Chapter 43 – Pretium
August 23rd, 2552 - (15:30 Hours - Military Calendar)
Epsilon Eridani System, Reach
Viery Territory, New Alexandria
:********:
The Brutes had more hostages.
The truth of that should've been obvious even after the insertion teams had saved those near the landing zones. However, the sheer scale of how many they were holding back left Rico horrified.
Through the numerous feeds on his computer screen, he witnessed a tide of ragged-looking civilians stampeding into his sector. In seconds they were rushing into the four roads that joined onto the M7 highway. His fingers stabbed across his keypad, deactivating one cluster of mines after the next even as his eyes darted from one oncoming disaster to another. What made it that much worse was that even though every single explosive under his watch was connected to his computer, there was no way to defuse all of them at once, a consequence of mixing different mines that themselves utilized different systems and interfaces.
Despite the cool temperature in his helmet, a cold sweat pooled on his brow while he struggled to keep track of four different groups of civilians. Them as well as the Covenant troops not far behind.
He wasn't sure whether it was his own sudden inspiration or the quicksilver of the almighty, but even as he frantically watched the icons of different mine clusters flit from green to yellow, an idea jumped to the forefront of his thoughts. Time was of the essence and he found himself carrying it out even before he fully understood the endgame.
There were gaps.
They were small but they were there. Given what he was thinking, those small spaces between the mines on the four streets and those on the highway would be what ultimately made the difference. Just a few meters of safe ground and his own timing would decide whether he was a savior or a murderer. He understood that well enough as the next few seconds ticked by.
He had a front row seat to the spectacle that unfolded. Somewhere in the realm of a hundred people, people who might have otherwise called the city home, ran for their lives through lanes of empty cars and stagnant trash. Even from overhanging cameras he could clearly see their faces, contorted with horror and desperation as they were, mouths ajar in shouts and screams that he couldn't hear. Not with his computer. More and more, he could hear their cries filtering through the nearby windows as they grew closer.
He waited, still bringing to heel the last mines in their way until he was sure each group had a straight path to the M7. As a consequence, so too did those who were using them as human shields. He gauged their speed down to the last individual person. Then, with one hand dedicated to deactivating the first clusters that dotted the highway, he split his attention into an ambidextrousness born of necessity. His free hand was quickly enslaved to a new task of hovering over a part of the keypad, ready to come crashing down at a moment's notice.
He thought his plan was working. He watched the first of the terrified civilians drain from their respective streets and onto the highway. As he waited for the last of them, he witnessed something new.
Some of the enemy had stopped running.
Across the board, the Brutes and Jackals suddenly halted. One after another, they turned and started running back the way they came. Only the dozens of Grunts that made up the bulk of their forces carried on, seemingly untroubled by their comrades' departure.
He caught on almost as quickly as they had.
They were aware of the mines. Why else would they have sent a literal human wave ahead of them? But that was the point. Not a single one of their 'minesweepers' had gone up in smoke, their first clue that they were walking into a trap. They had picked up on it faster than he would've hoped. He couldn't say the same for the Grunts who appeared just as aloof to the dangers they were running into as the civilians.
He practically willed those he was trying to save to move faster. He waited, anxiety gnawing at his gut, for the people to get out of range, for the Grunts to get within range and for the rest of their forces to stay within range.
The triple-sided eclipse of opportunities arrived several heartbeats later. The last handful of stragglers had stumbled off the streets just as the incoming Grunts came within a few strides of the highway.
His freehand now danced across the keyboard, quickly reengaging the proximity sensors for those clusters at the end of each street with an unconscious fluidity. A thought flashed through his mind all the while, digging back to the old stories his school teachers used to tell him: 'If God could close an entire sea on top of a few Egyptians for Moses, he could certainly close four streets on top of a few aliens for Rico'.
The unspoken prayer yielded bright miracles as the first anti-personnel mines blew up in the faces of the onrushing Grunts. One street went up in flames after the next in a percussive orchestra of self-inflicted destruction. Screams rang out from two directions, from the civilians fleeing the sudden infernos at their backs and from the Grunts whose cries were cut short by blasts of fire and shrapnel. Pieces of bone and metal flew into the air even as cascading explosions rippled down the lengths of the streets, just as planned. By then most of the retreating Brutes and Jackals had their backs turned. They saw nothing of the walls of fiery detonations that raced after them like flames along lines of gunpowder. They were consumed in instants, ripped apart by competing explosions that sent limbs, weapons, wheels and car doors spiraling skyward.
It was over in a blink.
All that was left of the four streets that he could see were newly planted forests of roiling smoke whose fiery roots ran deep into cracked and cratered asphalt.
He couldn't marvel at the devastation for long. He was back at it again, deactivating the last clusters that stood between the civilians and safety. The frontlines lay a short distance to the east. He knew Epsilon and the others would see them coming. He still didn't want to take any chances. Once the last cluster was put on standby, he opened a comm-link back to the squad.
"Ep-6 to Ep-1, I've got over 100 civvies en route to your location! I say again, 100 plus civilians heading your way! Hold your fire, over!"
The Staff's reply was quick and to the point. "Copy that, Ep-6, we have a visual. Hammerhead's taking his team in to handle intake. What's the situation at your position? I just saw multiple detonations in your sector."
Rico tried to calm himself as he started reactivating some of the mines on the highway. "Covies, sir. They were using them to clear a path."
The Staff's tone shifted with a note of bitter resentment. "That so. Alright, can you hold?"
"Not for long. Most of my sector's already down, took a lot of them out with it. One more stunt like that though and I'll risk being compromised."
"Copy. If they made a push like that then another one won't be far behind. Pull back for now and leave the-"
"Hold on a sec." Rico zoomed in on something that caught his eye. One of the feeds captured an elevated view just above a spot where one of the streets led onto the M7. Near the billowing smoke, just out of reach of the flames, he saw movement. What he at first thought were two wounded Grunts he slowly recognized as two civilians, a man and a young boy. They were beside the roof of an overturned van whose white walls were slowly catching on fire. He zoomed in even more and almost immediately regretted it.
The boy was struggling, pulling desperately at the man's shoulder who was trying with equal desperation to get him to let go. Rico noticed the latter's leg pinned beneath the van and connected the dots. Not everyone had gotten clear of the blast. The explosion he had triggered had tossed the van onto the man's leg, pinning him in place. The flames that danced over the vehicle weren't coming towards them, however. They were instead crawling down towards the undercarriage, towards the fuel tank.
"Ep-6?" The Staff called.
