ducking under carbine fire.
"Three minutes."
"Lieutenant Tarkov, do you hear me? Tarkov?"
"I'm still here!" he replied.
"We'll be there in five," I promised.
"You'd better not be shitting us…"
"We'll be there in five," I repeated.
Three minutes later, like clockwork, the two squads arrived. We left even before they had taken positions, drawing complaints and angry comments, but they knew that they didn't have it too bad in here. I advised to keep watch on the right in case we were overwhelmed from there.
"If they bust through we'll fall back," one of the squad leaders assured me.
I didn't blame him.
We started moving across trenches and walls, there were a few dead men in our way, but they had been killed a while ago. It didn't take much to reach the hill and enter the system of caves and pillboxes. Once inside the barrage of gunfire echoed across all the walls. A man hailed us, his machine gun pointed neatly at the door in case the Covenant attempted to bust through. We moved past him wordlessly, the entire hill shaking as shell after shell landed on it. The opposite side was similarly protected, but this time it was three men with an LAAG and two SAWs. They knew which side carried the biggest risk.
"Good luck," one of them said as we opened the hatch and moved out.
We hadn't been underground long enough for our eyes to be blinded by the light, but I still noticed my visor readjusting to the brightness. I saw the husks of burning Shadow transports as well as Wraiths, Daemons, and dozens of Ghosts. I took a fraction of a second to look at the sky as Banshees strafed the ground and dueled with UNSC craft. Further up Seraphs were engaging SkyHawks and other fighters I barely caught a glimpse of.
It seemed funny. The mass of enemy troops was firing colorful weaponry onto a small position held by UNSC troops. Tarkov and his men were holding fast. I could see the canisters that had been dropped around them and as I ran down the hill I saw rockets streak into the mass of Covenant troops, destroying a Shadow transport and creating yet more cover for the infantry moving in.
"Watch your heads," I advised.
We ran hard and fast but stayed behind cover. There had been a couple of squads bolstering Tarkov's unit, but their emplacements had been shot to hell and they were all dead. We only stopped to pick up a SPANKr from a dead man. It still had a full load inside, so it was valuable. Grass tossed it to me and we began moving towards Tarkov.
"We're almost there," I called out to Tarkov.
"Go around the-"
I heard his warning just as we didn't go around the-. A Daemon shell missed us by this much and slammed into a pile of debris to our side. Dust and dirt flew everywhere as my squad scattered and dove for cover. I rolled and brought up the rocket launcher. I let the dust settle and looked down the scope. It showed the tagged vehicles, but I had one particular target in mind. The Daemon tank was there, 800 meters away and closing.
"Die," I muttered.
I shot the two missiles the moment they locked in. They barely had to adjust their trajectory as they closed in on the tank. The first one punched a hole in the joint between the turret and the body and the second one disabled the turning of it. The tank could still strafe and aim that way, but it was greatly diminished in its capacity as a threat. I smiled to myself and secured the now empty launcher before moving forward. I almost made it, but another Covenant attack got in my way, this time it was a strafing Banshee.
"Shit!" I said. "Tarkov, we're close!"
"That's close enough!" he called back. "I need you to split their focus."
"Fucking great…" I muttered.
"We aren't exactly in a good position, Frank!" Pavel said.
I turned to look at him. Cover consisted of road barriers that had been badly damaged and several trenches that now looked more like craters. The area my squad was spread around was probably the size of half a basketball court and there was around forty yards distance in between Tarkov and us. Prime distance to provide support to each other, but not when it came to facing down a battalion or two in poorly defensible ground.
"We've done worse," I shrugged, smiling. "Play some music."
Pavel chuckled and complied.
Heavy electric guitars.
"They're paradin' baby!" Pavel said.
The Covenant weren't exactly bulls, but they behaved enough like them that it was very appropriate. One of Bee's favorites, this song was very similar to modern flip, but I found it good only for this kind of situations, it wasn't something I would listen to by myself.
The lyrics had just started when I hit my first target. The grunt's brains covered the small alien behind it. I saw its mouth open to scream, but I finished it before it could panic. The music roared and I felt like yelling as I fired. I could feel the heat going through my veins, the battle was making my heart pump adrenaline into every bit of my body and suddenly everything felt like a game. It felt like it had felt back in the day, when it was only Pavel and me fighting against hordes of enemies that would just collapse against us, like water against the rocks.
They might've made us smaller and weaker, eroded us with time and effort, but we were still rocks and they didn't stand a chance against us, not unless they had twenty more years.
"Which they don't," Schitzo said, clad in full battle armor, and with a large kukri strapped to his shoulder. He looked a bit like Emile.
My whole squad opened fire at the same time and we opened fire hard. None of us held back. Caboose was using the SAW that he had kept on his person since the excursion to the mountains and he put it to good use. The man was carrying three different weapons on him and was equally efficient with all of them.
"Castillo, I'm patching you up to the artillery. They'll drop ammunition canisters for you," Tarkov said, sounding almost desperate. "Anything you need."
"Rockets and a Spartan Laser would be a good start. Grenades too."
"Roger that," the artillery liaison jumped in. "I'm going to be listening in. Tell me whatever you need."
"You heard him!" I shouted. "Don't feel bad about it!"
