I wrote this chapter back in 2021. It was originally intended to be the first chapter of a novelization of Halo: Combat Evolved, only from the perspective of a foot soldier as opposed to Master Chief like it was in the game, or from an officer's perspective like it was in the official novel. Hence why this chapter is so long.
Ultimately, I decided to abandon the idea because really, if I'm going to write a novelization of an official game, I should probably use a canon character instead of an OC. Plus, novelizations of this game have been done time and time again in fanfiction and I don't think there's anything I could have added that hasn't already been said.
Of course, it seemed like a shame to just throw this chapter away which is why I'm including it here.
Asźod Ship Breaking Yards
Esposz, Reach
30 August 2552
HM2 Yohannes Riesz, Naval Medical Detachment, RCT-12
The sky was on fire.
In many ways, it was absolutely gorgeous. The blending of colors, the way the fiery reds and bright oranges of explosions blended in with the natural purple hue of the evening sky. The way the dark gray smoke clouds lazily billowed their way into the upper atmosphere. The shiny hulls of aircraft as they flew in and out of the clouds. The multi-colored tracers that seemed to briefly illuminate the mountains on the horizon.
If it weren't for the fact that the world was literally burning, it really would have been one beautiful sight. As it were though, it was taking just all of Riesz's self-discipline to remain focused on his task at hand.
TINKTINKTINK!
Riesz flinched as several spiker rounds embedded themselves in the metal wall nearby, but he refused to allow himself to get distracted. Hurriedly removing the nozzle from the Marine's chest, he hurtled the empty can of biofoam to the side and pulled out a bandage from a pouch on his belt. He tried to rip open the sterile packaging, but with the way his hands were shaking, it was all but impossible.
"Come on! Come on!" he snarled as he unsheathed his bayonet and readied himself to just cut the damn thing open.
CRACK!
BANGBANGBANG!
Both bayonet and bandage went flying out of his hands as Riesz violently twisted to avoid taking a spiker round directly to the face. This time however, the spiker fire was responded with automatic rifle fire, and Riesz looked up in time to see the Brute that had fired the initial shots toppling over backwards, back down the staircase from whence it came, bleeding from multiple holes that had magically appeared in its chest.
A hand landed on Riesz's shoulder and began insistently tugging at him.
"DOC! WE GOTTA GO!" the Army trooper that had decided to make herself his personal bodyguard yelled into his ear. She hadn't actually introduced herself, but her IFF tags had designated her as one 'A. Waldron, CPL.' "COME ON, DOC!"
"I'm almost done here!" Riesz yelled back as he yanked his shoulder free. "I just need a minute!"
"DOC, WE AIN'T GOT A MINUTE! WE'RE ABOUT TO GET OVERRUN!"
"Then you go!"
"DOC, YOU KNOW I CAN'T DO THAT!" Waldron insisted. "I gotta – OH SHIT, GET DOWN!"
Riesz was shoved hard to the ground as gunfire erupted over his head. Bullet casings began showering him, and he hastily threw himself over his patient to try and protect them from the hailstorm as Waldron emptied her magazine at the Brutes that were trying to force their way up the stairs.
"COME ON YOU DAMN APES!" Waldron was screaming. "YOU WANT SOME OF THIS!? COME AND – gurk!"
"God!" Riesz blanched as a metal spike sprouted from Waldron's neck. The impact of the spiker round caused her to spin as she collapsed, and she landed hard on her side, blood squirting out from between her fingers as she reflexively grabbed her wound. Raw panic and fear flooded her eyes as she stared at Riesz, her breath coming out in gasps and croaks as her body attempted to force air through a respiratory tract that had just collapsed.
Riesz had no time to even begin to try and figure out how he was going to treat a wound that bad as his hands had his sidearm out of his chest holster and pointed downrange before he could even consciously register what was going on. He took a brief second to actually aim at the Brute Minor that was just beginning to reach the top of the stairs before opening fire.
Riesz's aim was atrocious even under the best of circumstances, but taking fire with two patients bleeding to death right beside him only made things that much worse. He wasn't even sure where half his bullets ended up whereas the few that did end up impacting near the Brute only ricocheted off the metal walls and handrail. Still, the gunfire was enough to cause the Brute to flinch and start to retreat back down the stairs so Riesz kept shooting.
