Wherein the inside was occupied by half-a-dozen enemy units, the Mobile Infantry outside watched with muted horror as what seemed to be an endless tide of insects swarmed over the hills and onto the flat plain surrounding the place. The Spartans, Elites and the command team waded outside, with Raczak calling out, "WARM IT ALL UP! EVERYTHING WE GOT! COME ON, YOU APES?! YOU WANNA LIVE FOREVER?!"
His MIs called out a loud 'HOOAH' in a chorus, before Raczak turned to the Spartan in the lead and told him, "These're my men. Don't get them killed..." with a tone of warning in his voice as he climbed onto the ramparts. The Spartans hummed and looked to one-another, before Chief divvied up the units and turned to the leader of the Elites, an Alien hunchback clad in gold armor, and gave him a nod.
The Elite replied with his own nod, then engaged his Energy Sword and called out, "Come, brothers! Let's greet these mindless creatures in battle!" words that garnered roars of approval from the squadron of Special Ops units. The Elites stomped up the fortress's walls, aiming their plasma rifles and repeaters outward, with the Chief and his Spartans following suit, sans one girl in an EVA armor whom he ordered to stay behind.
Kelly-087 grabbed the General of the MI by the collar and pulled him close and into cover behind a set of boxes, telling him, "Keep your head down and we'll both make it outta this," as she hefted her 8ga Shotgun. She then radioed in, "Red Horse, this is BLUE Three. HVT secured, but be advised, major local fauna, feral ground presence incoming. Load a Pelican for bear and come down on this transmission."
On the ramparts, Chief watched the stream of Bugs, MA5 in hand. He looked to Raczak and said, "These things look pissed..."
"Yeah, well, you try not to be when we drop Napalm on you," Murmured the man, before racking the bolt of his own assault weapon and shouldering it. As the bugs closed into firing range, he barked, "FIRE AT WILL!" to which Chief seemed to raise his rifle almost lightning-quick, squeezing the trigger. A fussillade of rifle fire filled the air, while the two twin fifty-cal MGs on top of the defense tower let loose as well.
The swarm of Warrior Bugs tanked the shots. Even as chitinous armor broke and bodies shattered under the whittling fire, bodies melting to plasma rounds fired by the Elites, they trampled over each-other, charging the walls. Linda's sniper rifle rang out, bullets piercing the bodies of the beasts from a 14,5mm Anti-Materiel rifle fired with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel.
The Elites, meanwhile, they focused. Their plasma rounds melted through chitin and pierced the bodies of the beasts, boiling them from the inside out. An Elite knelt, his weapon overheating, while a stunned Mobile Infantryman looked at the two-meter tall alien creature with fear. She spoke to him, "Jesus, you're a big fucker!" to which the Alien looked at her as his weapon cooled and closed.
He replied, "For you..." before standing up and opening fire into the swarm again. The woman blinked, reloaded her rifle, then stood up and opened up on the beasts as well. Beside her, a couple of her comrades laughed, to which she scoffed and glared at them. She ducked as flying bugs came in swinging. Two such bugs were shot out of the sky by the sniper on the mountain beside them.
Bug corpses began to stack next to the walls, the Spartans, Elites and Mobile Infantry shifting their fire downward while the turrets at the top of the tower continued letting loose bullets. Beside the Chief, Fred fired his DMR at the charging swarms and said, "Reminds me a little of Theta Halo! That Flood containment issue!?" to which Chief huffed in agreement, slapping a fresh mag into his rifle and hitting the bolt forward.
Kelly hefted her shotgun as more bugs flew, the General screaming bloody murder beside her. She started slam-firing shells toward the bugs overhead and murmured something to herself. The pellets tore through the under-armored bellies of the insectoids, sending them tumbling over the other side of the walls, dead. Kelly ducked, reloaded her shotgun as the man beside her screamed on about 'all of them being about to die' and sighed.
As the bugs started clambering over the corpses of their dead and onto the walls, the Spartans switched their target priorities, firing at them and stacking yet more corpses. Chief's MA5 rounds tore chunks out of the bodies of the Warriors, shredding chitin and spraying green blood onto their siblings and onto the walls. Raczak, Rico and Rosie, right beside him, focused fire as well, with Fred coordinating with another fireteam of MI to put the bugs climbing on their side down.