I kept firing and the song kept playing. The guitar was intense and violent, I liked it. It matched the blood that we were spilling. Time after time I was forced to duck behind the thick polycrete barricade. I would feel the bits and pieces of rock hitting my helmet. It didn't matter, the song was all that mattered. It wasn't that good. It was just fitting.
"Your drop is coming in," the man said on my helmet. "Don't move."
I'm glad I didn't. Two large canisters landed within arm's reach of my position. The hatches popped and dropped, revealing a Spartan Laser and six rockets. I grabbed the rockets first, loading my SPANKr and setting the others next to it before grabbing the Spartan Laser and shouldering it. I sighed and scanned my visor for the tagged vehicles.
There were far too many for my liking. Strike aircraft pilots often called this a "target-rich environment." That is pretty self-explanatory. Up there you're not in as much danger as when the targets in the aforementioned environment are actively shooting at you.
"Banshee," I decided.
I loaded the laser to half charge and popped out. This strategy gave me scant instants to zero in and aim at the aircraft, but it was flying straight at me in a strafing formation. The Splaser easily cut through the front armor, the front hull, the front of the face of the pilot, and gutted the rest of the thing behind that. The Banshee crashed down thirty meters in front of us and exploded as its fuel tanks overheated. I tracked a piece that landed close by before taking cover again, spikes and needles smashing against my cover.
"Keep your eyes on those jackals," Miranda said. "Tagging their position."
"Someone get me support on that squad," Caboose said. "I'm pinning them."
"Force them away from Tarkov," I ordered. "Split the assault. Where the hell are those tanks?"
"I've been asking the same thing for the past hour," Tarkov spat. "I'm sending Grayson up to plug the gap between our positions."
"I hear you!" I replied. "Young is approaching our right flank, give him some protection!"
"I got it!" Pavel acknowledged.
I heard him shift his fire slightly as four black figures began moving from Tarkov's position down our way. They used the dust as cover, casting long shadows down the ground. The move was tricky, the ground had been hit with so much artillery that every single bit of polycrete had been cracked and was close to becoming debris if it wasn't already.
They settled into position near a two-story house. The front of the building was almost completely gone, but there were a few sandbags there that could be used as proper cover. Young sent one of his men to the top to act as a sharpshooter and kept the rest of his squad around the front, away from the house itself in the event of a collapse. The guy on the top might be able to survive in that situation, but I bet he wouldn't be very happy if it actually happened.
N-n-now that don't kill me
Can only make me stronger
I need you to hurry up now
Cause I can't wait much longer
"That is a lie," Grass noted calmly.
"That Kanye West guy was a fucking retard," Pavel said.
"Helluva musician though," I said.
"True," he admitted.
The rap beat flooded my helmet, nearly blocking out all the other sounds in the battlefield. I barely heard the Daemon tank shell whistle past my head and detonate dozens of meters behind me. Pavel's machine gun was a soft rumble as the bass and vocals flood hit my ears and got my heartbeat pumping even harder. Rockets were beginning to fly from behind me as a rocket artillery battery was hastily set up by the Marines. The small projectiles detonated against soft armor and flesh, sending blood and debris everywhere. Soon there were plasma launchers and fuel rod cannons flying that way, a scant few feet above my head. I took advantage of the opportunity and switched to my battle rifle, targeting the bearers of those powerful weapons with my battle rifle and working together with Miranda. Soon Pavel was taking cover right next to me, having lost most of his previous cover to a series of explosions that had covered his armor with soot and dust.
He looked good. He looked like he was enjoying himself.
And isn't that what they say? That you're supposed to love your job or you'll hate your life?
"Somebody's got to do it," Schitzo said with a shrug, tossing a grenade down the range.
A stream of machine gun fire was coming from above, one of our Hornets had broken through the enemy Banshees and began strafing, the engines facing completely forwards to increase speed. The moment we saw that brave pilot risking it all for us we all switched our fire from priority targets to threats to the bird. Caboose sprayed a machine gun crew and I started taking out gunners on Shadows and Prowlers as fast as possible, but the sky was soon full of colorful lights that seemed to converge just short of the Hornet's position.
I saw as its heavy canons landed amongst the bulk of the advancing enemy forces, neutralizing Ghosts, Choppers, and infantry squads as the heavy rounds raised plumes of dust ten feet tall. Blood sprayed the sandy ground as dozens of covvies were killed without any sort of cover, but soon the Hornet was hit. One of its thrusters failed and it went into a spin, barely holding altitude. I ducked as the bullets from its canons nearly hit my position and only heard the explosion and crash as some alien took advantage of the easy target, bringing down our air support.
Bow in the presence of greatness
Cause right now thou has forsaken us
You should be honored by my lateness
That I would even show up to this fake shit
Guy certainly had the mindset that some ODSTs had. Would've been interesting to meet him.
"Phantom coming down!"
"Pavel, help me out!" I said. "Grab the rockets!"
"Caboose, pick up my slack!"
It all happened very quickly, but soon the SAW was buzzing nonstop and Pavel and I were both kneeling outside of cover. He fired first and second, both his missiles having left their tubes before my Splaser was charged. Still, I hit the Phantom first, gutting it from stem to stern and damaging some vital systems. Still, the dropship didn't go down until the two missiles collided, detonating inside the armor and shredding the cockpit and front of the ship almost completely. It came down right on top of a small group of brutes, crushing and splattering them.