Just as Riesz felt the slide on his pistol locking back, thick red blood abruptly coated the top of the staircase as he somehow and very accidentally managed to remove the Brute's scalp with his last round. Automatically thumbing the mag release button, Riesz reached down to his belt to reload only to suddenly remember that had been his last mag. "Oh, crap!"
Dropping the now very expensive paperweight, he frantically looked around for another weapon only for his eyes to be immediately drawn to the red-colored cylindrical object hooked to Waldron's body armor: a white phosphorus incendiary grenade.
Seizing the grenade, he thumbed the activation button, drew his arm back, and heaved the grenade as hard as he could. "WILLY PETE!"
The grenade bounced off the ceiling, landed on the top step, and exploded, throwing white, snow-like particles in all directions that sizzled the moment they touched something, setting fire to everything else and causing a huge cloud of smoke to instantly form. Riesz wasn't sure how good Covenant armor was at protecting them from fire, but hopefully the white phosphorus would keep them back long enough for him to get the fuck out of here with his patients.
"CORPORAL! COME ON, WE GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE!" Riesz started to yell, only to stop short upon seeing the unnatural stillness that had settled over Waldron, and the diluted, glazed over eyes that stared at nothing in particular. Riesz sharply inhaled, but all he could manage was a simple, "Fuck."
For a moment, all he could do was just kneel there, staring at the body, but without warning, the entire building abruptly and violently shook, driving Riesz out of his stupor. He checked his first patient, and was relieved to find that at least he was still alive, abet, barely.
"Come on, Gunny, we gotta go!" Riesz urged to the unconscious man, grabbing him by back the back of his vest and began dragging him backwards. After a moment of thought though, Riesz snagged Waldron's abandoned rifle, slinging it onto his back, before resuming his journey. He only glanced back one time, to stare regretfully at Waldron's body lying abandoned in a pool of her own blood, but in his heart, Riesz knew there wasn't anything else he could do for her: she was dead, and he was out of time.
Dragging his patient down the corridor as fast as he could, Riesz called forth a map of the area onto his HUD, trying desperately to figure out where the hell he was supposed to go. He and a small team of surviving UNSC service members had been falling back to the Asźod Ship Breaking Yards where supposedly a rally point for all remaining soldiers left on Reach could be extracted. However, during the course of their retreat, Gunnery Sergeant Kenzari had been hit and at Riesz's urging, his two other Marine comrades had taken off towards the rendezvous in order to try and find a stretcher they could use. Unfortunately, Riesz had been too busy to notice what direction they had gone, and he was startled to realize he didn't actually know where the rally point was, having just been following the Marines' lead.
"Goddammit, Yohannes," Riesz breathlessly snarled under his breath, berating himself. "This is basic soldiering one oh one: all members of the unit should know where the fuck they're going in case they get separated!"
He glanced over his shoulder just in case his comrades magically appeared around the corner but there was no one there, and he just couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not. He hadn't seen neither hide nor hair of them since they had taken off… what, ten minutes ago? and he wasn't sure why that was. There could have been a number of explanations. Perhaps they had been sidetracked. Perhaps a surviving officer had gotten a hold of them. Maybe they were pinned down. Maybe they were dead.
Or maybe they had taken off while the going was good, leaving him and his patient here to die.
That last thought, Riesz immediately discarded. While he didn't know anything about that one Marine, Private Riley, he and Private First Class Dubbo had been fighting together alongside the remains of RCT-12 for the last week or so. And while that didn't necessarily make them the best of friends, Riesz had gotten to know Dubbo well enough to know the Australian would never abandon a comrade in need. Not if he could do anything about it.
"Look: HUMAN!"
"KILL IT!"
"Ahh!" Riesz yelped as two Grunts abruptly appeared out of nowhere and started shooting with barely any warning. "Gunny- NO!"
Riesz reflexively dropped his patient as a plasma bolt splattered into the metal plating right beside him. Immediately realizing his mistake, Riesz reached out to grab a hold of him once more, but the plasma fire was beginning to pick up as the Grunts advanced on his position, and Riesz realized there was no way for him to both drag his patient and find cover at the same time. "Dammit! Gunny, stay right there, I'll be right back!"