The Arbiter made first blood with his Energy Sword. A Warrior Bug had managed to skitter its way to the top. The blade that met it was swift, a diagonal, leftward swipe, stunning the MI around him as he vivisected it. He drew his plasma rifle with his left hand and opened up again into the swarm, his right still holding the twin-bladed weapon Elites were so famous for tightly.
He swiped low at the next beast's legs, then put the twin prongs of the plasma rifle near its face and shot, spraying burning chitin and blood across its comrades. Beside him, the MI kids joined in, spent casings clattering to the floor as they gunned down several more bugs as they climbed. One of them called out, "Reloading!" as she dipped behind the Elite.
Raczak, meanwhile, hefted his rifle and took a step back, then grabbed Rico by the strap of his armor and called to him, "Rico, where's my Boat!?"
Rico took a step back from the line and radioed, "Diz, status on that boat!?"
"Working on it, but getting through the interference is a pain!" Diz called out.
"I'm coming over to help!" The man called out, then jumped down and dashed toward the tent. As he entered it, he gave a nod to Kelly, who gave a surprisingly quick nod back. Entering the command room, he found Diz still working on the radio transmitter. She turned to him and he nodded, only for both to pause as the interference cleared out. The young woman handed Rico the mic and he called out, "Roger Young, this is Roughneck 2-0, requesting Evac, ASAP, we're getting swarmed!"
"Roughneck 2-0, I thought the planet was supposed to be clear!" The captain replied, surprised.
Rico shot back, "This place crawls! We need Evac now! Come down on this transmission!"
"Inside the outpost? That's crazy!"
"Hope you have a crazy pilot! Out!" Rico shot back, then dropped the mic as he and Diz rushed outside, to find Rosie coming in to check on them. She gave a nod, then Rico called out, "We've got the boat!" to Raczak. The man turned to the Chief, who gave a nod. The Arbiter, Chief, Fred and their troops held the line as Raczak ordered a retreat into the compound, then jumped in themselves.
Next to come in was Linda. The sniper who wore a MJOLNIR helmet with enough eyes to resemble a spider jumped into the compound utilizing her thrust packs, landing in a roll and drawing twin SMGs. Raczak looked up above, watching with muted awe as a UNSC Gunship decloaked, its more angular body resembling stealth craft of old as it hovered on all four down-facing thrusters and spun up the gatling cannon in its maw.
It opened fire, a swarm of Hi-Ex Rockets and 30mm ammo spewing forth from the pods on the wings and the cannon. A flurry of detonations shook the ground from beyond the wall of the Compound as the Spartans, Elites and MI Gathered and engaged any enemy that climbed out. The two gunners in the tower up above let loose still, spent 12,7x108mm casings dropping in piles from the roof.
The Arbiter kept up the pressure with his plasma rifle, muttering, "Truly, a swarm of insects..."
"Can we blame the Feds for this yet?" Kelly added as she walked forward with the General in tow. Up above, another pair of engines roared, with Raczak barking for the team to move back. As the Feddie dropship touched down, the group moved to board it, only for the ground below Raczak to collapse, the man yelling as steel floors collapsed into a sand pit.
The Chief approached and opened fire into the pit, while Raczak's legs were ripped off. Rico and Diz picked the man up by the arms, but he pulled Rico down toward him and demanded, "RICO! YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!" and looked the stunned young man in the eyes. Chief kept up the suppressing fire, showing Kelly and the others to board the gunship as he covered the two.
"Yes, sir!" The young man replied loudly, wary. He pulled his rifle off his back and racked it, then hesitated. Raczak looked on, expectant, blood foaming at the corners of his mouth. Rico sighed, closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger, four bullets piercing the man's armor and spilling his lifeblood onto the sand. Lieutenant Raczak died a strange death in the eyes of a Spartan, but Chief could somewhat understand not wanting to become bug food.
Rico looked to the Spartan as he slowly pulled back, then looked to their boat. He grabbed Diz's arm and the two ran toward the transport. Rico only stopped in the middle of the road to do one thing. He called out, "Chief!" which caused the Spartan to turn toward him. Rico gave him a respectful salute, then boarded the boat and gave the signal for them to take off.
As the transport lifted off and the door closed behind them, Rico breathed a sigh of relief and moved forward to the cockpit, stating, "Just in time..."
To his surprise, a certain beautiful young woman took her flight helmet off and turned to say to him, "Well, we were almost a little too late..." before smiling and looking at Diz. Diz snorted and gave a wave to Carmen Ibanez, the Flight Girl that had, at one point, been the reason Rico and her co-pilot had a fistfight, while Rico went to the back seat with a grin and sat himself down.