But Rico was already on the move.
He grabbed his MA37 and his grenade launcher from the desktop on his way out, securing the first on his back harness as he barreled through the door with the second. He came out into a dimly lit hallway and sighted the glowing 'Exit' sign at the other end. He barreled across the paper strewn floor to the other side of the passageway and shouldered through the exit. He raced down the emergency stairwell, eventually jumping down from one landing to the next, grunting at the shock of pain in his shins as he moved. Leaping down to the ground floor, he cannoned his way through the last door, trading the darkness of the building for the afternoon light.
All six trash strewn lanes of the M7 highway loomed in front of him, running from left to right. He didn't dare use any of them. Instead, he ran up the sidewalk. It was easier to navigate a path along the sparsely covered concrete. He sighted the pair of what he assumed to be father and son. They were further up ahead where one of the outer lanes connected to the first street on the left. They were still struggling. The boy was still pulling at his dad, the dad still trying to get him to leave.
Rico made a split-second analysis of his surroundings. He had only reactivated a few of the mine clusters closer to the end of the 50-meter stretch. Since he was heading in the opposite direction, his chances of getting taken out by his own ordnance were low, but he would have no direct path back to friendly lines. He would have to take a detour. Even with one in mind, even with the two in sight, he wasn't sure if he would make it. There was no telling what the successive shockwaves from the other streets could've done to the internal systems of the M7's landmines. Every step he took past piles of junk or over haphazard debris was a gamble for both his life and theirs. Even then, he kept flipping the coin, kept chancing his odds to a watchful eye and blind luck.
"Ep-6 to Ep-1, I'm on my way to two civilians, one wounded, over!"
"I wouldn't advise that, Ep-6. Those mines-"
"Already deactivated, sir! There's a layer left in front of your position! Once I get back, I'll restart the network!"
The Staff didn't answer right away. When he did, Rico was too busy to pay attention. He reached a point directly across from the pair and started crossing over. He chose his route purposefully, slipping between two cars, sliding over the hood of another then hurdling himself over the median. His boot landed on something hard and unyielding beneath what should have been a pile of garbage. Nothing happened. Still, his heart was practically in his throat for the last few strides.
The van was almost completely on fire, its underside casting an ominous glow against the wall of smoke rising just beyond. He didn't bother saying anything as he slid in beside them, startling the two while he grabbed ahold of the man's leg and pulled.
The father let out a guttural scream as Rico groaned from the strain. For all his strength, the limb wouldn't budge. The flames crept closer.
The man's agonized cries melted into pleading. "TAKE HIM! PLEASE, FORGET ABOUT ME, JUST TAKE HIM! GET HIM OUT OF HERE!"
He pointed to his son who shook his head vehemently, tears streaming down his face. The boy didn't speak. He didn't need to for Rico to understand the stubborn fire in his eye.
His ear suddenly perked up at a sound that rose above the crackle of the flames. It was low and distant, and still he could tell that it was coming closer. He looked around. He could hear it coming from one street and then another. Soon it was coming from all four, filling the air around the highway with the warbling moan of propulsion drives hovering over asphalt.
He didn't dare waste the precious seconds he had left to think about it. He stopped pulling and started looking for another way. He found it a second later, a trash can whose metal frame had been mashed down by something heavy, giving it the perfect shape. He grabbed it from under the smoldering wreck of a nearby jeep and dragged it along. Getting to his knees, he slid it halfway under the van until it was wedged in place.
"Listen." He said in as calm a voice as he could. "This is going to hurt but I'm going to need you to trust me. I'm going to turn your leg, okay? I'm going to rotate it so I can get more leverage and get you out, you understand?"
"What!? Wait, no, just-...what's that sound?"
They could hear it too now and Rico wasn't about to let them sit around and find out what it was. He grabbed the man's leg before he could react, using the small amount of space the trash can had given him to rotate it to the side. He ignored the screams as he fully turned the limb. The boy stepped aside as he came over and looped his arms around his dad's shoulders. Pulling with everything he had, he finally pried him free of the wreckage. With him still gasping for breath in his ears, he heaved him over his shoulder like a lumberjack carrying a log.
"Is he going to be okay?" The boy asked.
Rico ignored the question, speaking hurriedly. "What's your name, kid?"
"Ch-, Che-, Chester."
"Alright, Chester, listen to me. We're getting out of here and you're going to be right behind me, understand? You're going to step where I step and run where I run."
Chester winced as the strange sounds made him glance at the highway. "But-"
They both saw it out the corners of their eyes as something came into view. Further down the highway, a bright purple silhouette appeared behind the smoke that billowed from the closest street. Like curtains pulled aside, a bulbous shape began to pierce through the veil.
There was no time.
Rico cast his rifle aside and slapped the grenade launcher onto his harness in its place. He grabbed Chester with his free arm and held him at his waist.
"Hold onto me!"
He started running, booking it down the length of the sidewalk with father and son in hand. It wasn't easy. It felt like carrying twice as much gear as he was used to. He found himself sorely wishing he were Hector. Maybe then the strain wouldn't have slowed him down as much. He was running at half the speed he would've been able to manage on his own, his two charges clinging onto him like a lifeline.
He peered back over his shoulder.
At the spot where he'd been looking before, there was now a Wraith tank. It had emerged fully into the open and was turning in towards the highway. Its hull was aglow with a layer of dark purple light that overpowered its natural sheen. Just as he saw it, another emerged from the smog on a different street, and another from the third, and another from the fourth. All four were glowing in that same spectral light, their namesake given a new, terrifying meaning.
All of them were coming onto the highway. More silhouettes followed on their heels, breaking through the last of the smoke in irritated growls and boisterous tirades. Squads of Brutes charged through the haze, using the slower moving behemoths like mobile shields. Just like the vehicles, they were also glowing with that same thick film of illumination that made them seem as if they'd been dunked in a vat of purple lava.
Rico picked up the pace, knowing it wouldn't be long before the newcomers took notice of them.
He wasn't wrong.
He headed for a street afar off that cut across the M7 in a straight line, passing behind the Marine Corps reserve building. He was two thirds of the way there when he heard an uproar of voices. A burst of rapid plasma fire ripped through the air around him. He ducked away and slipped back onto the highway, braving the plastic swamp of refuse that crunched and sighed beneath his boots.