With that, Riesz practically scrambled away on his hands and knees, diving for cover behind a nearby metal column. The column was barely wide enough to cover his entire body, but Riesz didn't exactly have time to complain. Drawing his rifle, he took a deep breath. "Alright you- ahh!"
Riesz's war cry was immediately cut off as a plasma bolt slammed into the column just above his head, showering his helmet with sparks and bits of molten plasma, and forcing him back to cover at the same time. He curled unto himself, trying to make himself as small of a target as possible as plasma kept him pinned in place, unable to return fire or even run away. "Not good, not good!"
Nearly to the point of hyperventilating, Riesz tried to figure out a way out of this situation. He had to figure out a way to distract the Grunts so that he was no longer pinned down. Once he got out of cover, he could then close the distance, kill both aliens, after which, he would be able to get the hell out of here, hopefully with his patient in tow.
At the thought of his patient, Riesz recklessly glanced around the column to check on his status, only to watch in horror as Kenzari was struck in the side of the head by a stray bolt of plasma. The superheated material immediately incinerated the Marine's face, burning through both skin and metal alike and turning the poor man's head into a lump of charred flesh. He collapsed, with what was left of his helmet hitting the deck with a final thump.
At that, there was a break in the incoming fire, and Riesz could see the two Grunts glancing at other. One of them clearly made an "oops" motion, before both aliens started laughing. At that, Riesz saw red.
"YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!" he screeched at the top of his lungs as he whirled around his cover and opened fire. He didn't even bother aiming, he just started shooting from the hip. "GIVE ME A FUCKING CHANCE, YOU FUCKIN- YOU MOTHERFUCKIN- GAHHHH!"
The two Grunts let out identical squeals of fear as they scattered, diving for whatever cover was available. Riesz had to admit, a small part of him couldn't help but feel a primal sense of joy at the obvious terror the two Grunts were displaying. However, the vast majority of his brain was too focused on making sure both aliens died, and died hard.
"YOU FUCKS COME TO MY WORLD AND KILL MY PEOPLE AND YOU FUCKERS THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH IT!? YOU GODDAMN, MOTHERFUCKING, SHIT-EATING, SON OF A FUCKING WHORE- "
click.
The mute sound of his rifle's firing pin landing on an empty chamber cut through Riesz's tirade and he glanced down to see his rifle's ammo counter flashing a red "zero" at him. "Uh oh!"
Riesz tossed his rifle to the side and hurtledhimself to the ground as the two Grunts emerged from cover, leaving their plasma pistols at him and-
"DOC, STAY DOWN!"
Riesz instinctively wrapped his head with his arms as three automatic weapons opened up behind him. The barrage probably lasted all of three seconds but for Riesz, it felt like a lifetime.
"CLEAR!" he heard someone yell. "Riley, check those Grunts and make sure they're permanently down. Dubbo, grab the Doc. We don't have time to waste, so let's move Marines!"
Riesz couldn't stop himself from flinching as a pair of hands grabbed a hold of him.
"Doc! You alright, mate?" someone yelled into his ear with a distinctively Australian accent. Riesz slowly turned his head, only to come face to face with Private First Class Chips Dubbo, one of the two Marines he had sent away earlier to find a stretcher.
At that, Riesz found his anger returning to him with full force and without thinking, he released it on the first person he saw.
"YOU!" he roared, leaping to his feet. "WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG!? YOU PRICK! THIS IS YOUR FAULT!"
He jabbed a trembling finger in the direction of Kenzari's body.
At that, the worried expression on Dubbo's face instantly transformed into one of sheer devastation, the sight of which caused Riesz's anger to vanish like snow in a desert, leaving him feeling immensely guilty for his rash words. But before he could even begin to find the right words to apologize, a harsh voice grabbed everyone's attention.
"Doc, enough! This is no one's fault but the Covenant's; there's no sense in blaming each other!"
Riesz winced and turned to the speaker, some sort of Marine staff sergeant he had never seen before, though his IFF tags identified him as "M. Mobuto, SSgt."