"Good work," I said, bumping Pavel's fist as he discarded the empty rocket rack and replaced it, smoke coming out of the used one.
"Danke," he replied, grabbing his machine gun.
I began shooting again, this time under duress. I would've been content to sit down and let the Covenant spend their ammunition coming at us, but they were advancing with recklessness that was nearly unrivaled in anything I had seen. Few times had the ground been covered with so many bodies, but the brutes drove their soldiers forward like slave masters, slashing with their bayonets and their claws. Hapless grunts could only hope to catch a quick death in the meat grinder.
Slowly but surely, they were making progress, setting the occasional barricade that made use of a destroyed Chopper or a downed Banshee in order to cement their advance. Tarkov and his men were a bit closer to being overrun, but they were holding steadfast while the tanks and IFVs behind us managed to get past the kill zone imposed by the Covenant air assets. I could barely look up without seeing a Banshee engaged in furious combat with a Hornet or a Falcon gunship. Even those, the pride of the Army, could not do the job that they were designed to do, attempting to outmaneuver the faster Banshees and avoid their blue hot plasma while they looked for an angle. One Falcon nearly crushed Miranda as it came down, flaming and smoking.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah!" she shouted back. "Pilot's alive!"
That quickly changed when three carbine shots punched through the cracked windows and splattered blood everywhere. I cursed out and took down the responsible jackal with a headshot and three shots to the chest. It fired one more shot into the ground before falling on its ass, blood gushing from its headless corpse.
"Are the machine guns intact?" Grass asked her.
"The one facing my side is," Miranda said. "Where do you want it?"
"Set it to the side, we might need the firepower soon."
The M247H that the Falcons were equipped with fired 12.7x99mm explosive rounds. It was usually good enough to stop anything short of a Seraph or Scarab. Not much could take continuous pounding from that kind of weapon. It was basically an upsized version of Pavel's machine gun that fired explosive bullets.
"Keep it away," I ordered. "Use it on hunters and maybe big vehicles only."
If we wanted to cut grunts in half we'd ask for her help, but for the moment we'd settle for giving them grapefruit sized holes in their chests and bodies.
"They're getting closer, Frank," Pavel told me. "Range is now twenty meters."
"Shotguns will come in handy," I noted. "I'm still targeting vehicles." I patted the Spartan Laser as I said that and shrugged lightly.
"I've got you," he assured me.
"I know," I replied.
The Spartan Laser was a tool of destruction. It was designed to melt through all but the toughest of armors and even then it was incredibly effective at that. I had hit so many Prowlers, Shadows, and Banshees that my little spot was beginning to draw too much attention. Granted, the attention was well handled by Miranda's EMR and Pavel's M247L, but at the same time I wasn't exactly comfortable with the amount of firepower raining down on my position.
"We should move," I said.
"Agreed."
"Aight. Gimme some cover fire!" I ordered. "Hit those turrets!"
My men and Young's squad redirected their fire briefly, allowing me to dash out of cover and jump behind a couple of piles of debris before finally sliding back behind a t-wall about ten feet tall. Well, it had originally been ten feet tall, now it was about five and a half. It looked like a Wraith had hit right on the top, melting through the polycrete and making a puddle of rock around it.
"Ok, I got it," I said.
"Want me to move there?" Pavel asked.
"No, I'll draw their fire this way soon, you'll be able to provide support from there."
It was true, he was only a few dozen feet away from my position.
"What about the rockets?"
"They're your responsibility now," I said in a faux-deep tone. Making it seem like the fate of the world was on his hands. It wasn't but nowadays it wasn't much of a stretch imagining it was.
"I've got two shots left," I said. "Want to drop anything else?"
"Laser batteries are in short supply," the artillery liaison said. "This drop is the last one we can give you."
"Sounds fair. What else can you drop for me?"
"How about an M515 with seven loads?"
"Seven?" I asked. "Do it."
"Thirty seconds, don't move."
Once again, it was clockwork. I had barely taken down one Banshee when the canister hit next to me. The artillery corps somehow managed to land it exactly next to the wall, giving me an extra foot of cover if I needed it. I smiled and grabbed the batteries as well as the M515 Multiple Grenade Launcher. It had the seven loads I had been promised. The grenades it fired ranged from HEAT to AP to regular HE, but all of them were smart and rocket propelled. Those things could be fired indirectly and 9 out of 10 times they'd find the intended target.
"Technology," Schitzo said.
"Agreed," I replied.
Stand tall for the beast of America!
Lay down like a naked dead body!
Keep it real, for the people workin' overtime
They can't keep living off the government dime
"I always kind of thought the song's lyrics didn't match the tone," Schitzo said.
This is literally the first time we've heard this song, moron.
"Hey, if I thought it you must've arrived to that conclusion somehow."
I rolled my eyes and prepared the grenade launcher. It made me smile a little bit, fond memories of Carver surfacing. 83671-10236-DC. That number was on my forearm, it was all that remained of him after Paris-IV.
