Halo: Firefight

by Ian Otter

Twenty-eight years. Billions upon billions dead. And a galaxy forever changed. These were the cost of the Human-Covenant War. But for many of the soldiers who participated in this war, they would never see this end, traveling from one battle to the next as they fought and died to defend their people from total annihilation. These are their stories. These are their firefights.

6. Paris IV 2549: When the Levee Breaks

La Fayette
Nouvelle Roussillon Region, Paris IV
18 August 2549

SGT Isiah Cooper, 606th Engineer Dive Detachment

Seven Days after start of Covenant Invasion

The waves gently rocked his body back and forth, and for a moment, Cooper let himself believe he was back home on his boat, taking a well-deserved nap on the deck underneath the sun after an eventful day of freediving.

" – Sergeant, are you receiving me!? GET UP!"

Cooper wrenched his eyes open, only to see water lapping against the visor of his HAZOP-class Mjolnir helmet.

"Oh, fuck," he groaned.

"Coop!? That you!? C'mon, get the fuck up!" Cooper felt himself get rolled onto his back and Mikey appeared over him, his face partially obscured by his own HAZOP helmet.

"Mickey?" Cooper groaned. "What the hell happened?"

"No time to explain! GET UP, DIVER! This place is about to be crawling with Covies!"

That got Cooper's attention and with a strained grunt, he rolled back onto his front and pushed himself upright.

"C'mon, c'mon! Let's go!"

Mikey took off towards the nearest building, splashing through the knee-high water without any regard to noise he was making, and Cooper quickly followed in his wake. The entire area surrounding them was flooded, and Cooper could feel the current against the back of his legs as more water continued to pour in. "Mikey? What happened to the levee?"

"What levee?" Mikey called back over his shoulder.

"You know, the one we were supposed to be prepping for demo?"

"Yeah, I know, I was being facetious! Well, we don't need to be worried about that anymore. The Covies, in their infinite wisdom, decided to take it out for us!"

"What!? Why the hell would they do that? I mean, I know we were going to blow it because it would have slowed the advance of their ground forces by days, but the Covies had to have known that! Any competent commander would have gone out of their way to make sure that levee remained intact!"

"That's your problem, boss!" Mikey yelled back. "You assumed the Covies are competent! But, to be fair, I don't think they did it on purpose: I didn't see it, but there was a flash from the sky, and next thing I know, half the levee is just gone! Had to have been some sort of anti-ship weapon – like a plasma torpedo or something – that missed its target by, like, a thousand klicks or something and hit the surface of the planet instead!"

"Oh, that's just great," Coop muttered under his breath. "Where's the rest of the detachment?"

Mikey shook his head. "We're the only ones that made it!"

Cooper grimaced but truth be told, he wasn't entirely surprised. "What about our tactical support? 5th Amphibious Division? The levee's destruction was supposed to be in support of their operations! Did they make it? They still around?"

"Dunno! I'm not the one equipped with the hardened uplink module!"

Instinctively, Cooper reached up to touch the side of his helmet, his finger coming into contact with the box-like communication's device mounted onto the side of helmet directly over his right ear. Fortunately it was still intact, having survived the explosion and the subsequent collapse of whatever remained of the levee.

"Computer, access the BNet. I need a tactical map of the area," Cooper barked at his HUD. "Bring up the Blue Force tracker!"

At once his HUD was flooded with a tactical map of the area, complete with blue dots representing friendly forces.

"Oh, thank god!" he exclaimed. "Looks like the lead elements of the 5th are on their way here; they're only twelve klicks out. Best thing we can do is just wait for them to arrive."

"No, wait, shit!" Cooper suddenly realized his HUD was showing the 'no connection' symbol. "I'm actually off the network! Computer, reconnect me to BNet!"

At once, the words appeared on his HUD: 'Unable to connect. Jamming device detected. Attempting to auto-reconnect: 7 minutes.'