"I need everyone to focus up here," Mobuto insisted. "Call sign 'Noble' is minutes away with the tier one asset in tow, but we have yet to recapture the LZ. We need to rally whatever's left of the security force, kick the Brutes out so our birds can land, and then we can all get off this rock, got it?"
"Aye, Staff Sergeant."
"Good. Riley!" Riesz glanced over his shoulder to see the other Marine he had sent away for the stretcher, Private Riley, standing over the torn up corpses of the Grunts. "Grab the Gunnery Sergeant's tags and whatever ammo he had left. Dubbo, break down that stretcher, looks like we're not going to need it. Doc, is it just you?"
Riesz flinched as he thought about Waldron, and found he could only nod. Fortunately, Mobuto seemed to understand as all he asked next was, "You got a weapon?"
"Yes, Sergeant," Riesz started to say as he swooped down to retrieve the MA37 assault rifle he had salvaged from Waldron, only to find that at some point, the weapon had taken a hit from a plasma bolt and had been reduced to nothing more than a lump of melted plastic and metal. "Uh… never mind."
"Take this then," Mobuto ordered as he pulled out an M6E pistol from his drop leg holster and offered it to him. "If we get a chance, we'll get you a proper weapon, but in the meantime, keep your head down and stay behind us. Check?"
"Check."
"Alright, let's move it out Marines!"
Mobuto immediately took off down the corridor, with Dubbo and Riley following closely on his heels. Riesz didn't. Instead, he took one last look around the room, at all the blood splatters and bullets casings that littered the floor, as well as the bodies of both Waldron and Kensari.
"You Covenant bastards have a lot to answer for," he growled before taking off.
The sounds of gunfire began filling Riesz's ears once more as he chased after his comrades. The cacophony only started to grow the further they advanced into the complex until –
"FRAG OUT!"
Riesz automatically ducked at the call as they rounded the corner and found themselves in some sort of factory area filled with giant vats and catwalks. Directly in front of them and crouched behind a set of makeshift barricades were two Marines shooting down at targets unseen. As they approached, one of the Marines whirled around and leveled his rifle at them, but quickly withdrew once he realized who they were.
"Staff Sergeant!" the man called out, relief to evident in his voice.
"Corporal!" Mobuto began as he and the others ducked into cover beside them. "What's the situation?"
"We got Covies all over the LZ! They keep landing in Phantoms and we don't have any way to stop them! My squad and I have been trying to make our way towards the landing pads, but the Covies just keep getting in our way! We ran into these guys 'bout five minutes ago; we tried to outflank them, but they got more guys than we do!"
As the Corporal gave his report, Riesz cautiously glanced over the barricade at the ground below. Facing off against the Marines were maybe a handful of Jackals and Grunts, as well as two Elite Majors. All of the Covenant were currently taking cover behind a number of steel columns and pieces of machinery, but even as Riesz watched, a Grunt abruptly charged out of cover and began moving up.
"The Covies are moving up!" Reisz warned as he leveled his sidearm and began taking aim.
"DOC, GET DOWN!"
Riesz's bullet pinged off the ceiling as he was roughly knocked to the ground. He could feel the heat from the plasma bolt as it passed within centimeters of his unprotected face and he knew if he hadn't been knocked over, he would taken that round straight to the head.
"Doc, you gotta stay down!" Riley was yelling, even as Dubbo hastily began returning fire. "You're the corpsman! You go down, we all go down! Leave the fighting to us grunts!"
"Not going to argue with that!" Riesz yelled back and Riley nodded, before climbing off him and joining Dubbo and the other Marine as all three of them attempted to regain fire superiority.
With nothing else to do, Riesz turned back to Mobuto and the Corporal in time to hear Mobuto asking, "What's the word on call sign Noble?"
"Last I heard, Noble had just made it past the Commonwealth, and were on their way towards Warehouse Three!" the Corporal yelled back. "From there, I think they were headed to Platform Delta where they're supposed to get extracted by some birds from the Autumn!"
"Do they still have the package?"
Whatever the Corporal was about to say was immediately cut off when someone very abruptly screamed, "CORPSMAN!"