Another burst skimmed the roof of a passing car so that metal hissed and crumpled like burning paper. He kept his head down, always keeping an eye on where he was putting his feet. A third burst struck the concrete median off to his left in a thick spray that eventually arced over him. He could tell what they were doing. The Wraiths were trying to box him in with their heavy plasma cannons, not wanting to rely on their mortars just yet. The earlier devastation of their vanguard had probably put them on edge about triggering another chain explosion.
He kept running in the opposite direction, flinching at a stutter of plasma that flashed by his arm, close enough for him to feel the heat. The man on his shoulder let out a pained groan at what Rico guessed was a first-degree burn. Even a near miss was agonizing.
He saw the street coming up, '44 Ferenc' if the road sign on the curb ahead was anything to go on. He could likewise see along the highway itself to a point some 100-meters further down. The last handful of the civilians he'd saved were running to a rough blockade of overturned vans, parked Warthogs and UNSC barricades that stretched from sidewalk to sidewalk. At least a platoon of Army troopers were manning the defenses, a squad of which was out in the open, guiding the last of the incoming stragglers through a gap between a barricade and a Hog.
He spotted an ODST leaning out from behind the turret of one of the Hogs, staring back at him.
"I see you, Ep-6." The Staff said. "You've got some company on your tail, about four Wraiths plus infantry."
"I noticed!" Rico ducked again at a burst of plasma that shattered several windows of a nearby bus in blasts of steaming glass. "I think Castle's down! Sector 2-Red is falling, I'm bugging out!"
"Don't try for the M7, you're too exposed. Take your first left or your first right. Regroup with Iceberg or Aztec then reroute to our position. We'll cover you."
"Roger that!"
The point where 44 Ferenc intersected with the highway was coming up fast. Rico didn't feel fast. Every step was like a trudging march through a bog. He secured his grasp on his two charges and pushed on anyway.
Just a few meters shy of the intersection he heard loud crushing noises behind him. He chanced another look back.
The two lead Wraiths were now bulldozing their way down both sides of the highway, pushing aside whatever vehicles were in their way. The other two followed in their wake with more Brutes, Jackals and Grunts. He thought he saw something, or rather several somethings floating in the air above them, but he was moving too much to see them clearly. No more explosions met their advance, much to his chagrin.
He didn't get the chance to wonder if he'd made the right decision or not as four figures stole his attention. Four Skirmishers broke ranks from the rest of the group. They sprinted past the Wraiths with raptor-like coordination. They moved at a speed he couldn't possibly hope to match, accelerating down the lanes with needle rifles in hand.
He turned back around as a hailstorm of tracer rounds flew overhead. The friendly line ahead of him made sure to shoot as high above or around him as they could. He still didn't want to take any chances and stayed even lower to the ground, barely managing the juggling act of keeping his human luggage from toppling him forward.
A thundercrack shook his innards as the Scorpion at the center of the line fired its cannon. He was nearly bowled over by the passage of the 90-millimeter shell that cracked across the closest Wraith in a belch of flames. The strange luminous film on its hull wavered but held stubbornly in place. Bullets pinged off of the energy shielding in a spray of ricochets, rippling the surfaces of the lead Wraiths like pebbles over water. Their energy mortars craned into position as their heavy plasma cannons answered back in kind, turning his world into a blizzard of deadly fire.
The last layer of mines he'd managed to reactivate lay just a few stretches beyond Ferenc. He shook himself out of the idea of making a straight run for it. Upon reaching the street, he took his last eyeful of the defensive line before pivoting left onto the narrower path.
Buildings rose up on either side of him. They practically hemmed him in, offering nowhere to run save for a few alleyways. Sunlight poured in through another intersection some 40-meters down where the way opened out onto another street.
He put on whatever extra speed he could muster, turning a heavy-footed jog into a haggard run.
Footsteps far faster than his own reached his ear. Squawks sounded off at his back.
He snuck a glance.
Several fast-moving figures had reached Ferenc. They stayed low just as he did, dodging beneath the breadth of the firefight until they came to the street. They never even stopped running as they made a dexterous leftward turn and raced after him.
He barely realized what was happening before he heard the stuttering crack of needle rifles. Purple tracers flashed past him. He felt something buck his leg so hard that it went numb. He nearly fell forward again, barely stumbling back into a limping run before the sound of several succinct stabs came from above. The man on his shoulder gave a sharp gasp and Rico's world detonated in a blast of pink light.
He felt himself slam face first into the asphalt. He skidded a short distance before careening into a car wheel.
He pried his jaws apart and sucked in a stinging breath.
He peeled his eyes open. Something like stars dotted his vision.
Groaning, he realized both his arms pulsed with pain. They were empty. He dragged his left arm closer to push himself up, only to leave a blood trail in the process. He caught a glimpse of his fingers. His pinkie was gone, his ring finger reduced to a bleeding stump, as if something big had taken a bite out of his hand, exposing the raw meat beneath. Blood was still pouring out of them in rhythmic flows. He couldn't feel any of it. That worried him more than anything else.
His ears rang.
Still, he could hear the same fast footsteps approaching.
With his elbow, he pushed himself onto his back as his right hand pulled the grenade launcher free of his harness. The M319 swung around until it was level with the pair of Skirmishers that were running towards him. He fired.
He didn't even give them a chance to doge, releasing the trigger mid-flight. The projectile detonated in front of them, hurling both into the air. The explosion shattered the purple light that encased them like broken glass. He heard them crash down somewhere out of sight, hard impacts eliciting injured squawks.
Immediately he flung open the launcher's chamber for another round when he remembered his new dilemma. With just two fingers and a thumb remaining on his left hand, he couldn't get a firm grip on the grenades on his belt. Necessity made him turn the last three digits into a kind of pincer that could finally gain purchase. It was a struggle to keep the 40-millimeter from slipping out of his blood-soaked grasp. Nevertheless, he managed to slide it into the breech and flicked the weapon shut, aiming it this way and that.
There was no sign of the Skirmishers.
He lifted his head a little and saw more of the street.
Two of the Skirmishers were running back towards the highway at a full sprint. Ahead of them, the first Wraith was coming into view around the reserve building, stopping at the edge of Ferenc where the bullet storm was at its fiercest. The same Skirmisher pair that had gotten the closest to him came into view as well. Unlike their kin, their strange glow was gone. Visibly bloodied, they ran after the other two like a pack of wild dogs catching sight of better prey.
He wasn't worth it anymore.
The realization brought with it a bitter sense of relief.
He kept his grenade launcher up while he looked around, suddenly becoming cognizant again of the two he'd been carrying.