"Shit, we're being jammed, man, including long range comms! My information is at least seven minutes old! I don't have any up to date info on the 5th's current position!"

"What? How are being jammed? That would mean the Covenant are right- WAH!"

Cooper's head snapped up just in time to see a Covenant Skirmisher appear out of nowhere and tackle Mikey, knocking them both into the water.

"Ambush!" he screamed, yanking his rifle off the magnetic clamps on his back but as he was bring it to bear, the rifle was abruptly knocked out of hands and he whirled around only to be confronted with a second Skirmisher.

Cooper barely had time to process what he was seeing before he was immediately forced to defend himself. He ducked as the Skirmisher swung a cutlass at his neck; the energy blade instead passed over his head, skimming along the top of his helmet and leaving a nasty burn mark. In retaliation, Cooper lashed out, driving his covered knuckles into the Skirmisher's chest plate and forcing the alien to stumble backwards. Having bought himself a few seconds worth of time, Cooper yanked the dive knife from his left forearm sheath and held it up in a ready stance.

The alien took one look at Cooper's knife and let out a rasping noise; it took Cooper longer than he cared to admit to realize the Skirmisher was laughing.

"Laugh it up, motherfucker," Cooper snarled. "We'll see who's still laughing when this blade here is buried up to its hilt in your fucking heart."

And with that, he attacked, hoping to catch the Skirmisher off guard. Feinting left, Cooper instead launched forward, trying to skewer his opponent in the chest but unfortunately the alien was ready for him. With a slight swing of its cutlass, Cooper's blade was easily deflected to the side and he forced to abort his lunge and snap his head back to avoid taking a backhand to face. That was immediately followed by a twist of his body as the Skirmisher decided it was its turn to try and stab Cooper in the chest.

Grabbing the alien's extended arm by the wrist with his free hand and keeping it locked in place, Cooper slashed at the Skirmisher's neck, who deftly blocked the blow with the cutlass. There was a splash of water as the Skirmisher snapped its leg up to try and knee Cooper in the stomach, forcing him to release the alien's arm in order to dodge the blow. In a hasty attempt to maintain control of the fight, Cooper thrust his knife forward, angling for the alien's face, but the Skirmisher easily spotted the sloppy move and grabbed Cooper's hand, stopping the knife from going any further.

Shoving his palm against the pummel, Cooper pressed forward with both hands, and the blade began to inch closer to the Skirmisher's face. That is until the Skirmisher dropped its cutlass to use its both claws to hold the knife in place. For the next few seconds, the two of them stood there, awkwardly wrestling for control of the knife.

The stalemate was broken when the Skirmisher unexpectedly head-butted Cooper. The move took Cooper completely by surprise; after all, he was the one wearing a fully enclosed armored helmet, not the Skirmisher. But while the maneuver caused little to no injury to him, because he had been taken so off-guard, Cooper was unable to react in time to the follow up punch the Skirmisher delivered to his chest. The blow caused him to stumble backwards, and he quickly raised his hands to protect himself as the Skirmisher lunged towards him, but clearly the alien forgot to take into account the water that was up to their waist, so instead of landing on Cooper and ripping him to shreds, the Skirmisher did a sort of awkward stumble. Unfortunately, Cooper was still trying to recover and was unable to take advantage of the Skirmisher's mistake.

For the next few moments, the two fighters just stared at each other, as they waited for the other to make a move. For his part, Cooper was marveling over the fact he was still alive; Skirmishers were stronger, heavier, and had a much longer reach than most humans and in a hand to hand fight, that was usually what mattered more than skill. But as Cooper stood there, breathing heavily, it suddenly occurred to him that all of those advantages only applied when Skirmishers were fighting on land, and not in meter high water.

And suddenly, Cooper realized he'd been fighting wrong.

He immediately threw himself into action. The Skirmisher automatically tensed as Cooper lunged forward, but instead of charging the alien, Cooper dove into the water instead, submerging himself. Having spent the vast majority of his life in or around water, the sensation of being undersea comforted him in ways being on land never did – that was part of the reason why he'd join the Army as an engineer diver.

