Chapter V: Supply Run
Recommended Listening: Sang Real by Dredg
The Pelican dropship rumbled gently as it hit a pocket of turbulence and Alex was pulled out of his drifting daze, he blinked a few times and saw that they'd come back into the light side of the ringworld. The group had been in the air for about fifteen minutes now, and Alex was looking forward to getting a little bit more rest back at Delta Station. However, no sooner had he thought that, the intercom in the roof of the cabin clicked on.
"Listen up boys, word's come down from Command. They want us to visit a few crash sites and gather up whatever supplies we can find there. There's bound to be Covenant at some of them, so gear up and get ready for more battle." the transmission ended in a buzz of static, and then it was silent. There were a few groans from the Marines inside the ship, and Sergeant Kelly allowed them that much; but Alex knew that this was just the beginning. He had a feeling that a few supply runs were the least of their worries in the possibly days to come. After spending an hour and a half doing some manual labor, sorting through everything the small Covenant camp had to offer and loading it all up onto the two stolen dropships and the three Pelicans that had come, he was feeling sore; but still battle ready.
Alex sat back and waited, pondering as he relaxed. He wondered just how they were going to get off of the ringworld. The Autumn, from what he had seen, was a total wreck and it damn well wasn't going anywhere. Even if they could reclaimed it, repair it and get it off the ground again; there was no doubt a few dozen Covenant cruisers and carriers waiting for them in high orbit. So, what to do? For now, just survive; Alex supposed. For the moment, the Humans were simply trying to gather up as much weapons, supplies, survivors and ships as possible; and established a well fortified, well defended outpost against any Covenant that might come their way. After they first got the survival thing down, then they'd think about retaliation or escape. The United Nations Space Command knew what it was doing.
Alex looked around the interior of the dropship, just for something to do perhaps. He only recognized two of the faces that looked back at him, Jackson and Sergeant Kelly. All the survivors of the original strike team that had rescued were onboard the ship, that meant seven Marines. Seven weary and battered men and women who were going to be thrown into the fray again. They all held weapons of some sort, each looking worn and used; like each had seen years of combat. Alex looked down at his own MA5B, weapons had come and gone for him down the years; sometimes he'd held a dozen different guns in a single battle. You took what was given to you and learned to like it, even if it was a plasma pistol.
He was running low on ammo and knew that he'd need to stock up again soon if he had any hope of surviving against the terrible onslaught that the Covenant was going to bring. The dropship rumbled softly and Alex could feel that it was decreasing both its altitude and its speed; they'd arrived. He prepared himself and looked out the window, at the crash site. He was happy to see, first of all, that a second dropship had decided to join them; he was not particularly happy to see the crash site. A Pelican had slammed into a large rock wall and then fallen to the ground, burning. It had obviously happened a while ago, for only but a few wisps of smoke escaped the burnt wreckage. Bodies were strewn about.
The duo of Pelicans landed and the back ramps lowered down, the Marines all pounded down the ramps ready for anything. Alex counted another half dozen green armored beings from the second dropship, and no Covenant were waiting for them at the crash site. Most of the Marines spread out, searching the area for any signs of the enemy or survivors; Alex, Jackson and a few others approached the dropship. Alex studied it as he approached, there were about a dozen corpses; all Marines. They were spread out around the crash site, mostly they were inside, still strapped to their seats; but evidence suggested a few had crawled out and then laid down and died. A grizzly death, definitely not one for a Marine.
"Alright men, spread and search." Sergeant Kelly called out, the Marines fell upon the rubble and wreckage and began picking through it. Alex let his rifle hang by its sling as he worked, frisking the bodies for signs of life or supplies. He worked as quick as he could, letting his mind wander as he preformed the unsightly yet necessary task. He thought of many things, of how best to put down a Hunter; by letting it charge towards you then sidestepping neatly, spinning round and putting a 12.7mm semi armor piercing, high explosive round into that little, exposed part of its orange back. He pondered on how to drive a Warthog, how one had to compensate for the little slide that came from its unique design.
He wondered about how many of these Marines that surrounded him had families, still alive and waiting for them. In many ways, in nearly every way that counted, Alex was a loner. He didn't do it because he thought it was cool, but only because he knew it was necessary. His entire family was dead, killed in the glassing of Omni Delta IX, or through other random deaths. He was the last of the Steeles, the last to carry on their legacy. Some legacy. He'd had a girlfriend once, but she had cheated on and left him. Every friend he'd made in the military was dead now, one way or the other; so he stopped making friends. Really, the only person he associated with anymore was Jackson; and that was just to pass the time.
All that was left in him was the all consuming need to kill, and die. He knew that he could fight forever, and knew that he wanted to. In between the battlefields, the killing times, he trained himself. Kept himself and his skills in shape, he kept his mind sharp and crystal clear and quicksilver. He never drank, and only allowed himself the small vice of smoking because it helped calm his nerves. Besides the basic human needs, all Alex every did was work out or train. As a result, he was a finely tuned killing machine. Remnants of his humanity still lingered in his psyche, resurfacing every now and then in brief bursts of emotion; random emotion usually. And deep down, he could still feel certain feelings within himself.
