Chapter 5 - Captionem

May 8th, 2545 (07:35 Hours – Military Calendar)

Aquilla System, Actium

High Mediolanum, Republic of Pavia

:********:

Duncan felt his heart threatening to beat its way up his throat as he struggled to run through the waves of fluid. After a few seconds he swiveled around to fire a full magazine into the Leviathan's center of mass. The massive creature had a head slightly larger than the rest of its body that made for a good target. His bullets tore through it, eliciting sprays of orange blood and multivocal screams, but it wasn't enough to stop the creature, merely delay it long enough for Renni to get some distance.

They moved one at a time, two laying down covering fire for one to draw back further down the pipeline and back to the way they'd come in. It was the only way to make sure the alien amalgamation didn't overrun them on the way there.

As Renni dashed past, he heard Rico shout from a few meters further down. "We've got you covered Irish, move!"

Duncan turned heel and started running again while his squadmates opened up on the target behind him. He ran past Renni and got far enough to reload safely. "Rico!"

Rico got up and ran past while Duncan and Renni laid down suppressing fire. The Leviathan growled under the barrage yet never wavered for long. The moment it wasn't under assault it would slide closer again, then again. It stayed on their heels even once they'd reached the hole in the ceiling.

The rope was still in place. Duncan knew it would be the most daunting part of their escape simply because of how long it would take to climb. He let Renni go up first while he and Rico shot away. She called down once she reached the top; "Whose next!?"

Rico slapped a fresh magazine into his rifle and bumped a confirmatory fist against Duncan's shoulder. Duncan took the hint and started climbing. Renni helped to pull him the last of the way up. By then Rico had already run through his magazine. He slammed his rifle onto his back harness and began a hasty climb.

The Leviathan, seeing its escaping prey, made for a final desperate slither towards him. Duncan gawked as he found his and Renni's bullets not even hitting the creature whilst it lunged forward like a viper.

Rico pulled up his legs just in time to let the alien shoot beneath his boots, barely grazing him. Then a wave of displaced sludge made in its wake came flooding towards him.

Duncan saw his squadmate disappear within a burst of greenish yellow fluid which jetted up out of the exit like a putrid geyser. He shielded his visor with his arms against the backwash. When he looked back, he saw that the sludge had covered everything nearby, even most of his armor. Rico was still there with his upper half out of the exit, struggling to pull himself fully over the edge.

He and Renni grabbed him by the arms and helped to get his legs out.

Even that momentary reprieve was cut short as plasma fire lashed at the air all around them, forcing them to go prone in order to stay out of harm's way. Though it was little more than stray fire, its immensity caught them off guard.

The 7th battalion was in full retreat. Orbital Drop Shock Troopers were withdrawing from their positions across the promenade, squads covering squads and platoons covering platoons in a step by step flight towards the Gatehouses. All the while Covenant forces surged forward to apprehend them in a trade-off of ballistic and energy rounds.

Bravo was already well on its way to Gatehouse-15 with 2nd platoon holding near the ramp to cover other incoming platoons.

"Ep-1 to Investigation team, I see you! Get over here now!"

At hearing the Staff on the comms, the three of them quickly slipped over the pipe, falling the last two meters of its girth before breaking into a sprint along its side. Gatehouse-15 was a good distance ahead of them and it seemed that several persistent squads of Elites were moving to cut off their escape. One of the squads took notice of them and started slashing at them with plasma. Duncan and Renni hosed them with their assault rifles as they ran past. Rico came up from behind, thumbing a grenade into his launcher then firing it across the promenade. The grenade hit the ground, bounced a dozen meters then skidded to a stop in the trajectory of the Elites' advance. He released the trigger, instantly blowing out their shields so that a subsequent hail of fire could cut the aliens down.

Duncan still wasn't sure why they were suddenly retreating when they had the enemy on the ropes mere minutes ago. Yet something told him that the reason lay somewhere behind him. He chanced glancing over his shoulder, then immediately wished he hadn't.