He swam straight for the Skirmisher, taking advantage of the rushing current to gain even more speed. On the surface, the Skirmisher was frantic: having lost sight of Cooper due to the murkiness of the water, the alien had pulled out its plasma pistol and was randomly firing into the liquid, hoping to get a lucky shot. However, as dangerous as plasma was, it wasn't hot enough to penetrate further than a few millimeters into the surface, leaving Cooper entirely unscathed. He slammed into the Skirmisher's legs, taking them out and knocking the creature into the water.

At once the Skirmisher panicked, wildly flailing around like a house cat that had accidentally jumped into a hot tub. Ignoring the splashing limbs, Cooper grabbed the Skirmisher by the shoulder and stabbed it in the chest, slipping his blade between the alien's ribs and into the chest cavity where the heart would have been in a human. A burst of bubbles erupted from the Skirmisher as it involuntarily let out a gasp of pain, and the water surrounding them started to turn purple as blood gushed from the wound. The Skirmisher's thrashing became even more pronounced.

Wrapping his arms around its waist, Cooper inverted and dove towards the seabed, punching the Skirmisher's stomach a few times for good measure before holding both of them in place at the bottom of the flood. The Skirmisher's struggles begin to weaken as a combination of blood loss and lack of oxygen took its toll, before – abruptly - it went limp, a final bubble escaping from its mouth. Shoving the body away, Cooper scrambled to his feet. The water level was still rising, but he was able to stand on his feet and look around with his head above the water. There were no more threats but at the same time, no Mikey.

"Mikey! What's your status?" he barked over TEAMCOM.

"COOP! HELP!"

Jumping at the cry, Cooper frantically looked around before he heard the sound of splashing from around the corner. Diving into the water once more, he swam in the direction of the noise, surfacing a few meters away from where Mikey was struggling to avoid getting stabbed again by his Skirmisher opponent.

"COOPER! HELP!"

"Hang on, Mikey!" Cooper yelled back as he drew his sidearm, but with the two locked in hand to hand combat, he held his fire as there was too much of a risk of friendly fire. Gritting his teeth, Cooper waded forward -

- then launched himself at the fighters. He slammed into them both, knocking everyone into the water. The Skirmisher immediately attempted to retaliate, throwing a roundhouse punch at Cooper's face, but with its fist considerably slowed by the mass of the water, Cooper was easily able to duck under the blow. Grabbing the Skirmisher and pulling it into a bear hug, Cooper jammed the muzzle of his pistol under the alien's jaw and pulled the trigger.

A blast of bubbles emerged from his magnum. At the same time, his HUD let out a shrill of alarm as the words 'Jam – FTE/FTF' flashed across his visor and a purple cloud began to form around him. The Skirmisher lifelessly started to float to the surface; Cooper let it go, abandoning the corpse in favor of grabbing Mikey.

"Mikey! How bad is it!?" he asked over the sounds of Mikey's pain filled cries.

"I dunno," was his strained reply. "Fucker sliced up my stomach. Can't see though."

"We gotta get you out of here. Hang on!"

Dragging Mikey along as he waded through the water, Cooper stopped in front of a restaurant of sorts. The water was lapping against the front window; slipping out his knife, he jabbed the glass hard enough to crack it and allowed the water pressure to do the rest. The window shattered, and Cooper rode the tidal wave into the store.

"Come on, let's get up to the roof," Cooper commanded. "Be easier to see that way."

"You're the one who's carrying me!"

Half dragging half carrying, Cooper managed to get Mikey all the way to the top of the stairs where they emerged onto an open rooftop dining area.

"Gawwwwwwwwd dammit," Mikey groaned as Cooper laid him down on one of the tables. Pulling off his chest rig and removing his lightweight armor, Cooper pulled out his knife once more and carefully cut open Mikey's wetsuit. It took all of his self discipline to avoid visibly reacting.