Alex stopped after twenty minutes of laboring over the bodies and searching the area, he paused and looked out over the landscape with stoic eyes. He was tired, but he was used to the feeling by now; really he just wanted to admire the scenery. Alex found that he could still appreciate true natural beauty from time to time, and it helped calm him to some extent. They were in a large valley, broken every now and then by crevices and ridges and other, smaller valleys like offshoots. He could see the ocean in the distance, but no strange buildings were around for the moment; although distantly he could see great, titanium white pulses of energy blasting up into the sky. He wondered what they were.
Alex looked down at his hands, seeing they were stained with blood. His rifle was hanging by its sling and his pistol in its holster, Alex rested his hand gently on the pistol and then extracted it after a moment. He looked at it, studied it in his hands. He'd never been one for the dramatic, but suicide had drifted through his mind like broken glass through the night in a car accident from time to time. All the men and women he'd talked to had admitted to thinking about it at least once, usually within their first month or so; when they were alone in the darkest hours of the night and it seemed that dawn would never come. They were left alone with just their thoughts and their nightmares and ghosts of those who they'd killed.
"Private Steele." Alex looked up, he put the pistol back into his holster and turned to face Sergeant Kelly.
"Yes sir?" he asked in a flat, dead voice.
"You okay, son?" he asked, thrown off briefly.
"Yes, sir." Alex responded, Kelly looked over him with an inquisitive, almost apprehensive gaze. Finally, he nodded, probably to himself.
"There's another crash site about a half mile down the valley, two escape pods landed pretty close to each other. Take the Warthog that we brought along with a few others, check it out." He stated, Alex nodded and looked round; immediately he spotted the vehicle a little ways back. He looked round and saw Jackson talking with another Marine who was smoking, he immediately made his way over to them.
"We need to move." Alex said to them, and they both looked over.
"Alright, what for?" Jackson replied.
"Kelly wants us to go check another two crash sites down the way." Alex explained, Jackson nodded and together the three men made their way towards the Warthog.
"You got any spare cigs?" Alex asked the unknown Marine, the man nodded and extracted a single cigarette; then handed it over to Alex. He nodded a thanks to the man and lit it up with his black zippo as they approached the Warthog. Alex climbed into the drivers seat and watched as the unknown Marine hopped onto the back and Jackson rode shotgun. He felt around for a key along the dashboard and finally found it, after inserting it into the ignition he started it up and then pushed down on the gas pedal. As they drove, Jackson opened up a private comm channel between the two of them.
"I heard some interesting news." Jackson said.
"Speak." Alex replied.
"While you were sleepin', I checked around the base. Head count says that we had around twelve hundred personnel onboard the Autumn when she hauled ass outta Reach. Figures show it looks like about nine hundred survived to get to the ringworld, though we don't know how many died in the crashes or have made it to a secure location. However, Alpha Base has somewhere around three hundred personnel last time they checked and Delta Station has a good one hundred and fifty and counting. You know what this means right? It means we might have a fighting chance against the Covenant."
Alex pondered it, he didn't have the heart to tell Jackson that there could very well be over ten thousand Covenant on the ring; maybe double that. And that a few hundred Marines had about as much hope as Frosty the Snowbitch did in Hell. But, Alex figured, they did have a Spartan on their side. And if they rescued Captain Keyes, then they'd have him; and he was a genius when it came to tactical configuration. Plus, they had good old Human fighting spirit. And, he'd been talking with one of the Helljumpers and he had said there'd been a whole one hundred Helljumpers onboard the Autumn when she'd taken off. So who knew, maybe Jackson had something there, maybe they could win this fight.
But to what end? Maybe they could steal a Covenant cruiser and kill everything on it, then try and figure out how to get them back home. Or at least somewhere habitable, a Covenant Cruiser could do wonders for the Research & Defense department, and those ONI bastards. Alex came out of his thoughts as something caught his eye, and then he stopped the Warthog way too late. They came to the first crash site, and the Covenant were there; waiting for them. Alex cursed and grabbed for his assault rifle, then he heard a sudden deafening roar and the LAAG mounted on the back of the Warthog opened fire. Grunts screamed and squealed, Elites bellowed and Jackals made their little, scratchy noises of distress.
Alex hopped out of the drivers seat, assault rifle in hand, and took a look out over the battlefield. It was three Marines and a Warthog against half a dozen Elites and a dozen Grunts and Jackals; not good odds. But some were dead or dying already thanks to the unknown Marine's swift actions. Alex quickly activated his comm while Jackson and the other man laid down some a line of fire, forcing the Covenant to retreat.
"This is Private Steele, I'm at the first crash site and some backup would be nice." Alex said into his helmet mounted radio.