He found them together in a pool of blood, the boy crouched beside the trembling body of his father, trying to get his attention. The latter's eyes were clenched shut; teeth gritted at an agony whose source was easy to see. The cannonball sized hole in his chest wasn't so straightforward as to be called a hole, more of a ragged gap of shredded muscle and jutting bone between where his waist ended and where his chest began. Pieces of him were splattered over nearby cars as much as over his son. Even Rico found that not all the blood on his armor was his own. In fact, most of it wasn't.
The boy was crying, bawling his eyes out. The sound was tormenting enough to get Rico moving again.
He propped the barrel of the launcher against the ground and used it like an old man rising on a walking stick. His first step was a hobbling shuffle that sent a lance of pain up his right leg. He checked it. There was a molten hole in the back of the armor there where a needle had pierced his BDU. His fall must have broken it in half, all while pushing a piece of it deeper into his calve.
He winced as he limped over to the other two.
From what he could tell, the older of the pair was on death's door. He drew in shivering breaths that never seemed to do him any good, forcing him to take another and another.
Rico peeked back at the Wraith. There were two of them now. They were side by side, their heavy plasma cannons trading fire with the frontline whilst their mortars catapulted small suns higher up.
He looked down at the father again. He knew he was a dead man, but the bloodshot eyes that looked back at him held an unspoken plea.
Rico nodded.
He slapped his launcher back on his harness. He tried to make it as easy on them as he could. It still couldn't deafen him to the ear-piercing screams that followed as he grabbed the boy, held him close and ran.
:********:
Duncan's rocket launcher was heavy, but not so heavy as to make him miss. He watched his latest rocket zoom above the flurry of gunfire and plasma, covering the 100-meter distance to the target in under three seconds. The explosive punch burst across its hull in a flaming rooster tail. In no time at all, however, the Wraith pushed through the fire, its energy shielding still intact, its heavy plasma cannon barking in tandem with its neighbor.
Grimacing, he crouched back to cover behind the sizzling bulk of an SUV and reached around for another rocket. Beside him, Zack stood up to raise his own SPNKR, firing once then twice. Twin fireballs wisped one after another towards the enemy armor. Instead of a head-on strike, however, they zoomed past one of the Wraiths to detonate behind it. A pair of Brutes went airborne, sprawling in different directions.
Nearby, the bellow of the Scorpion's cannon shook Duncan to the bone. Packing his next round of rockets into the launcher, he saw the tank's shot lance into the other Wraith like a crack of thunder. The blow buffeted its advance for a moment but otherwise left its violet glow intact.
He slammed the launcher shut just as high-pitched wails rose to his attention.
"INCOMING!" A soldier further down the line shouted, ducking before an energy mortar crashed down in front of his cover to send the car barreling into him, smashing him beneath its spiraling weight.
Another came down hard on top of the tank, catching it in the gun. The explosion instantly turned into a flash fire that bucked its forward treads high into the air, a secondary blast ripping it straight down the middle and belching the cannon clear of its housing. Duncan saw it coming. He twirled around and tackled Zack to the ground before the twisted barrel came hurtling onto the SUV, smashing out its windows in a gasp of shards.
"Thanks for the save!" Zack shouted.
Duncan helped him back up and both of them scrambled for their launchers. Zack followed him a few steps to the next vehicle over, a flatbed truck whose thick wheels provided enough cover to protect them from the incoming fire. The Staff and Hector were already there, the former scoping in on the approaching threats with his DMR.
"Engineers, about six to our 12 o'clock!" He said. "They're pushing up using the Wraiths!"
They flinched as another mortar overshot their position and landed a ways behind them, transforming an overturned car into an oversized firecracker that cast wreckage in every direction.
Duncan ducked again to let a stray piece of windshield scythe overhead. He peered over the flat trailer, zooming in through the leftover haze of fissile exhaust with his visor.
Past the shimmering bulk of the Wraiths, past the other pair that shadowed them down the M7, he sighted the large entourage trailing behind them. A mixed assortment of Brutes, Jackals and Grunts were on the way. From what he could see alone, he guessed their ranks to be somewhere around 50 strong. Like their heavy armor support, they were likewise encased in the same purple radiance. Movement above them drew his eyes upward and he finally noticed half a dozen figures floating just over their heads. Shaped like spikey, armored tulips, the throng of Engineers bobbed and weaved mere meters above the ground, flickers of electrical energy pulsing regularly from their harnesses. The way the Wraiths were lined up kept them just out of full view.
"How do you want to play this, sir!?" Hector asked.
The Staff looked around. "Hammerhead-1, you still there!?"
Off to his right, an Army trooper peered around a jeep. "Still here, Helljumper!"
"Alright, get whatever launchers you have on deck! We need to take out the Engineers behind those tanks before they clear the last of the mines!"
The tense look on the trooper's face changed as he connected the dots. He nodded approvingly and waved to the nearest lineup of soldiers.
"Heads up, Hammerhead, we're clogging the highway! Bernardi, Jones, Servantez, up front! Keep synch with the ODSTs!"
Three soldiers emerged from the rest carrying rocket launchers. They hustled over to nearby positions, planting the twin barrels of the heavy weapons over hoods and back trunks.
"Ep-7, 8, you're up!" The Staff said. "Target the infantry to the rear! Fire on my mark!"
Duncan and Zack plopped the front of their launchers on top of the flat trailer, keeping their heads down amidst the billowing flows of incoming fire as they picked their targets.
The forefront of the Wraith quartet was closing in on the edge of Ferenc, coming up to within five meters, then four.
"Mark!"
The Staff's order was echoed by ten loud THUMPS. Five rockets flew out from their lines followed in quick succession by five more. Having emptied his launcher, Duncan watched the squadron of bright ordnance soar down the highway. The Wraiths were submerged in tails of smoke as the rockets raced past them to slam headlong into those behind. A raucous drum solo of explosions rippled across the Covenant infantry, swallowing up squads of Brutes, Grunts and Jackals in an instantaneous firestorm. Spike rifles and plasma pistols spiraled skyward alongside twirling limbs.
The show was too intense for Duncan to see what all they'd hit, but a fraction of a second later, the shields around the Wraiths flickered away. Right on time, the lead pair hovered off the edge of Ferenc. They only got a few meters before their new plight reared its head. Four objects whipped towards them from the highway in a blur of motion, the Type 14 anti-tank mines cannonballing into their stabilizer fins. With a muffled crunch, they magnetized to their hulls a moment before detonation. Plumes of fire ripped through the front of the tanks, secondary explosions funneling through one of their mortars in a gout of azure fire even as the other flew apart, spearing car sized pieces of debris into nearby buildings. Their burning wrecks crashed down onto the highway 100-meters short of their objective. What remained of the metallic pyres was still enough to cause the other two behind them to slow and stop.