"How bad is it?" Mikey asked through gritted teeth.

"Well, you're not winning any beauty contests anytime soon, that's for sure. Oh, wait, you're talking your injuries…" Cooper tried to joke, but even to his own ears, his voice sounded strained.

The problem was, while Cooper wasn't a medic, even he could tell Mikey was in bad shape. His upper torso was covered in claw and bite marks, but the biggest cause for concern was the stab wound in his lower gut. Doubly so because unlike plasma swords, energy cutlasses were not hot enough to cauterize, meaning aside from the stab itself, blood was slowly but surely oozing out from Mikey's abdomen.

"Let's just get you patched up, man," Cooper said instead. "IFAK."

Yanking the pouch off Mikey's belt and ripping it open, Cooper hurriedly yanked out the can of biofoam inside.

"This is going to hurt," he warned.

"Just fucking- AGHHHHH!"

Cooper winced at Mikey's cries of pain, and tried to apply the biofoam as quickly as he could. The hole filled as the foam expanded, stopping the bleeding, but it was only a temporary solution. Chucking the now empty can away, Cooper pulled out the medical stapler and pinched the skin shut, before wrapping the entire area with a few bandages. As he worked, he could tell the exact moment the biofoam's pain killers kicked in as Mikey's breathing became less strained, and he began talking once more.

"Tell it to me straight, Coop," he breathlessly said. "How bad is it?"

"How the fuck should I know, do I look like a fucking medic?" Cooper snapped before taking a deep breath and forcing himself to calm down. "I didn't exactly pass human anatomy with flying colors, you know. This being high school, I was more concerned about Rachel Turnbull's anatomy then anyone else's, you know what I mean?"

"We had a Rachael Turnbull at my high school," Mikey mused. "Her parents were über-religious, which naturally meant she was the biggest whore in school; five credits and she'd give you a blowjob behind the cafeteria dumpsters. God, I kinda wish she was here right now: I could use the distraction."

"You and me both, brother," Cooper replied as he helped Mikey off the table, and gentle propped him against the parapet. "We gotta get you out of here. Can you walk?"

"I think the bigger question is: can I swim? And I think the answer to that is: hell na."

"Probably best you don't expose that wound to water too," Cooper said, thinking about all the contamination in the water, including two dead Skirmishers. "We need to…"

Cooper trailed off as he realized the buzzing noise he'd been hearing wasn't coming from his head, but from down the street. He poked his head above the parapet to see what it was, only to immediately duck back down again. "Holy shit! We got an entire swarm of Covenant Drones coming down the street right now!"

"What!? How!? There weren't supposed to be Covenant this close!"

"You got me!" Cooper retorted as he carefully poked his head over the parapet and watched as the Drones began settling on the buildings surrounding them, including one large group that landed on the three story building directly across the street from them. As he watched, the group climbed straight up the side of the wall, dragging something behind them, and it took him a moment to realize it was a set of plasma cannons, which the Drones began assembling on the rooftop.

"What are they doing?" Mikey whispered from beside him.

"Looks like… they're setting up ambush positions. But for who? We're the only ones here."

Mikey frantically began tugging on his leg.

"5th Amphibious Division is on their way here, and they don't know the Covies are already occupying this town!" he hissed.

Cooper inhaled sharply. "Fuck. And with comms down, we got no way of warning them. But wait! They should be coming in their Hippo AAVs. That should be enough to help them survive."

Mikey shook his head. "Brother, those Hippos are designed to float, which means they don't exactly have a shit-ton of armor. Those plasma cannons will rip them open like tin cans. We gotta do something, man."

"Like what? There's only two of us and no offense man, but you can't even stand!"

Thud.

Cooper immediately whirled around at the noise, only to see a Drone had landed on the rooftop behind them. At the first, the Drone didn't even notice them, too busy staring at the bloody bandages and empty biofoam can Cooper had carelessly left lying in the open. Then the Drone looked up and froze. For a moment, the two sides just stared at each other. Then the Drone let out an ear piercing shriek.