"High-Explosive," I muttered to myself. "Look at the tagged targets closest to our line… set the impact zones…"
I pivoted out of cover, using the canister to protect my body from the navel down. I aimed in the general direction of my intended target and fired all of the grenades. The range was extremely close, so they barely sped out of the barrel before the rockets sent them nearly straight down. The ground lit up as the projectiles collided with their designated targets, bringing up pounds and pounds of dirt tinted with blood. The front of the advance completely collapsed after that, Pavel, Caboose, and Young's gunner annihilating the survivors and sending the rest back to the seventy meter line.
"Good job," I said. "Keep them there."
That was only wishful thinking, of course. They outnumbered us more badly than any of us could have imagined in the beginning of the battle. And that is saying a lot, we had what we believed to be very accurate aerial imagery. Turns out it wasn't. My grenade launcher was down to its final two loads and there were four Locust walkers approaching, speeding through the field. I had to suppress chuckles when I saw them squish an unfortunate ally, but I knew that they were going to go through us and with that our line would break. However, when they overran us we would be able to break the seal, if you will, piss on them with the entirety of our firepower. We might get some urine on our pants and make a mess of ourselves, but they're the ones that would be drowning in our piss.
"You're certainly one for metaphors," Schitzo muttered
"Get the lead-"
Young's words were cut short as the lead Locust walker fired on his position. I saw the beam of plasma cut through cover and explode, sending dirt and rocks everywhere. I caught a glimpse of his man hopping off the rooftop of the building and landing hard before the beam hit the ruined structure, completely collapsing it.
"Bring it down!" I said. "Miri, use the machine gun!"
I fired first, hitting the shield with the Spartan Laser. I couldn't get a direct shot though, a burst of plasma threw my aim off and my shot only just glanced the shield, lighting up the air around as the shields flared. Pavel hit it almost half a second later with two rockets, finally taking out its shields. Miranda brought the killing blow with a nice, sustained burst to the cockpit. I saw the bits and pieces of armor fly everywhere before the Locust in the front collapsed. By that point I was down to one last Splaser shot, the M515 MGL was down to the last load, and the other three locusts were less than thirty meters away and closing fast.
"Fall back," I said. "Fall back!"
"Castillo, what are you doing!" Tarkov shouted. "We can't give this land away now!"
"Fall back!" I ordered loudly.
The first Locust nearly squished me into the ground, destroying my now meager cover. Pavel, very stupidly, fired a rocket at it while I was less than fifteen feet away from the Locust. The shot nearly brought it down, but the shields held and the impact merely stunned the walker. I rolled away and dove behind a crater as the second Locust walked overhead, firing at an unseen target. I got up again and ran perpendicular through the battlefield. The artillery corps had dumped a couple of smoke screens in order to allow us to fall back. A godsend almost, seeing as I ran into a brute that didn't see me before I bashed its head with the stock of my Spartan Laser. I bashed it three more times before kneeling and firing at a Banshee, discarding the useless weapon. The brute grunted, receiving a boot to the throat for its pluckiness.
"Pavel, pull them back… get behind something solid."
"Copy, UNSC has Scorpions rolling forward, you need to watch yourself."
"I'll be quick."
Tarkov's own unit was in disarray, severely depleted and full of injured. Corporal Young wasn't replying to my hails. None of his men were. I could help him out, but Tarkov would have to fend for himself.
"Young!" I shouted when I got to his position. "Where the hell?"
"I'm here," he wheezed. "Beam fried my helmet."
I looked down and saw him, half his body pinned down below a huge slab of rock.
"Are you hurt?"
"No," he said, "I just can't move."
"Give me a second," I said as I began moving around so I could push the rock up.
"Watch out!"
I looked up and then ducked just in time. My crotch pressed right against Young's helmet and into the ground as a Brute chieftain with a plasma cannon sprayed. I fired a couple of shots from the ground. Normally that wouldn't have been enough, but grenades are typically a lot more powerful than regular bullets. The shots hit the ground in front of the brute, tossing it backwards sans two legs.
"Huh," I muttered, moving back up and lifting the heavy rock one-handed. I supported its weight with my shoulder and dropped the grenade launcher, firing over the rock with my pistol while Corporal Young scrambled out of the hole and grabbed my grenade launcher.
"Take out the captains," I ordered, the weight of the rock tiring me quickly. I could feel the impacts on the other side, but we only needed a little bit of time.
Young fired precisely three times, destroying the brute leaders almost completely. Blood sprayed everywhere, some of it even landing on my shoulder.
"That was too close," I grunted.
"We should move out," Young replied, far too calm considering what the situation was.
"Pavel?"
"We're too far back," he replied.
I smiled. He knew me too well. He knew what I wanted and replied before I even asked. It just happened to amuse me.
"Ok, we move back on my count," I said, holstering my pistol and drawing my rifle. I grunted as a heavy shot hit the rock, forcing me to my knees as Young helped hold the heavy slab, moving some weight off my shoulders. "Where are your men?"
"Beam fried my circuits, I can't contact them. Perez was right over there."
"Let's move that way," I said.
We moved on three. It was a lot easier said than done, but the smoke screens really helped us. I nearly slammed face first into a Locust walker through the smoke, but I stopped just in time as the walker kept advancing. I crouched with Young right next to me. He drew his axe, prepared to take out the infantry escort. It wasn't a bad call, because a couple of seconds later we saw Covenant silhouettes begin approaching us. I drew my knife and dashed towards the closest brute, slashing its throat with one quick motion. Young used his axe to kill two grunts before bringing it around on a jackal's skull, shattering it more than actually breaking it.