"That's a hit!" The Staff declared. "Good work, troopers!"
Duncan saw the survivors straggling behind the dead Wraiths. Though more than two thirds of the force were still on their feet, they were also halting behind what remained of their cover. They were hesitating. He allowed himself the reward of a smile and reached around for another rocket just as Rico's voice broke in over comms.
"Ep-6 to Ep-1, I'm in a bit of a blind spot here between Sector-2-Red and Green. Iceberg's not picking up and I'm hearing contact from his position. Could use an assist, over?"
"Is Fireteam 2 anywhere close?"
"Negative." Nova interrupted. "We're still in Sector-3-Blue. The Brutes are pushing just as hard on our side, over."
Duncan understood the situation. From the looks he got from the others; he knew they had picked up on it as well.
"Hammerhead-1, can you hold here?" The Staff asked.
Right then, a wash of yellow-hot spikes and green plasma slammed into their lines, stabbing through car windows and scorching door frames.
Duncan bent down and peered past the wheel of the flatbed. The surviving Covenant infantry were now pushing through the burning wreckage like a cracking dam, leaving the last two intact Wraiths to cover them with a renewed salvo of energy mortars.
The sergeant from before waved them off. "No worries! Just leave those launchers here and we'll manage!"
"Roger that!" The Staff nodded to Duncan and Zack who responded in kind, passing over their launchers to the two nearest soldiers who tossed them their assault rifles in exchange.
Duncan grabbed his new rifle out of the air and worked the charging handle, changing out its half-spent magazine for a fresh one. "Good to go!"
"Alright, watch your back, Ep-6!" The Staff said. "We're on our way!"
He pointed to an alleyway off to their right that carved a northward path. As he led the charge, Duncan, Zack and Hector piled in after him, leaving Hammerhead and their two sister squads to hold the line.
:********:
The kid named Chester had stopped crying. He was quiet now. Rico figured he was in shock. He didn't blame him for going quiet, but it both worried him and helped him. He didn't have the time to think of the years of trauma the kid would have to process after this, if he survived that long. That was the part he had to think about, making sure he survived. At least the silence made it easier to sneak around. He kept him upright in one arm while he kept his grenade launcher raised at the ready like an old torch.
Running to the edge of another alleyway, he slowed down at the end and poked his head around the corner. He was near another east to west highway, one that marked the middle of a divide between two facets of the city, between a commercial district and a residential area. On the north side of the highway was a row of domino-shaped corporate offices while on the south was an aisle of inward curving high-rises. Between the pristine shine of their uniformly white walls and cobalt windows, it was a struggle just to see the way forward.
A steel graveyard of abandoned vehicles spanned the full length of the highway that he could see. He figured it had to be the M8 which ran on an adjacent, eastbound course to its nearest of kin, the M7, just to the south of it, the same one he'd left behind.
The city's 'natural ambiance' was growing louder. He traced it back to what must've been a street on the other side of the commercial district. The sharp discharge of spike rifles and the abrupt growl of explosions echoed from that direction. Also on that side, he could see where an off-branching access road connected to the M8 further up the highway. He would have to pass it if he was to get to safety.
He singled out a building another 100-meters beyond which stood on the northern fringes of the highway. It was an electronics store whose ground floor was lined with broken glass windows, its shelves looted and left in the dark. He panned up to the upper levels where things were more intact. His eye settled on an opaque office room where he knew his fellow demolitionist, Iceberg-4 would be.
Wary of what could lie around the next corner, he kept his voice down as he spoke into his comms. "Ep-6 to Iceberg-4, you still there?"
He waited for a response.
None came.
After five more seconds he tried again. He let another ten pass before he was positive that he wasn't going to get an answer.
"Ep-6 to 1, are you close?"
This time, he got a response. "Roger that, 6. We've got Iceberg's position in sight. Be there in about..."
Whatever else the Staff had to say was lost on Rico as his ear twitched at a new noise. That low thrum was back, rising behind him. He whipped around to see a familiar spectacle playing out on the stretch of highway at his back. The bulging bow of a Wraith edged its way off an access road that exited onto the M8. It seemed to be coming from the opposite direction, from the north where the sounds of fighting originated.
A flanking maneuver.
Not for the first time that day, Rico acted on an idea that had barely crossed his mind. He stepped out onto the curb with the kid clinging onto his chest plate. He ran several steps before letting one foot skid ahead of the other, pivoting around to swing his launcher into place.
Right then, the front half of the Wraith was passing onto the highway. Neither it nor its gunner had spotted him yet. He could tell as much as he angled the reticle right above them. He squeezed off a grenade in a shallow arc that compensated for the short distance to the target. The tank had barely gotten onto the M8 when the projectile flew into the gunner's face, its whistle terminating in a flash of flames that blew the Grunt clear of the gun. An instantaneous burst of electrified energy washed over the Wraith. Its thrusters suddenly died and the entire vehicle came crashing down onto the highway, cracking the asphalt. The mortar shut down and folded in on itself.
Rico turned heel and ran.
The sidewalk provided his best chance for a clean escape. 'Clean' perhaps wasn't the right word for it given the sheer amount of trash that was sprawled down its length. All the same, it was less covered than the M8 itself, making it his first option.
He sprinted along the clearest patches of pavement in what almost seemed a life-or-death game of hopscotch. He felt Chester cling onto him even tighter. He returned the favor, not wanting to risk dropping him for both their sakes.
He covered the first 20 meters without issue. However, every now and again he would spot a glint of shining metal beneath the layers of flattened plastic and knew exactly what he had avoided. By the next 10 meters, he could hear the Wraith restarting its thrusters. The crushing report of its passage followed suit as it began strong-arming its way down the highway. Cars were bumped aside or overturned in a dooming ensemble of crunching glass and crumpling aluminum.
Its first mortar launched with a mechanical wheeze of plasma energy. He didn't dare turn around, instead tracking its path by sound alone. It was going to land a good distance behind him. A short round.
To his relief, it came crashing down several car lengths to the rear. The brief earthquake it produced almost unbalanced him as he kept running.
The second energy mortar spewed into the air. It sounded more on target. He immediately pivoted onto the highway itself and sprinted down an outer lane, staying low amidst the columns of vehicles. A few seconds later, the mortar touched down off to his right. The blast was strong enough to blow a fresh hole out of the base of a nearby building, the displaced air punching through the windows of several cars to bathe him in steaming shards.