"CONTACT!" Cooper screamed, snapping his magnum up, only to immediately remember he had never gotten around to clearing the jam. He hastily yanked back on the slide as the Drone raised its Needler-

Mikey's rifle coughed three times and the Drone seemed to explode, the gunshots echoing up and down the street. At once, the shrill cry of more Drones began to fill the air.

"Oh fuck, we're in the shit now!" Cooper screamed as he rose to his full height. "Plasma cannon, direct front!"

"Coop! My underbarrel! Take it!"

Cooper deftly caught the rifle and grenade launcher combo Mikey tossed at him. Flicking the trigger guard safety off, he aimed and fired.

Thunk.

It was a lucky shot; the 40mm grenade slammed into one of the cannon's power cell, causing it to explode and setting off a chain reaction which took out both plasma cannons and half the Drones positioned there. The surviving half took off into the air and began diving down on them.

"Contact! Covenant coming from above!" Cooper screamed as he switched over to the rifle and began shooting.

Descending from the sky like a group of paratroopers, the Drones had Cooper and Mikey caught out in the open with no cover and no place to hid. Conversely, it left the Drones equally exposed and, as it turned out, two feet planted on a flat, leveled surface provided for a much more stable firing platform than a set of waving wings.

Cooper's first shot was a perfect headshot that lancing through the lead Drone's forehead and sending the oversized insect crashing to the water below. He pivoted and cut another Drone in half with two quick bursts. Realizing the danger they were in, the remaining Drones broke off their attack and tried to scatter, but Cooper was quick to empty the rest of his magazine into the crowd, sending bodies and body parts into the drink below.

"Loading!" he warned as he slapped the bolt release, wincing as a burst of plasma shot over his shoulder.

"Contact, three o'clock, down the street!" Mikey yelled, popping a few shots downrange with Cooper's handgun. "Put a forty Mike Mike in that room: it full of fucking bugs!"

Hurriedly stuffing a grenade into the launcher, Cooper tucked the weapon under his shoulder, took aim, and fired.

"Damn!" Mikey whistles appreciatively as the grenade soared through the open window and exploded inside. "That was beautiful! When'd you get so good with that fucking thing!?"

"I work better under pressure! Makes me feel like I'm back underwater!" Cooper yelled back. "I need another grenade!"

A volley of purple crystals shattered against the parapet, showering him with dust and debris. Tracing the fire back to its source, Cooper returned fire and watched as the Drone stagger backwards, its vomit-inducing guts spilling out from its abdomen.

"More contacts! Coming from down the street! I count a dozen; where the hell are these fuckers coming from!?"

"I don't know, all I know is we can't keep this up forever! We're gonna run out of ammo before we run out of bad guys to shoot at!" Cooper yelled back as he reloaded. "Fuck! Where's a skyscraper-sized can of bug spray when you need it!?"

"I dunno about bug spray, but I still got them charges we were gonna use on that levee!"

"What? Where!?"

"Back with the rest of my shit!"

Cooper glanced at where a pile of discarded medical supplies, a cut up chest rig, a dead Drone, and a bag with C-12 explosive charges peeking out from the top all innocently laid out in the open. He didn't hesitate. Shoving the rifle back into Mikey's arms, he yelled, "Cover me!" and took off running.

Immediately a mixture of plasma and Needler fire began saturating his position. Skipping from side to side, by some miracle, Cooper managed to avoid getting hit long enough for him to grab the bag and rush back into cover.

"I don't know with the jamming, if a remote detonation is possible!" Cooper warned. "I'm going to rig up a timed fuze, turn this bitch into a satchel charge!"

"Make it fast," Mikey pleaded, his voice strained, and Cooper knew it was taking Mikey all of his strength just to stand up and shoot.