Riesz perked up and immediately spotted the source of the cry. Sitting on another catwalk ten meters away had been another two Marines laying down fire. Now one of the Marines was laying on the deck, writhing in pain, while the other was looking around frantically for help. Riesz turned to Mobuto.
"Sergeant, request permission to- "
"Wait for us to lay down some suppressing fire!" Mobuto interrupted. "Dubbo, Riley: go with the Doc and give him a hand. Corporal Goddard, Private Mendoza: standby to give covering fire on my mark!"
Riesz hastily holstered his sidearm in order to have his hands free while he ran.
"COVERING FIRE!"
An orchestra of noises flooded Riesz's ears as three MA5B rifles opened up on the Covenant below. Above the roar of gunfire, Riesz could just barely make out Mobuto screaming, "Go, Doc, go!"
He didn't need to be told twice. Before he could be consciously aware of what he was doing, Riesz was on his feet and charging towards his next patient. He could hear the sound of an Elite screaming out orders in the distance, as well as the sound of bullets ricocheting followed by the retort of plasma fire, but Riesz ignored it all and instead focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
"CORPSMAN!"
Riesz threw himself to the ground next to the screaming Marines, his kneepads banging hard against the metal plating. He was already unslinging his medkit from his back even as he called out, "Where's he hit!?"
The unwounded Marine, B. Hosky, PFC according to his tags, looked up with a relieved look on his face.
"Doc! It's Miller – " as if that name meant anything to Riesz – "he got hit in the stomach! Fucking plasma burned right through his plating and… Christ, he's fucked up!"
"Give me room!"
Not waiting for Hosky to react, Riesz roughly shoved the man aside and began a quick visual evaluation of his patient. Male, nineteen to twenty years of age, plasma shot to the lower belly. Was screaming in pain a moment ago, but was now unconscious. Concerning.
"Hey! You give this man any painkillers!?" Riesz demanded, even as he worked on cutting the melted composite material away from the rest of the chest plate so he could remove the armor without taking any of the damaged tissue with it.
"No!" Hosky yelled back but Riesz hardly noticed as he scanning the wound with a critical eye. Third degree thermal burns surrounded by second degree burns partially as a result of the melting armor… no external bleeding…
Removing Miller's backpack, Riesz shoved it under his knees in order to try and elevate his legs a bit before reaching into his medkit and digging out a triangle bandage. Ripping open the packet with his teeth, Riesz carefully eased Miller up so he could wrap the sterile cloth around his abdomen, loosely tying it together so it didn't fall off. Activating his helmet mounted flashlight, he hurriedly leaned over to check Miller's airways.
Miller seemed to be breathing alright, so Riesz quickly checked his heart rate. Deciding it was safe to give him some painkillers, Riesz pulled out his case of medication and grabbed his autoinjector and inserted a pre-drawn dose. Jabbing Miller in the leg, he tossed the injector away before pulling out a permanent marker and very visibly making a note onto the back of Miller's hand, just in case another corpsman came by.
"Hey!" Riesz yelled, grabbing Hosky by his pant leg to get attention. "Where's the casualty collection point!?"
Hosky gave him a funny look. "Are you kidding? We got Covies all over the damn place, and not enough men! We don't have a CCP!"
"Well, this guy is a priority! He needs to be evacuated!"
"The only way left off this damn rock is on the Pillar of Autumn and the only way on there is if we can clear these landing pads for our birds to land!"
Riesz growled under his breath. "I'm not leaving him here!"
"I didn't say that, but we need to figure out a way to bring him with us!"
"Dubbo!" Riesz immediately snapped. "I need that stretcher!"
Dubbo stopped shooting for a moment. "What?"
"The stretcher!" Riesz snapped, pointing at the collapsible stretcher Dubbo was carrying on his back. "I need it!"
"Got it! Oye! Riley! Cover me, I'm helpin' the Doc!"
"I got your cover, right here baby! RAAHHHH!" Riley roared as he fired another burst downrange.
Dubbo ducked and dashed over to Riesz. Riesz didn't even wait for him to bend over, he just reached up and started tugging the stretcher off Dubbo's back. With practiced ease, he extended it and locked it in place. "Dubbo, grab his legs! You! Hosky! Grab him by the shoulders! I'll support his center. I'm going to yell 'three, two, one, lift' and then we put him on that stretcher! Got it?"