I reversed the grip on my knife and moved towards the other brute in the squad, I ducked under its spiker, batting it away and slashing at its elbow before jumping up at it, grabbing onto its fur. I always forgot just how big brutes were when you were fighting them hand-to-hand. I dismissed my feeling of smallness and stabbed it twice in the neck. My stabs were one next to the other, puncturing the carotid and the trachea both. I hopped off just as the brute fell to the ground.
"Over there," Young pointed, breathing hard.
We moved in the direction he was pointing at and hopped over a tall wall. Behind it we were greeted by a jumpy Perez nearly blowing his squad leader's head off. There was some hushed cursing before they both calmed down a little bit. Perez lifted his DMR and waited for Young to give him a sitrep. I kept an eye out, hoping that the smoke would be able to keep us hidden, but I was forced to fire when a jackal spotted us. I shot it dead and then began hitting the unprepared grunts, taking them out with full-auto bursts before ducking back behind cover.
"Let's get Griff from the building, I think he's still alive," Perez said. "He was able to hop off."
"I saw that," I concurred. "Worth a shot."
"Let's move then," Young said.
We began running once again, keeping our backs bent to minimize our profiles. It was hard to see, the few enemies that had their signatures tagged onto the battle net were promptly taken out by a sharpshooter, but the rest of them were running through the smoke, almost bumping into us a number of times. I guess that I should've been thankful for the incredibly low visibility, but it was frustrating not being able to see where I was and what was around me. The house came up quicker than I imagined, but that was not bad news.
"Over there," Perez pointed. "Cover me."
He doubled around the house, hopping over debris and rubble before finally coming to a halt and letting out a curse.
"He's dead," Perez called out. "House fell on his face."
"Shit," Young sighed. "Grab his ammo belt and move out."
"On it."
We were starting to dash back towards our second line, past the smoke and into open ground. I ran as fast as the other two Helljumpers could, pressing them just enough that they wouldn't collapse before crossing the open, coverless, ground. The smoke got thinner and thinner before I realized that I could see everything in front of me without much trouble. I looked back around and stopped, deciding that I'd provide some cover for Young and Perez. The two men barely gave me a nod before they disappeared from my field of vision. I fired a burst at a grunt and then did the same to two others. I ducked as plasma flew my way, suddenly realizing that there was absolutely no cover nearby. Several tracer rounds hit the edge of the slowly dissipating smoke, taking out a few hostiles and buying time for me to catch up with the two others.
I suddenly jerked to the right, feeling something coming. I didn't know exactly why I did it, I just know that it was necessary. A moment later Perez fell down, his leg severed below his knee. I dropped as more plasma hit around us, but a long burst of machine gun fire later the attack stopped. I reached Perez just as Young started getting up and between the two of us we managed to get the screaming man to stand up and begin hopping to safety.
"Frank watch out!"
Pavel's warnings were well-intentioned, but he knew that there was absolutely nothing I could do. Instead we all kept moving as fast as possible, hoping that the pilot of the Banshee would miss. It was a very close call as plasma bolts lit us up without quite touching us. I felt the hot air from a bolt nearly hit my damaged chest plate before slamming into the ground a couple yards away from me. Perez was screaming very loudly, but no matter how much pain he was in he kept on hopping, using my shoulders as support for his leaps.
"Lieutenant, over here!" a soldier waved his hand at us.
We adjusted our path and I basically threw Perez over what was left of the wall and then jumped.
"Get your head down!" the soldier said, shoving me face first into the ground as the biggest artillery strike of the battle began raining down a few yards away from our position.
November 17, 2552 (UNSC Calendar)/
Torkham, Pakistan, Earth, Sol System
"You think they're gonna pull us out of here soon?" Young asked.
I shrugged, carefully peeking past the edge of the window, trying to use some of the scant moonlight to my advantage. The only water tower in the whole town and we had lost control of it. Command was a bit nervous about knocking it down and now we had to deal with a pair of jackal sharpshooters in a prime location. I managed to see where one of them was and quickly ducked back behind cover as a beam scorched the edge of the window frame, leaving a dark mark on the other side of the room. About a square foot was almost gone from repeated fire. I was trying my luck too hard, but doing this allowed for troop movements in other areas. Soon we'd be in position to take out the snipers and maybe fight off the platoon at the base of the tower.
"Not sure," I finally said, giving words to my shrug. "We have a decent perimeter. They're cut off from their supplies."
"They're also fighting really hard," he said.
"That means they're desperate," I told him. "They might drag us through hell, but it only means that they're close to losing."
"They damn well better be," an Afghan soldier said in heavily accented English. "They have no right setting foot in my country."
"Or this one for that matter," a Marine added.
"Are you sure it's desperation?" Corporal Young asked. "It could be just frustration…"
"What campaigns have you gone through?" I asked, suddenly changing the topic.
"Reach," he said. "And Paris IV before that."
"Where in Paris IV?" I asked, curious.
"Udinia," he said. "Everybody fought there at some point or other. Most of my fighting was done hurting their supply trains."
"I did some of that," I said. "And Reach?"
"Our unit was assigned to some of the strikes before the counteroffensive. Standard ODST stuff."
"Just that?"
"We were pulled out to help defend New Alexandria, but my unit was ambushed. I was taken to the hospital."