Tearing open a waterproofed pocket, Cooper pulled out a delayed fuze and a push detonator. Jabbing the contraption into the first block of C-12 he got his hands on, he wired everything together and immediately armed it.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" he screamed, throwing the entire fifteen kilogram satchel charge as far away as possible.

"Coop! BEHIND YOU!"

There was a green flash of light and then-

Pain.

That's all Cooper felt as he came back into his body, only to find he was lying on his side, staring up at the sky while Mikey fired on the Drones emerging from the stairwell right behind them. There were too many of them and Cooper knew he had to get up and help, but he couldn't move. Couldn't even feel anything below his neck.

Oh god, was he still going to be able to dive after all this was over?

No, focus! Mikey! He needed to help Mikey! He needed-

There was another flash of green –

UNEXPECTED HALT X [KIA]

END RECORD VIEW [2:47:12 L]

REPLAY VIDEO? Y/N…

XXX

Brigadier General Raquel Turnbull-Oliver – deputy commanding general of the 5th Amphibious Division - sighed as she hit 'no' and allowed the video player to close. There was no doubt about it: if not for the actions of these divers, the battle could have been so much worse.

According to the after-action report submitted by her men, while the divers hadn't been able to kill the entirety of the Covenant force occupying the town of La Fayette, the amount of noise they had generated had been enough to warn her vanguard that they were about to enter a combat zone, forcing them to adapt a more cautious approach instead of charging headlong into town in a misguided attempt to reinforce it before the Covenant had a chance to exploit the levee's destruction. That in turn had changed what could have been a costly ambush, into a… well, not quite victory, but there was no doubt casualties would have been much higher.

And that alone meant, as far as Raquel was concerned, Sergeants Cooper and Galloway were heroes, who deserved to be honored for their sacrifice.

Normally, such a nomination would have to be submitted by the men's commanding officer. But, seeing as how the entirety of the 606th Engineer Dive Detachment had been killed in what was becoming known as the Battle of La Fayette, coupled with the fact the detachment had been temporarily assigned to the 5th AmpDiv and had been reporting directly to her, meant that the responsibility of seeing that these men were properly honored now fell on her shoulders. It was, in many ways, quite humbling.

The question that confronted her now was, what medal should be awarded to these men that would truly reflect their sacrifice? She knew what her preference would be, but she also knew what the Army's guidelines were, having filled out far too many of these forms over the course of her career. And she knew the Army would more than likely disagree with her assessment.

At the same time, these men were dead, so what medal they were awarded with wouldn't matter to them. But, then again, it would matter a great deal to their families. And if Raquel could provide some measure of comfort to the poor mothers and fathers and wives and husbands and children and siblings of those who'd paid the ultimate sacrifice, wasn't it worth it? Furthermore, this had already produced a veritable mountain of dead heroes. What was two more added to the stack?

Mind made up, Raquel pulled her computer closer to her and pulled open a document.

'Medal of Honor Recommendations for _'

Raquel carefully began typing.

'Sergeant Michael Galloway'

'Sergeant Isiah Cooper'

'For valorous actions…'

---

General Notes

This is a weird chapter: I started writing this with the idea of depicting underwater combat, only to get halfway and remember I know nothing about underwater combat. I didn't feel like abandoning it, so I just rolled with whatever I had.

Don't asked about the Turnbull name. The name means nothing to me it was just that as I writing, it occurred to me there are a lot of variations of the name "Rachel," and for some reason, my brain thought it would be funny to have multiple characters all with the same name, just spelled differently. I might have also been mildly influenced by the TV Tropes article "One-Steve Limit," which I had coincidentally read in the midst of writing this (for unrelated reasons.)

In real life, the US Army actually does have combat divers. Aside from the various Ranger and Special Forces (aka, Green Berets) operators who can and do go to school to become dive qualified, there actually is an MOS for divers within the engineering branch: 12D – Diver. Part of their duties include, among other things: underwater construction, inspection, salvage, welding and cutting, and of course, demolition.