"Yeah, let's do this!" Hosky impatiently yelled, replying on behalf of both Marines.
Riesz flinched as a plasma bolt splattered against the wall nearby but quickly recovered. Shoving his arms under Miller so that the man's back was resting on his forearms, he braced himself. "Alright. Three, two, one, LIFT!"
All three men began lifting at the same time, doing their best to avoid jarring Miller. Together, they were able to get him onto the stretcher.
"Alright, Dubbo and Hosky, you're my stretcher bearers!" Riesz commanded as he grabbed Miller's abandoned rifle. "Riley, you're our security!"
"I don't know where you think you're going, Doc, but we still got a ton of bad guys between us and that platform!" Riley warned as he ducked to reload.
Riesz poked his head around their cover and swore. From where he was kneeling he could see the corpses of at least one Elite and maybe three Grunts, but that still left nearly six other aliens they needed to deal with. Not an easy prospect even on the best of days, but when bearing a stretcher? Impossible.
"We gotta kill these guys before we go anywhere," Riesz declared.
"What do you think we've been trying to do, you damn swabbie!?" Hosky snarled as he pulled out a grenade and armed it. "Frag out!"
Riesz waited for the explosion before hastily standing up and pumping a few rounds in the Covenant's direction. None of them landed anywhere near where the Covenant were, and he was forced to duck as a barrage of plasma came flying back his way.
"Doc, what did I just say about leaving the fighting to us grunts?" Riley groaned as Riesz hit the ground.
"Well, it didn't look like you jarheads were doing anything!" Riesz shot back as he reloaded.
"Goddammit, we need more firepower!" Hosky complained. "Anyone got anymore grenades?"
"Here, mate, take 'em" Dubbo yelled.
"What we need is for Noble to get their asses over here!" Riley snarled. "Where the hell are they!?"
In lieu of a response, Riesz grabbed his radio. "Snake 1-7, this Angel 3-1 Mike, come in."
"Go ahead 3-1," Mobuto immediately replied.
"1-7, I got a priority casualty, need medivac. What's the ETA on call sign Noble, over?"
"ETA: momentarily!"
"AIIIEEEEEEE!"
The sound of Covenant Grunts screaming immediately had all assembled UNSC forces bring their weapons to bear, in case the Grunts were beginning a charge. They weren't, however it took Riesz's exhausted mind several long moments to process what he was seeing.
Two heavily armored figures had seemingly just appeared among the Covenant formation. Both were wearing what almost looked like heavily modified ODST armor, however one had a reddish tint to their armor and was covered in a wide assortment of ordnance and weapons, while the other was clad almost entirely in gray. Both figures were attacking the Covenant with a speed and gusto that left Riesz struggling to catch up. And then, before he even really had time to blink, all Covenant soldiers were dead and the two figures were sprinting for the exit. As they took off, Riesz happened to notice the gray one had some sort of glowing blue cylinder attached to their lower back.
Astonished and unable to process what he had just seen, all Riesz could do was exclaim, "What the heck was that!?"
He happened to glance over at Dubbo as he said that, only to see the wide grin that threatened to split the Marine's face in half.
"Crikey, Doc: those were Spartans!" Dubbo cheered and at once, Riesz understood. He, like everyone else, had of course heard about Spartans and their legendary feats. But Riesz had never seen one in person and it was one thing to read about what the Spartans might have done, but it was another thing entirely to actually see them in action for himself.
"That was Noble!" Mobuto roared as he ran past them with Goddard and Mendoza in tow as they trailed after the Spartans. "They're headed for Platform D! Come on Marines, they're going to need some backup! MOVE!"
"But… they're Spartans," Riesz overhead Riley protesting. "They don't need backup, especially from the likes of us."
"No, but they're the only chance we've got at getting off this planet," Riesz pointed out. "Come on!"
That spurred them into action. Riesz anxiously double checked his patient to make sure he was still alright before Dubbo and Hosky grabbed the stretcher and together, all four of them took off, trying to catch up with everyone else. Fortunately, it proved frighteningly easy to stick to the right path as it appeared that the Spartans were as skilled fighters as the stories and propaganda claimed: all Riesz and his companions had to do was keep following the trail of destruction and corpses the two fighting machines had left in their wake until –
" -rigged the mass driver up top. We lose that, the Autumn will have no covering fire. She'll never make it to orbit."