I sighed. "I had a man defending the hospital. Payat. Good man. He died there."
"I didn't," Young told me. "We barely got to out of there, they put me on a transport while I was under."
"What unit where you on?"
"Pardon?"
"Lieutenant Tarkov didn't fight in Paris IV or Reach," I reminded him. "What happened?"
"Bad things," he said sadly. "I was lucky. God saw it fit to let me survive."
"God doesn't have anything to do with that, son," I told him. "You surviving is all you."
"I guess we have different views on life," he said, not entirely comfortable with my comment.
"Sir," he began after a bit, "If we don't get orders soon we need to move out, Perez needs some medical attention ASAP and-"
"No," I cut him off. "There are a dozen men and women in this building. All of them are under my command. Perez is one man and I can't risk everyone just to make sure he gets some help that he might not need."
"Sir, I could go alone with-"
"No," I said, once again peeking out the window. "Perez is fine. His leg is patched up and he is napping like a baby. Let him be. We'll get tanks rolling down the street as soon as my men and your lieutenant do their job."
"We haven't heard-"
"Young, do me a favor and shut up," I interrupted him for a third time. "Calm down. Relax. Have a full meal, that's an order."
"Sir…"
"Do it," I said.
Corporal Young took one visible deep breath before giving me a short nod and heading downstairs. The Afghan soldier took his place, standing against the corner, watching the street in case the squad down the block tried to storm our position.
"Should we do something about them?" he asked.
"Later. Second Squad should give us the signal that the snipers are down any time now."
"What will the signal be?" the Afghan asked.
"They'll radio us," I told him.
"I wish I had a fancy helmet like that."
"Not everybody is good enough," I said, earning a scoff in reply.
Two SRS shots boomed through the quiet town.
"Was that the sign?" the Afghan asked.
"Signal," I corrected, waiting for radio confirmation. "Yeah, we're good. Tell our gunners to move to the roof and open up on that house."
"Yes, sir!"
"Alright men," I said. "Quiet time is about to be over, once we suppress those fuckers enough Command will deem that it's time to send the armor down the street. If all goes good we should be able to trap the Covenant inside the town and annihilate them in good old fashioned no holds barred warfare. We'll fight as a unit, but we'll trickle back into our original postings whenever possible. You know this, don't fuck it up, alright?"
There were assorted hooahs and oorahs and yessirs and various other sounds of acknowledgement. I rolled my eyes.
Seconds later the gunners began pounding away at the building the covvies had taken shelter in, the first shots of this portion of the battle.
"Is there a Lieutenant Castillo around? Lieutenant Castillo?"
"Doesn't your helmet work?" I asked.
"Are you Lieutenant Castillo?" the girl asked.
"That's me," I said, hopping down from the fence, being careful with my left ankle. "What do you need?"
"Command called for you," she said, handing me an actual piece of paper.
"All remaining platoon leaders…" I said, reading the opening words of the letter. "Is that a good idea?"
"None of my business, sir," she said with a shrug, rolling her neck. "Things are quiet enough for now."
I sighed. "Am I legging it?"
"No sir, they told me to give you my Mongoose."
"Aight, thanks. Corporal Young?"
"Yes, sir?"
"You're in command now. Everyone got that?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Good."
I grabbed onto the Mongoose and sped through the town. It had only been an hour since we started pushing back, but the defense had been intense. The Covenant had refused to give up a single house, fighting tenaciously to hold onto the ground that they had gained. They had fought well, for covvies, that is. Somehow they managed to sneak more Locusts and Daemons into the town than anyone could've expected. They seemed to have a never-ending bag of goodies. Still, our armored had given them a nice pounding, even if we were down to only four Scorpions and a dozen armored vehicles now.
Our command post had been moved back to the east of the town, the safest place in Torkham. We had already began some preparation in case we needed to evacuate, but unless the Covenant came with a miracle rally just now we were almost guaranteed to win this one. They had made a mistake overextending themselves and now we had them almost completely surrounded. For some reason they still refused to evacuate through the narrow corridor they still had control of. Stupid of them, but good for us.
Command had been a deployable tent, now it was a large house. It was filled with cables lying around to power the holotables and the rest of the equipment necessary to keep track of everything. I carefully walked around some of the equipment before reaching the main holotable. It was easy to tell it was the main one because it was the biggest one and had a mockup of the town with quickly updating information.
Tarkov was already standing there, his arms supporting his battle rifle. Half his armor was gone, replaced by bloody bandages and gashes. His helmet was by his feet, the visor was cracked but still intact.
"Tarkov," I nodded.
"Castillo."
His whole company was pretty much reduced to nothing now. Few had survived the Covenant assault on their position and even less had made the retreat back into the town. I knew Young was still there along with half of his fireteam, but it seemed like the Third Company of the 19th was now down to squad strength.
Two other lieutenants, one of them from the Pakistani Army and another from the Marines were standing there, looking every little bit as ragged as Tarkov and sporting wounds. I was expecting a captain from the Afghan armed forces to be here, but instead there were only two sergeants as well as another man of the same rank from the Army.
"Ah, shit," I muttered.
"A few minutes ago a Seraph crashed into the house across the street. Most of our leadership was gathered there to discuss upcoming plans of action," the Pakistani said.