He kept going.
He was nearing the point where the access road leading to the Covenant's nearest push attached onto the highway. He was waiting for the next mortar when the Staff's voice cut in.
"Ep-6, we're coming out onto the M8 now. What's your situation, over?"
"Glad to hear from you, sir!" He shouted through the landing of the third mortar that exploded across the back of a public transit, a secondary explosion funneling forward with sufficient force to lift its rear wheels clear off the ground. He was still a few steps ahead and pushed harder while fragments of glowing metal rained down around him.
"Wraith on my six! If you've got anything heavy, now would be a pretty good time!"
There was a long pause from the Staff.
"Sir!?"
"...Negative on your last, Ep-6. I've got a visual on you now, but we don't have anything that can neutralize that armor. I suggest you find your closest exit and take it, over?"
Rico peered ahead. Further off, he spotted four ODSTs emerging onto the intersection opposite the electronics store. The Staff's fireteam quickly moved into positions behind whatever vehicles offered the best cover. He was half-relieved to see them. The other half was the anxiety growing in his gut. They could see him, but they couldn't help him.
Two explosions roared somewhere behind him.
Years of experience had taught him to recognize their origins from sound alone. By the short and crisp blast followed by the hollow ping of metal ricocheting off metal, it had been a pair of Asteroideas. It wasn't what he wanted to hear. The anti-personnel mines could do next to nothing against the thick armor of the Wraith aside from spraying it with shrapnel.
Sure enough, another noise confirmed his suspicion as the energy mortar let off its latest discharge.
He looked at the access road coming up to his left and wondered if he could risk it. He decided to take a chance and made straight for it. He found a clear path towards the center of the highway and ditched his launcher to lighten the load. He vaulted over the concrete median and not a second too soon, the wailing ball of energy impacting with an explosive scream where he'd been mere moments before, sending several vehicles airborne.
A shadow suddenly engulfed him. He pivoted mid-step, barely dodging the flaming car that came slamming down behind him.
The mortar fired again, ever relentless.
"Heading for an exit to my 9 o'clock!"
The Staff's reply was almost instantaneous. "Negative, steer clear! I'm seeing movement-"
But Rico was already a few steps shy of it when he came around the building that blocked his view.
Brutes.
In the drawn out second between heartbeats, he caught sight of the five muscled giants jogging up the road. They were heading right towards him, almost on top of him. At the last moment they saw him as well, the two in the lead skidding to a surprised stop.
Rico didn't even give them a chance to raise their weapons as he again pivoted mid-step and peeled off in the opposite direction, scrambling back towards the median. Through the rhythmic beating in his ears, he sensed when they broke out of their shock and shouted growls of excitement. He didn't hear a shot so much as an explosion, one that threw him off his feet. He clutched the kid tighter as he pitched forward, barreling across the ground before he could put out a hand to stop himself.
There was no time to recover. His head still swimming, he started pushing himself back up with his good hand. He noticed a flickering red light near his fingers. He didn't even have time to consider that his palm had landed a few inches short of another hidden mine.
He quickly got moving again, sparing a glance at the access road as he passed on. A new crater had been burned into the very end of the road and two flash-fried Brutes were sprawled out beside it. The Wraith had tried to cut him off. All it did was blow up its allies, not that he was complaining. He was too focused to think of anything else aside from escape.
"You alright, Ep-6!?" The Staff called.
Rico shook his head clear. "Never better!"
He was too anxious to acknowledge just how much of a lie that was. He dedicated all his energy to holding onto the kid and pumping his legs through the best paths forward. His trained eye picked it out so that each step was planned and approved seconds ahead of time.
Another loud explosion went off in the distance, different from the others.
It was the long, rumbling bellow of a Type-14 anti-tank mine. It was followed quickly by a fierce secondary that he understood to be the Wraith's reactor going critical.
"Wraith's down!" Zack declared.
Another factor Rico counted in his favor.
Almost as soon as he'd thought it, several howls sounded at his back.
"Might want to speed up, Ep-6!" Duncan said. "Those Brutes are tailing you!"
"Give him some cover, troopers!" The Staff ordered.
Rico grimaced, his face tensing alongside every muscle in his body. His heart was in his throat now. The heavy footfalls in his wake were joined by the whistling crack of incoming gunfire. The team were quick to the draw and laid down a smokescreen of lead. Tracers zipped past to his left and right and were met with grunts of pain from behind. Volleys of spikes answered in kind, not focusing on him but rather the team. It was a bad sign. If the Brutes hadn't shot him in the back yet then they were never going to.
They were trying to capture him.
The idea alone put an extra gust of wind in his sails. He sped up, routinely weaving between the aisles of cars as stray spikes sparked off their roofs, always mindful of where he put his boots. He wasn't sure what to look out for more, the firefight going over his head or the potential firestorm one wrong move could create.
The enemy was the first to commit the latter, a familiar blast of sound, light and pinging metal telling him one of the Brutes had found an Asteroidea. It didn't even get a chance to scream and the stream of return fire coming at the team lessened.
The team for their part focused more heavily on one of his pursuers, the trails of tracers converging on a single point that he couldn't see off to his left. The effort earned an agonized growl that melted into a withering howl. The team then switched again to a new target off to his right.
He was closing the last 40-meter stretch to safety when a stream of huffing grunts stole his attention. There was a Brute right on his heels. He gambled a look back but saw nothing.
The huffing grunts were coming from alongside him now. He chanced another look and glimpsed a Brute bounding full force down the lane on his right. Its hands were empty buts its claws were bared, its helmet was off but its fangs were out, eyes fixed on him despite the hail of bullets that blooded it from head to foot, shrugging it off like rain. Its half-charred face contorted into a snarl of rage even as its skin oozed steam. It let off a deep bellow that threatened his sanity more than his ears.
The Wraith had killed two of their own and left a third thoroughly pissed off.
The berserker barreled down the adjacent lane with complete abandon, not even caring where it stepped. It caught up to him in a heartbeat and was matching pace with mocking ease.
"I've got one on me!" Rico cried.
"Ep-6, get some distance!" The Staff ordered. "We'll-"
The Brute suddenly leapt into a gap between a pair of cars and lunged at him. But Rico didn't notice its reach, only where it had stepped.
In the blink of time that he had left, he jumped away, curling himself around the kid.
There was a flash.
:********:
Duncan watched his squadmate disappear.
The explosion sent a blast of pressure through several vehicles that sprayed glass across the highway. In less than a second, there was nothing but a smoking aftermath.