There was a second wave crashing down west through the Scenic District towards the premiere wall. A quick glimpse showed him that it was twice the size of the first, around a division in terms of size. The raging tide of Covenant drained past multiple Hunter pairs trotting at a slower pace down the incline. The trough of the living wave was less than fifty meters away and closing fast. Panic drove his legs to be swifter and each stride became longer. After looking back the others moved with a similarly panicked speed.

They covered the distance to the Gatehouse right as the last of Bravo fell back onto the lift platform. The three stragglers finally leaped onto the ramp and skidded to a stop on the other side. As the ramp began rising back into a wall, Hotel-3 and 7 continued using their Wraiths on the enemy. But whatever affect the lone mortars had on the thousands of Covenant troops was barely noticeable. The damage they inflicted was quickly swept away like a rock thrown into the sea, splashing then sinking out of sight.

Across the line the companies invested the last of their munitions into a deafening and unceasing barrage of chattering assault rifles, barking snipers and SPNKR rockets that thundered away from the four gatehouses. The bullet riddled bodies of Grunts were sent flying under the impact of human and commandeered Covenant ordinance. Explosive flames flashed over the shields of Jackals to consume their wielders. Elites staggered back as their energy shields collapsed under the sustained salvos.

But nothing proved enough to stop them. The combined might of the second wave had connected with the surviving elements of the first for a final charge.

Then the Gatehouses began to move.

Delta's was the first to leave, the resounding crackle of hydraulics being followed by the low purr of the MagLev rails that marked the structure's descent. Alpha's was next, then Echo's. ODSTs manning the lift platform committed to keeping up the delaying fire at the enemy to buy time for their escape. Even wounded ODSTs stood up to join their comrades in shooting rifles and pistols over the lip of the raised ramp.

Bravo's was the last to leave. As Goliath's 2 and 9 got them underway, 1st through 4th platoons busied themselves with shooting until they were safely away.

Duncan noticed that weapons were beginning to click empty across the line. He was watching his own MA37 run through its last clip as the sight of the Covenant disappeared behind the rising surface of the premiere wall. The sound of the Maglev came almost like a relief to him. However, they weren't out of the woods yet. The Covenant could still fire down on them, and the little cover they had wouldn't do them much good.

The Colonel came on the battalion's comms. "Neptune-Actual to all hands, be advised, I'm about to set off the oven upstairs! I've only got one order for you troopers!" He paused then said. "Enjoy the show."

Duncan felt the Colonel's smile through his voice, just as he felt the heat on his skin and the flash of bright light that struck his eyes a heartbeat later.

The afterimages of the first few Covenant to reach the lip of the terminal gate were burned into his retinas as they vanished; their forms swallowed up in an instantaneous blast of flame.

The combined wrath of over thirty M168 Demolition charges was released in a single moment, enveloping the hundreds of Covenant soldiers that had been unfortunate enough to reach the four gateways first. A chain reaction was set off across more than half a dozen pipes where the eruptions set the fluid contained within alight. Explosions channeled along the pipes, blowing out into the open to burn through thousands more Covenant soldiers that were further back. Fiery shrapnel diced through whole streets, leveling entire buildings and anything standing or running in between.

Explosions continued further into the Residential District along the pipes, but also went off in the other direction. The chain reaction shot through pipes running over the 1st Premiere wall. They too detonated and the blasts napalmed down the length of the wall. The fiery columns reached the ground long before the gatehouses, channeling out into the pipes at the base where they began funneling through the network that stretched throughout the city.

The fallout reached the first Tyrant in less than five seconds. Duncan watched it fly apart beneath a flower of blooming flames. A similar fate befell the other eleven. In under ten seconds the barrel of the last AA gun arced through the air before crashing back down beside its torched base. Twelve small mushroom clouds arose to cover the burning remains.

Yet that wasn't the end of it. More detonations continued across the city as more pipes caught alight.

Duncan went to the railings alongside the whole of Bravo to marvel at the damage. Two minutes after the Colonel had pulled the trigger, the 1st Tier of High Mediolanum looked like a hellscape of buildings divided into uneven grids by lanes of fire and smoke. Though most of the tier had been spared, a number of structures were left completely aflame, all the way out to some of the hotels on the beachfront and even parts of the shallows.