He paused, however, then looked to Ace and Rosie and asked, "Hey... Where's the General...?"
The entire crew looked around for a moment, panicked, before realizing the certain truth:The Spartans and Elites had grabbed him and were probably well on their way out of here. Oh, well, Rico thought, that was that, then. They could just report him as MIA or KIA if they wanted to and that'd save the whole platoon some lashings. Better MIA in case these UNSC folks ever released him.
"So, those were UNSC..." Murmured Ace, "Didn't think they had aliens with them."
"Shit's fucked, I'll tell you what," Murmured another Roughneck as she checked her gear, "The UNSC troopers had some sorta energy shield..." And she saw confusion across the occupants. Quickly, she clarified, "One of'em might not have noticed it, but I put a round into him by 'mistake'. Saw the damn thing flash out of existence and some yellow dot appear on his armor. As if the fact that shit looked like matted Titanium didn't scare the hell out of me."
"You fucking what?" Rosie demanded, "You 'mistakenly' shot one of'em and... Oh, for fuck's sake, you dumb cunt, he probably knows!"
"He didn't do anything..." She shrugged.
Rosie covered her face with her palms and spoke, "Because we were in the middle of fucking bug country! Fuck's sake, I'd've let him rip your head off if it was me in command! You nearly jeopardized all our goddamn lives out there!" which caused the group to look at her. She raised a brow and demanded, "Oh, what, don't you idiots tell me any of you idiots actually endorse nearly getting us shot by what was obviously a Special Ops team just to 'test'em out'!?"
Rico shook his head, as did Diz. Every other Roughneck, Ace included, though...
Rosie facepalmed, "Oh, my fucking god..."
FOB "Bagram"
Planet Lyra-II
Another rock that was tough as nails to break, this one was what amounted to the Federation's ski resorts. Tall peaks rose high over greenery-covered valleys, slopes of forty-five degrees greeting the Marine Corps units deployed to the area. There was one flat area in the entire territory that the FOB was built within, alongside one town with a Spaceport the Marines captured on a first drop in. Parisa stared out from the HESCO Walls of the base at the Army's Falcons being deployed for deep insertions of SOF units. ODSTs mostly saw combat in this general area, part of the 12th Orbital Insertion Mountain Division.
Jake was also beside Parisa, peering through the binoculars and murmuring, "I hear this place's filled with Chechens..." as he saw a Pelican returning with the wounded. It had a red cross on each side and writing in Cyrillic on the nose. It gently swung in, touching down as the Warthog and Saddleback ambulances rolled in to pick up about a dozen men and women that'd been injured, fighting on the hills.
Jake stated, "Didn't know Bratishka's still flying..." while wearing a smile.
"Brother's gonna be flying through every goddamn war the UNSC fights, you just mark my words," Parisa snorted as she turned back to scanning the trees. Jake jumped off the HESCOs with a chuckle, then marched up toward the Pelican as it unloaded wounded. Jane gave him a wave as she prepped to carry a stretcher, to which he answered with a nod as he examined the wounded. He noted various injuries, more reminiscent of modern UNSC Firearms.
He furrowed his brows, then watched the pilot of the aircraft descend. He took his helmet off, revealing a rugged old man with grey hair and an ever-present kind smile. He saluted Jake and said, "Jake. Good to see you, brat," to which Jake saluted and smiled back. The two men had met long ago, back during the waning days of the Human-Covenant War, when Weston was just a boy and Palagin, a Flight Lieutenant.
"Just as fine to see you, too, sir. Welcome to the Shit," He quipped. Captain Alexey Palagin, descendant of the fine pilot of the Chechen Wars and a whole lineage of other famous Russian-born pilots that fought everywhere from the Jovian Moons and Rainforest Wars to the Human-Covenant War, stood at around a meter and eighty tall and was a well-built man with a pearly white smile. Even for his age, he was sharp, fast and his eyes, clear. Some would rumor he was part of the ORION Project, though Halsey never confirmed or denied allegations.
And nobody dared look Bratishka in the mouth as a gift horse. The man had gotten more than a few Platoons out of harm's way and back to aid stations or ships during his over a thousand Sorties in the Human-Covenant War. Saved many lives that way, too, including Jake's and a good chunk of his platoon's. The man looked to his co-pilot as she helped unload the wounded, then gave her a nod, before turning to Jane and stating, "Good afternoon, Doc."