Zack was the first to break out of the shock. "RICO!"
He ran ahead at full speed. As if it were a trigger, Duncan and the others gunned it after him. They periodically raised their rifles in search of threats even as their eyes watched their every step, dodging whatever conspicuous patch of refuse stood out to them.
The haze was slowly clearing. It did nothing for the ice-cold weight Duncan felt in his stomach, as if someone had shoved a frozen dumbbell inside of him. Despite his speed, every movement was a slow trudge compared to how fast he wanted to go, as if he were running underwater. Something split him down the middle, a feeling begging him to speed up and see what had happened, another feeling telling him he would regret it. He leaned in on the first one as they reached the edge of the dissipating smoke. He'd rather regret it than not do everything he could.
He knew he was getting close when the crackle of plastic beneath his boots switched to the crunch of glass. He could almost see clearly. When the last of the haze was gone, he found himself standing alongside the others near a collection of burning cars. Several were being reduced to blackened skeletons of flaming metal, the passenger side door of one of them breaking off to clatter beside a shallow crater. The hole in the highway was rimmed by scorch marks that reached out to everything around it like dark tendrils.
He fought down the urge to be reminded of a crime scene, fighting even harder to hold back the bile rising in his throat.
"Fan out." The Staff said with the kind of sturdiness Duncan couldn't have hoped for in himself. "I want a 30-meter spread. If you find him, call out."
Duncan wasn't even sure what they would find.
The team broke off from one another, following the order more by conditioning than active willfulness. He could sense that they were all working on autopilot. Anything else risked consciously taking in what they were looking at, and to do so would stop them in their tracks. A few moments' hesitation could prove far more deadly than the mines.
He drifted off to the far left of their search as they combed through the long columns of vehicles, cars whose windows were either utterly shattered or dotted with punctures from shrapnel.
He spotted the blue pyre a long way down the highway, back the way Rico had come. The Wraith lay where it had died on the M8. It wasn't anything close to a fair trade, not to him. The icy chill on the inside of him was beginning to steam into a scolding rage. He was suddenly and wholeheartedly possessed by the need to kill something, anything.
The flash of murder lust almost blinded him to the moment when he stumbled over something. A leg. It wasn't human. He followed it up to the ruined half torso of a Brute. The berserker was propped up within the dented groove of a sedan that the explosion had thrown it against, sitting against the crumpled doors like a throne. The mangled mess of meat that had once been its face showed no signs of life. Not that he would've thought it possible given that every limb aside from the one he'd tripped on was gone.
He wanted to take off his helmet just to spit on it. Better yet, he wanted to take his combat knife and use it to pry free the last handful of fangs that jutted out from its ruined maw. But that thought scared him back into his wits more than any other. It reminded him of someone who he didn't want to be reminded of, at least, of all times, not now.
He continued on.
He didn't get very far.
Four steps, just four.
The fifth stopped in mid-air, pausing above the pool of red that lay in front of him. Slowly, very slowly, he traced it to a car that he was about to pass. The pool stemmed from beneath it, from a gauntleted arm that lay just within the shadow of the undercarriage.
He froze.
The armor on the limb was clearly ODST. The hand was out, palm up towards him with two less fingers than usual.
It wasn't moving.
He didn't feel relief, only a sudden dread that told him he'd found his squadmate.
His tongue as dry as a desert, he peeled open his mouth to let the others know. "I found-"
"Found him!" Zack shouted.
Duncan looked back. Zack was across the way, about 10 meters off from the blast site. He was running towards the side of a battered looking car. Reaching it, he crouched down but stopped halfway. The Staff and Hector were bearing down on him even as he hesitated.
"Oh God!" He cried. "His arm! Where's his arm!?"
That cold feeling came back again, frosty and piercing.
Duncan felt something like gravity slowly pulling his eyes down, drawing them back to the blood at his boot and the arm from which it flowed.
With his own hesitation hitting new heights, he sluggishly crouched down, reached over and grabbed the wrist. He saw the forefinger give a slight twitch. Whatever hope the sight gave him evaporated altogether when he pulled the arm from the shadows.
Just the arm.
There was nothing else attached.
At the very end where it should've connected to the rest of the shoulder, to the rest of his friend, there was instead something like a snapped rope, a mixed assortment of broken armor, shredded tendons and frayed ligaments.
The arm hung limply in his grasp.
Something was dripping.
He looked down to see more blood draining down the bracer to ripple the pool below. Right then, he spotted the red skid marks on the asphalt that marked the limb's flight from its owner.
Again, nausea punched him in the stomach and bile rose in his throat.
He ripped off his helmet, cautious enough to hold onto it even as he fell to a knee and threw up.
There wasn't much to throw up because there hadn't been much to eat, and soon he was dry heaving.
"Ep-8?" The Staff said.
Duncan didn't answer. There was a fog in his mind, blurring his thoughts. He struggled to catch himself. It was a fight to block it out, but he eventually managed it.
Instinct kicked in, just as frayed as the knots of angry red muscle on the end of the limb but not so much as to stop him. He wiped his mouth on his arm and got up, taking Rico's with him as he went to see the last thing he ever wanted to. He switched his grip on his latest discovery so that he cradled it against his armor. The blood stopped dripping to the ground, instead slipping down his chest plate in small streams.
He didn't tell them what he'd found. He just walked over, still sober enough to mind every step.
He crossed the distance to where they were gathered, his stride taking on an ambling trepidation by the time he laid eyes on Rico.
In the afternoon light, his face practically glittered from the many miniscule shards of glass that had stabbed into it, casting lines of blood down his cheeks to join the small pond that lay around him. Someone had taken off his helmet and placed it at his side. It was dented and burnt, jagged glass pointing inwards like broken teeth where the visor had been shattered. One of Rico's eyes was swollen shut. The other was partly open, staring at the sky for such a long second that Duncan feared the worst.
Then, to his relief, it moved, meeting his own as his shadow passed over him. That was it. That was all he seemed to be able to do.
His left arm was completely gone, not mangled or mutilated but gone. The stump of the shoulder shared the same appearance of snapped rope and dripping red. It was like a shark had taken a bite out of him and handed Duncan the leftovers.
Within his right, his last arm, was the kid.
The boy couldn't be older than seven or eight. That young and one of his ears was utterly shredded, earlobe and all, like that same shark had come back for seconds. His eyes were shut and he was limp. Hector had his helmet off while he pressed his bare head to the kid's chest. The Staff was busy applying pressure to Rico's stump of a shoulder. Zack meanwhile kept his boots rested on his knees to counter any onset of shock even as he whipped out a roll of gauze wrappings.