There were unanimous groans and one gasp. Most of the men here were veterans, they weren't particularly horrified by the death of our commanders as much as annoyed by the complications that it posed.
"Most were not killed outright," he went on, "but as you can tell, they're not in terribly good condition."
"So what are we doing?" one of the Afghans asked.
"Plan stays the same, encircle and destroy for now," he said. "The Major is barely conscious, as soon as he's back up we'll go back to taking orders from him."
"So?" I asked, echoing the question everyone had. "Who's ranking officer?"
"You have seniority over the lieutenants," one of the Pakistanis said.
I smirked. "And some experience in similar situations, but Tarkov has been working with the Afghans and cooperating with your forces for longer."
"True," an Afghan sergeant agreed
"Lieutenant Tarkov?" the Pakistani lieutenant asked, turning towards him.
The man sighed. He was very tired. "Very well. We need to establish a corridor where we can pull back our wounded. Shouldn't be too hard, but for the most part we're just sending them back however we can right now. We still have tanks, we should use them. I know that there's the possibility of enemy Daemons still present in the town, but we can't have infantry bearing the entire brunt of the attack."
"I agree," I jumped in. "We should put a Scorpion and two Mk. 87s on the main street, a column of Marines behind."
"Punch deep and then spread out, take those highway buildings from them, that way we can take the houses further into the town with flanking support," Tarkov finished.
"I'll give the word," the Marine lieutenant said, putting his helmet on. "I can have twenty-five men ready to go in ten."
"Do it," Tarkov said. "I want the Afghan troops that are in reserve to help speed up the process in the south side of the town. Pakistanis in the northern edge. I want the Covenant out of here as soon as possible."
"My men?" I asked.
"Right by the highway, support for the Marines. My men will be doing the same."
"Front and center, got it," I said. "When should we start?"
"As soon as we can," Tarkov said. "I want to sleep."
"Alright, let's move it then," I said. "Get your men ready. Now!"
"I guess we're ramping up the offensive," Tarkov told me when the room was empty. "I'm not rated to be leading this many men."
"It happens," I shrugged. "And we have tanks. Tanks make everything better."
"True… Thanks."
"Tanks?"
"That'd a bad pun," he pointed out, putting his helmet back on.
I chuckled to myself and did the same thing. "Pavel, we're speeding it up."
"What?"
"Get everyone close to… ummm… Aight, I'm setting a waypoint."
"Want us to get anything?"
"Just what you have on you," I said. "I'll meet you there."
I grabbed a couple of spare magazines and caught up with Tarkov, who was already giving the orders to his own men as the majority of the troops in the town relocated in order to better finish this fucking fight. We hadn't heard any news from Mumbai in a while. The communication satellites were shot down and someone in orbit was scrambling to install encrypting hardware before we could communicate across long distances in Central Asia.
So for now it was mostly helmet radios and some antennas that hadn't been destroyed yet. Nothing out of the usual.
I stuck with Tarkov until he met his men, then I split off and crossed our section of the highway before finally bunkering down in a single-room house with no roof. The wind was howling and even though there were large troop movements going on all over the place it seemed awfully quiet. There'd be an occasional DMR shot and return plasma fire, but that was about it for now. It seemed awful weird considering we were about to kick their sorry asses into pulp.
"We're a minute away," Pavel said. "Someone had trouble crossing that last alley."
"Fuck off," Grass said.
I chuckled. Those two where my best friends.
"Ok, don't shoot us," Pavel said a minute later. "Coming in."
My four men barged in, looking a bit eager to get this done with. It would be probably done within a couple of hours if it all went well. Considering the amount of effort and troops we were putting on this action, it would be done quickly, but the number of casualties would depend on the execution.
"What are we doing?" Pavel asked.
"We're moving everything up," I said. "Command was hit by a crashed Seraph, everyone dead or wounded so us El-tees are in charge."
"Uh-oh," Grass said, drawing a chuckle from Miranda.
"We're moving down this side of the highway while Tarkov and his men do the same on the opposite side. A couple of minutes from now we'll have a couple of tanks roll down the middle of the street."
"Tanks?" Grass asked.
"Tank and two armored vehicles," I said. "They'll tear down everything and the Marines will basically pick up the trash. We're only here to provide support and prevent any flanking attempts."
"We've had this one in the bag for a while," Caboose pointed out.
"Glad we sped it up," Pavel said.
"I'm just the best," I said.
"Indeed," Grass agreed.
I didn't know whether she was jokingly agreeing or not and that made me uncomfortable.
"You can't start with this now," Schitzo said. "You know you can't flip flop on your shit again."
I nodded.
"We'll move in standard formation," I said. "Still, we have to account for the exposed left flank. Stick close to the highway, be ready to jump into the gutter at any given notice."
"Wow, I've never known you to care so much," Pavel said.
"I'm a big teddy bear at heart," I said. "Grass and Caboose are out front and Miranda on the back. We've done this a million times before."
"True," Miranda agreed, loading her rifle with a fresh magazine.
Do we subconsciously do that for effect?
"Lieutenant, are you ready?" Tarkov asked through the radio. "My men are set."
"I'm good to go soon as tanks give the word," I replied.
"They're on their way."