A good look at the 1st Premiere Wall showed that it hadn't fared much better. There were a number of flaming trails running down the full height of the 100-meter barrier. It was easy to guess by the way the infernos fed off large swaths of splattered fluid that they wouldn't be dissipating for some time. There were also a few new cracks of note in the structure, many of them the width of Warthogs. Dust bled out from the open wounds in the architecture to cover the visors of troopers looking on from below.

Zack whistled at the damage. "I thought we came to save the city, not torch it. I mean, not like anything's unusual about that, but we're usually not the ones doing the torching."

"Better the city than the people in it." Nova said. "And I think most of them got away before this so..."

More distant explosions reverberated through the Scenic District, shaking the wall and gatehouse. "You sure about that?" Zack asked.

Nova shrugged. "Mostly."

Hector breathed a sigh of relief as he sat down on the rails, not minding the sheer drop behind him. "I'm honestly just happy with the fact we got away from that. And what about the 22nd huh? Whatever happened to those guys? We should've been splitting the bill both ways on this date but it feels like we got stuck with the whole thing."

"Put two and two together Ep-4." The Staff answered. "The battalion had no support and probably found themselves on the wrong end of too much plasma, more than what we faced on the beach. I don't think anyone can doubt now that we got the less raw end of the deal on this mission. We almost got overwhelmed and overrun ourselves trying to hold our own objective."

Hector quietly considered it, then nodded in grim agreement. "Well, hopefully some of those poor souls are still alive in there then."

"They better be." The Staff said, slipping more rounds into his shotgun before loading them into place with a satisfying clack. "Because we're going after them. Once we get reinforcements, we're heading deeper in."

The rest of Epsilon that had been standing and sitting nearby turned to him. He returned their expressionless glare. "What, did you think we only need the first wall? You heard what Mentieth said. We need all three. If the 22nd is out of commission then we're expected to pull their weight for them."

The squad remained silent for a moment in contemplation of what would probably be asked of them in a short while. Zack held up his hand from where he sat cross-legged against the rail. "So, when do the others start pulling their own weight? You know, the 27th, the 53rd, when do they start getting their hands dirty, cause I'm starting to feel like we're-"

"Attention 7th Battalion." The Colonel called, cutting off Zack and any other conversation going on across the four companies. "We'll be heading back up to secure a foothold in the 2nd Tier in a minute. Be advised also that Battlegroup Indigo is inbound to provide reinforcements and refreshments. I'm sorry troopers but we won't get to hog all the glory to ourselves for much longer. Let's enjoy it while we still can."

Almost to punctuate his words, a silhouette appeared over the clouds of the morning sky. The ship it belonged to emerged in a gradual descent vector. Two more followed suit. The sunlight glinted off their steely visages like upturned knives floating down towards the ground. Of the trio of Halberd-class destroyers, one of them Duncan recognized as the lead ship of the battlegroup, the UNSC Tower of Babel.

The ships stopped into an atmospheric hold several kilometers off the ground and the same distance from the coast, likely out of an abundance of caution.

The bays opened, allowing scores of Pelican and Albatross dropships to stream out. The throngs of aircraft quickly descended onto the first third of the city.

While their gatehouses stopped to begin reascending, the ODSTs on the lift platforms were given a front row seat from which to view the arrival of the invasion force.

Dropships landed in open areas, atop hotels and other buildings to drop off thousands of Marines. At the same time, they released hundreds of manned Mongooses, Warthogs and Scorpion tanks that drove on to dominate the streets of the Coastal District.

"They better be grateful we cleaned things up for them." Deaks huffed.

Duncan knew he had a point. The lack of shade fire that came to meet them paid testament to the battalion's thoroughness in targeting the ones that posed the greatest threat to landing zones across the 1st Tier. But it was only the first. There were still two more left to go, and after checking his ammo counter, he severely hoped they brought enough ammunition with them to last the rest of the trip. If what they'd just survived was anything to go by, he highly doubted it.

Captionem - Trap