Hector pulled his head back up with a look of faint relief. "He's breathing. He's unconscious but he's breathing."
Rico shifted his jaw, just enough to peel open his lips for a wordless grunt.
"Don't talk." The Staff ordered. "Save your strength. You'll need it."
Duncan tried to figure out how to make himself useful. As he did, Hector looked up at him.
"D, I need you to-"
His voice cracked and died as his eyes finally fell on what he was carrying.
"What's-," Zack stopped as well. His face went pale, though not as pale as Rico's already was. The squad's demolitionist strained his head and also laid an eye on his missing limb.
The Staff took a look as well. The pressure he was putting on the wound briefly lessened. Duncan couldn't' see the face behind the visor, but he didn't need to.
"Ep-8, I need you to hold onto that for me, alright?" The Staff said, less like an order and more like a heartfelt request, as if he wanted to make sure he could do it.
Duncan nodded.
Zack offered up some of the gauze. The Staff plied a piece free. He unscrewed his canteen to wash off the wound a little before padding at it, trying to remove the dust. Some of the glass shards remained embedded in the raw flesh. It couldn't be helped. He took a longer length of gauze and began wrapping them around the wound with rapid precision.
Rico didn't seem to feel any of it, not even as the Staff fastened the tourniquet in place. He just kept staring at the kid whose head lay against his side. But his gaze regularly switched, drifting to his severed arm, then back to the boy, then back again.
Duncan had a sneaking suspicion of what he was thinking, and it pained him all the same.
"Troopers!" Someone shouted.
He turned around, peering back over his shoulder.
What he thought was a squad of soldiers quickly turned into something closer to a platoon. The band of Army troopers that came down the sidewalks were moving in orderly, single-file lines with weapons shifting in every direction. One of them who was in the lead sported a larger shoulder pauldron and an officer's cap. He called out to them again.
"What's the situation here?"
"Sector-2-Green's holding." The Staff said. "At least for now. Iceberg's mines are still active, so I'd be careful where you step."
The soldiers were already moving with a cautious gate but slowed even more at the update. Several of the squads pulled to a stop one after the other, setting up holding positions. The last one went onto the highway, circumventing the blast crater before stopping a few steps behind them. The apparent lieutenant strode forward.
He halted upon catching sight of Rico. "A casualty?"
Rico's head turned a little towards him. The lieutenant stiffened with understanding and twisted back towards his men.
"We need a stretcher here! Bring one over, double-time!" He turned back to them. "Need some help carrying him?"
The Staff examined his subordinate and shook his head. "We'll handle it. Some cover would be appreciated though."
The lieutenant nodded. "We got reports that the Covenant are pushing harder than usual along the whole front, Sectors 1 to 6, the whole thing. Command suspects most of the forward observation teams were wiped out. My company commander told me to plug a gap in our lines here, said Iceberg-4 managed to radio it in before he went out."
"Went out?" Zack asked.
"Jackal sniper."
Though Duncan wasn't certain, he thought he saw Rico's good eye close shut for a moment.
A pair of medics came carefully over to the group bearing a stretcher between them. The Staff and Zack stepped out of the way for them to crouch down and lower it beside Rico.
"The kid?" the lieutenant asked.
"We'll need help with him." The Staff replied.
"Roger. Delando, he's your responsibility."
One of the medics bent over and grabbed ahold of the boy. Rico eased his arm off of him so that he could pick him up.
"I'll get this side." Hector said and slipped his hands under Rico's shoulders.
"I'll get this one." The Staff added, grabbing his feet. "Three...two..."
They lifted in unison. Rico went up without a word, remaining so while they laid him gently onto the stretcher. Hector grabbed one of the poles at the back while Zack took the other. The Staff took one at the front. Duncan fell in line without needing to be told or asked. Placing his rifle back on his harness, he grabbed ahold of the last pole at the front. If they pulled it off just right, four pairs of legs would speed up what was otherwise a two-man job.
Together, they lifted Rico into the air and held him between them.
"Let's get you out of here, Ep-6." The Staff said.
Once more, Rico didn't make a sound. Duncan checked on him and saw his last hand snaking slowly towards him, dragging itself across the canvas. It stopped near the edge.
Duncan looked him in the eye and was shocked beyond words to see the bloodied and bruised face wrinkling with a ghost of a smile.
Rico's mouth cracked open again, his voice raspy and hoarse. "Hey...D?"
"...Yeah?"
The arm rotated, turning until his hand was palm up as he flexed a finger towards his lost limb. "Hand it over, would you?"
Duncan winced.
He stood in shocked silence, as did everyone else who'd heard him. But then Rico's smile widened even more.
Duncan's vision blurred. He felt a single tear streak down his cheek even as a strangled, choke of a laugh escaped his lips, followed by Zack's and finally Hector's. Duncan trembled. He got into it so much that he couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying. Perhaps something in between.
At length, he relented and placed the arm in his hand. Rico grasped onto it. With an exhausted movement, he held it against his chest like an old man who had finally found his missing cane.
Duncan wanted to laugh, but the comparison in and of itself made him want to weep.
Zack shook his head in a comforting gesture. "Tell you what, Ricky-"
"Fighters incoming!" A soldier shouted.
"To the west!" Another yelled. "Twelve o'clock high, closing fast!"
All eyes turned skyward to a sight that was as awe inspiring as it was horrifying.
Dozens of squadrons of Seraph fighters were flying high over the skyline. At a glimpse, Duncan placed their numbers at somewhere close to 100. The teardrop shaped assault craft were shooting through the local airspace in a slowly widening arc. The choir-esque sounds of their drives were filling New Alexandria's west side with a rising hum. They streaked the sky with tails of blue exhaust as they dove down towards attack vectors that he could only guess at. It wasn't that hard of a guess. There was nothing else in this part of the city aside from the frontline, aside from positions like theirs.
The team, the soldiers, they were all out in the open.
They were in a target rich environment and one of the squadrons appeared to take notice, the spearhead of five fighters arrowing down in their formation, soaring towards them with drives at full burn.
They had to be only half a kilometer out, which meant everyone on the highway had less than a few seconds to get out of the way.
"Get to cover!" The lieutenant ordered.
As the platoon scattered from the highway, the team rushed after them. Still watching for mines and mindful of their charge, they ran for their lives, their own as much as Rico's.
Pretium - Price