"Captain Palagin, sir," She gave a nod and a salute, smiling, "Thanks for giving these lads the ride over. You sure as shit saved three of'em," before she lifted another stretcher. She gave a quick nod in lieu of a salute, both hands occupied, then walked away.
"Wonderful girl, that one," Alexey commented, "You two still friends?"
"Yessir. Thick as thieves as we were in our childhood," Jake smirked.
"That's good," Palagin snorted, then took a look forward and smirked as he saw her. "Parisa. Didn't know they assigned you back to this unit," He told her as she approached. Palagin had met her when rescuing Jake and another certain individual from the shit during the battle in Kenya, nearby New Mombasa and its adjacent towns and cities. Some time after the Covvies burned away most of NM to dig out the Ark Portal.
She chuckled, "Little shits can't get rid of me that easy, cap. Good to see you."
The man gave an approving nod and hummed, then looked over as his radio chirped to life. He put his helmet on and listened, then said, "D30. CASEVAC requested. Enemy's brought... BMD-4s? What the shit? First IGLA Anti-Air Launchers, now those old pieces of trash...?" And he furrowed his brows. He looked over to the surprised Parisa and Jake and pointed to the shrapnel wounds in one of his Engine's armor plates, stating, "That was from an IGLA. Thank god we have thick armor."
"Wait, they brought out the museum pieces?!" Parisa snorted, "IGLAs and BMD-4 transports?!"
"Seems like it!" Palagin yelled back as he climbed into the pilot's chair. He turned toward them as his co-pilot climbed into her chair, then smirked and said, "If you wanna tag along with your team, we might need the Fire Support on this one!" As he initiated early startup procedures for his aircraft. There was gonna be a helluva fight if they were facing what was tantamount to Light Tanks.
Parisa gave a nod, then called out, "Platoon rally up and let's get moving! Captain Palagin's gonna need our help!" before she watched everyone else drop what they were doing and jog over. Nico hefted his LMG and several cans of ammo aboard, greeting the captain politely. Jane packed meds and biofoam, Heikkala, Junttila and Marta raced onto the vehicle, while Niura came in last, shotgun leaned on her shoulder.
Palagin gave a thumbs-up to his comrades, then turned and powered on the bird's engines, doing pre-flight checks as Jake and Parisa sat themselves down. He sat next to Jane, who was going through her FAK for safety's sake. She gave a nod to him as she said, "About time I got to do some proper Triage, eh?" to which he gave a thumbs up. The craft then lurched up and swiveled around, powering its engines to the maximum thrust available and flying straight out at tree-top level toward the valleys where combat was hardest.
Advancing, the group looked out of the rear window, with Nico already preparing his LMG to provide cover fire to Jane and the others. Outside, the thump and metallic dings of bullets hitting the fuselage fill their ears, though muffled by the vehicle's layers of armor. Once the vehicle began its descent, the team all readied up, rifles in hand and grenades primed just in case.
With a thump and a bit of a shake, the transport landed, the rear door opening as the Marines all poured out. Ahead of them, the BMD-4s, old 2000s and 2100s-era machines, refurbished for use by the Feds and bearing their insignias, rolled forward, their 30mm coaxial autocannons firing as their rifled main cannons let loose a volley. The Lieutenant gave a chop of the hand to Junttila, who nodded and hefted her launcher, shouldered it and called out a very loud 'Clear Backblast' before firing.
The missile streaked forward and struck the angled front armor, punching clean through and setting the vehicle ablaze, part of the crew inside mulched by the shot. One BMD crashed into a ditch, providing ample time for the Corpsmen in the area, Jane included, to grab the wounded and start triaging them for evacuation. The other Marine units around, supported by Gauss Hogs, engaged the enemy's armor to keep them off of the evacuation bird. Bullets still pinged off the armor of the Pelican, though, obvious by the ringing sounds most of the Marines heard.
The enemy's infantry fired from among the trees and the cliffs, rifle fire raining down upon the allied troops and being returned in kind by the units in need of CASEVAC and the CASEVACcing unit themselves. The moment all the wounded were loaded, Jane called out, "All wounded aboard and triaged! Get your asses in as well and we'll swing back in for the others!"
Affirmative replies echoed across the line, Junttila being the last one in as she fired her Jackhammer...