"Will do, son." Sergeant Kelly responded in a brief burst of static. Alex looked from round the Warthog and opened fire with his assault rifle, capping a Grunt in the head that had decided to pop up at the wrong moment. He spotted an Elite making a desperate charge and opened fire, managing to finish off its shield with the rest of his clip. As he reloaded, Jackson put two bullets into its head. Alex slid his last cartridge into his assault rifle and then let it hang by its sling, he extracted his pistol and flicked on the 2x zoom. He saw that two Jackals were hiding behind their shields, one of them was just a little exposed; he zeroed in on that point and fired. The Jackal cried out and fell back, bleeding profusely.
The second Jackal, in utter confusion and fear, was thrown off balance; Alex took it out as it turned and ran. He grinned, satisfied with himself just for the moment; and then the whole world exploded. He hadn't heard the approaching Banshee until just the last moment, when it fired its Fuel Rod Gun. Alex turned to see a great green ball of energy heading directly towards him and the Warthog and his fellow Marines. He managed to shout a warning and then it hit. Alex felt himself get picked up and thrown across the area, then he slammed into something hard and unyielding. He almost blacked out, the edges of his vision darkening and threatening to overwhelm him; but he clung grimly to consciousness.
The world was spinning and his ears were ringing, and his eyes weren't tracking properly; but Alex rolled over onto his side and forced himself up. He looked around and was happy to see that most of the Covenant had either been killed, wounded or properly frightened before the Banshee had hit; he was unhappy to see that a duo of cobalt armored Elites were slowly making their way towards the twisted remains of the Warthog. Alex barely stood, swaying from side to side as if drunk, and then wished that he was; he was never much one for drinking, but sometimes wished he was. The unknown Marine was now just another corpse and he couldn't even see Jackson, but he hoped the others were on their way now.
The Warthog was totally useless, just a burnt, charred remnant of its former self. Alex wasted breath on a few curses, then raised his pistol and waited for them to come to him. He knew that one Marine didn't have a hope in hell of staving off two Elites, maybe one but definitely not two; hell, even a Spartan had trouble with two. They were still a little ways off, Alex raised his gun and fired. He pelted one of the tall bastards with skilled accuracy and precision, throwing the Elite off and managing to keep throwing him off with each shot; soon enough its shield overloaded and collapse. Alex put the rest of his bullets into the thing's head, and watched as its blood and brains came exploding out of its cranium.
Alex was pleased that he'd killed one of them, however there was still the problem of the other one advancing on his position. He quickly went about reloading his pistol, but then the Elite was on him. It didn't fire at him, no; it wanted to kill him with its bare hands. Alex cursed, dove and dropped his pistol. He didn't have any grenades on him and the Elite was too close to use his assault rifle, the bullets might ricochet back into his face; and that was no good. He rolled over as the Elite tried to step on him, and then something caught his eye. In a split second, he formulated a plan. He knew it was deadly, dangerous and completely insane; but Alex was most those things already so he rolled with it.
The Marine made a dive for the Elite, who briefly faltered because the thing was probably surprised by this unexpected attack; which was what Alex was counting on. He saw a few plasma grenades sitting in the aliens bandolier across its waist, like a belt. He reached out and activated one, then hit the ground, rolled away and watched. It took about two seconds for the Elite to realize what happened, then it wasted the next two seconds trying to figure out how to get the plasma grenade off. In the last second of life, it realized the futility of what it was trying to do and started to raise its gun to fire at Alex; then it blew up.
The blast sent Alex flying a few meters all over again, but when he finally stabilized himself he saw that the explosion had more or less vaporized the Elite. Alex heaved a sigh of relief, then a barrage of plasma bolts exploded over his head onto the rocks behind him. He looked over and saw a small group of Jackals and Grunts heading his way, the last survivors of the strike team. He cursed and grabbed for his assault rifle, but it had been lost somewhere along the way. Alex was weaponless, he looked desperately around for his pistol while scrambling to get to some cover. And then suddenly a hail of 7.62mm bullets exploded across the Covenant's position and slammed into them, within seconds everything was dead.
"You've got some skill son, and some guts." Alex heard Sergeant Kelly praising him and wished that he wasn't in enough pain so that he could properly appreciate it. He tried to get up, and then all the hurts he'd been unconsciously pushing aside in light of the battle hit him at once. He screamed once, loudly, then collapsed. When he came to who knew how much longer later, he was propped up against the side of the escape pod and two Marines were working on him; one of them was Jackson.
"What the hell did you do, man? Looks like a few of your ribs are cracked." He commented.
"Don't know, must be from all those crazy, late night parties I have." Alex replied, he kept a stoic face, or tried to at least, as they patched him up. Within ten minutes, the two Marines had his armor on and helped him to his feet. The other Marines had finished up at the first site and looked like they were finishing up at this one as well, there hadn't been much.
"Alright men, gear up; we're heading to the last site." Sergeant Kelly stated loudly, and everyone readied themselves. Alex approached as they headed off, but Kelly halted him.
"Woah soldier, you took quite a fall; head back to the dropship." He said.
"Do I have to, sir?" Alex replied.
"Yes son, that's an order. Take a breather, we'll handle the rest." Kelly replied calmly but firmly, Alex nodded, turned and headed back towards the dropship. He clambered up onboard, sat down; and then fell asleep.