And on their way they were. The massive Scorpion tank rolled by, firing a shot just as it passed us, shaking the house. Two smaller Mk. 48s moved up right behind it, each with a column of heavily armed Marines formed up behind them. Those two began firing their weapons, targeting every moving target that they could see. This was a destroy and destroy kind of operation. It was hard not to find a target in this situation. The only problem was taking them out before the rest of their reinforcements could do something from the outskirts of the city.
"I've got the buildings," Miranda said. "Move when you want."
"Ok, let's go," I said. "Grass, lead the way."
Grigori and her moved out, keeping their heads low and close to the ground as they trotted right next to the highway. Pavel and I moved behind them, with Pavel a little bit in front of me so I could provide better cover for them. Miranda was behind all of us, using her powerful scope to make sure that there was absolutely no possibility of a sharpshooter taking aim at us.
"Ok, we're getting closer," I said. "Targets in that house."
"I see it," Grass said. "Grigori, take the first floor window."
"Got it."
Just as we began engaging the house, buying the Marines some cover, a Pelican circled overhead. That was surprising for two reasons: we hadn't called in any air support and every single aircraft we had was shot down hours ago. The place was littered with carcasses of charred aircraft. I hadn't personally counted, but no matter how many Banshees and Seraphs I saw, it always seemed like there were more Hornets and Falcons.
"What the hell?" Pavel asked.
The Pelican fired a shitload of missiles as Pelicans usually do before it circled again, this time emptying its main gun on various different targets.
"Lieutenant Tarkov?" a voice crackled on the radio. "We were told you were in command."
"That's me," Tarkov said. "What's the problem?"
"We need your unit."
"I'm coordinating an assault, what is the problem?"
"Classified. Convoy was ambushed and they need support while they get away."
Tarkov sighed. "I can't abandon this right now."
"Sir, this mission is top priority."
Tarkov waited a few seconds. "Castillo?"
"I can take my men," I said, offering help.
"That'll work," he said. "I'll split up my squads to cover your flank as well."
"Holding position," I replied, signaling my men to halt.
"Sir," Corporal Young said. "We're coming in on your left."
"Roger that."
I kept an eye on my mini map, looking at Grey and his men slowly shuffling in our direction, using fire and maneuver. The Pelican circled twice, firing its powerful main gun at targets that some infantry soldier in the front was designating. It fired a couple of other Anvil missiles at hard targets before falling back and setting down on the street, its cargo bay facing my men. I waited a few seconds for Grey's squad to jump down the highway and then ran towards the dropship.
"Holy shit, get down!"
I never found out who cried that, but the entire town rocked with explosions. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was artillery. Artillery that we thought the Covenant didn't possess anymore. Our own artillery pieces had been engaged with theirs in a battle of attrition and now the Pakis had less guns and virtually no ammunition. Not to mention that the crews were completely exhausted. I pushed myself back up and looked at the Pelican, still holding its position.
"Tarkov?" I asked.
"Move!" he shouted. "Get on the bird!"
More and more artillery started landing, this time closer to our positions. Pavel moved past me before stopping and turning. I knew what look his face sported even if his visor didn't allow me to see him. He didn't know what we were supposed to do. We had been fighting for this fucking town for a very long time and I was not exactly happy that we'd be leaving it just as the shit hit the fan. I looked at him and then at the Pelican, jerking my head towards it.
"Get inside!" Pavel roared.
I watched as my reduced squad climbed inside the Pelican, but turned around at the last second. It seemed like something straight out of hell. Torkham was going up in blue fire. Plasma shell after plasma shell exploded, with the town slowly disappearing from the west towards here. I never realized that the Covenant even had that much artillery available in here.
"Frank!"
I sat down on the hatch door and the Pelican took off as I kept my eyes on the quickly disappearing town. I averted my eyes and disconnected from the general battle net. It was all cries of pain and fear.
"Wait, there's only five of you?" a man asked.
I turned around and got up and inside.
"That's all you need," Grass told the man.
The man in question was obviously an ONI operative. He was clad in some sort of light armor and had a modified M7 SMG that didn't meet any particular specifications that I was familiar with.
"What do you need us for?" I asked.
"I was expecting Lieutenant Tarkov, I need to get clearance to brief you," he said with a frustrated sigh.
"Really?" Pavel asked. "I mean, really?"
"Really," he said. "Only five people?"
"We're all there is," I said.
Thanks to Colonel-Commissar2468 for proofreading this chapter. This was a rush proofreading and I didn't double check it. Titan hasn't checked in yet, but I have made you wait long enough.
I am sorry that the wait has been this long. It would've been about two weeks shorter but my computer got fucked up. Everything worked except for the internet. I had to take it to the shop twice and managed to get the problem fixed. By wiping the whole drive. Worry not, I backed the important things such as The Life, schoolwork, and that's it. Lost gigs worth of music, funny pictures, and porn. It was a sad day. Anyways, things are fixed and I'm back in the mix of wiping forced me to rewrite the beginning of next chapter, but I do have several pages ready now.
The end is nigh. This fic is close to its end. It saddens me a lotta bit. It's been a great journey so far, but I'll leave all the sentimental shit for later.
I love your reviews and hope you keep them coming. It is a little bit like an addiction, because everyone loves flattery and I love hearing whatever you guys think about my fic. This is me saying that you should review more, yes. Inflate my ego. INFLATE IT!
Stay strong.
-casquis