Riesz blinked as his eyes adjusted to the sudden change in lighting only to find they had emerged out onto an open landing platform. He looked around to see the two Spartans talking to some Marine butterbar, who was giving them a quick rundown of the situation.
"Noble to Keys," Riesz heard someone say over the open channel on his radio, and it took him a moment to realize it was one of the Spartans. He had to admit, he was slightly disappointed: he had honestly expected the Spartan's voice to be, well, deeper than what it actually was. "We're at the pad."
"Copy, Noble," someone else replied. Probably a high ranking officer like a captain or an admiral, if Riesz had to guess just based on the authoritative way the man spoke. "My Pelican's ready. Clear an LZ and I'll met you there."
"Will do, sir." With that, Riesz watched as the Spartan in red turn to the one in gray. Realizing that the two warriors were probably about to discuss something personal and or classified, Riesz force himself to turn his attention to the Lieutenant instead, even though he desperately wanted to know more about what the Spartans were talking about.
"Lieutenant!" Riesz cried out, catching the man's attention.
"Whoa, who the hell are you and where did you come from!?" the Lieutenant immediately exclaimed.
"HM2 Riesz, Navy Medical Detachment, RCT-12," Riesz hurriedly rattled off. "Sir, I got a priority wounded that needs evacuating! He needs 'on' that Pelican!"
"ISR is picking up on the approach of multiple Phantoms, so he's not going anywhere until we clear the pad!" the Lieutenant warned. "Stash him in the building over there under the observation post, then be on the alert, Doc! We're going to be needing you!"
"Aye, Lieutenant!"
Riesz glanced at the building in question. Mobuto was already in the observation post with a couple other Marines, getting ready for the coming onslaught. Meanwhile, scattered around the landing platform were a handful of Marines moving ammo and setting up machine guns, getting ready to defend themselves. There weren't nearly as many as Riesz had hoped to see.
"Come on, Doc!" he heard Hosky impatiently yelling behind him. "We got to get ready!"
"Yeah, yeah: I'm going!"
Riesz led the way into the building, the doors automatically sliding open for him. Inside, he was surprised to see two Marines already there. One was sitting on the ground while the other was kneeling beside him, tending to him. The kneeling Marine automatically looked up at the sound of the door opening and immediately brightened upon laying eyes upon Riesz.
"Doc!" the Marine exclaimed. "I need you to check my buddy!"
And before Riesz could protest, the Marine seized his arm and dragged him over to the other man.
"A Jackal kicked him into the wall," the man was explaining as Riesz dropped down to a crouch. "Unfortunately, Cruz wasn't wearing a helmet, so he hit his head pretty hard. I think he's got a concussion!"
"Any other corpsman take a look at him yet?" Riesz distractedly asked as he pulled out a pen light and began shining it into Cruz's eyes, seeing his reaction. Definitely a concussion.
"Nah, I think you're the only corpsman around."
That caught Riesz's attention. "What?"
"You're the only medic around," the other man repeated and Riesz found himself inhaling sharply. That… wasn't good.
"Doc, where do you want us to put Miller?"
Riesz glanced over his shoulder at Dubbo and Hosky still holding the stretcher.
"Move that shelf and put him by the wall," Riesz absentmindedly commanded as he frantically worked over what he had just been told and what that meant for him. If he really was the only corpsman on this landing pad, that meant he would be responsible for any and all wounded moving forward. Against the Covenant? That was going to be a lot of work for one man. Riesz was going to need some help. And a lot of medical supplies.
"Anyone go through TCCC or CLS?" he asked.
The first Marine raised his hand. "Um, I did TCCC. I didn't pass, but…"
"Good enough," Riesz decided with a sigh. "Alright, Dubbo, Riley, and Hosky, you guys are going to be my stretcher bearers. I want you guys outside and scattered around the pad. Anyone gets hit, you bring them here to me. Riley, while you're out there, go find the Skipper and let him know I'm setting up a CCP right here in this room. You," he turned back to the first Marine, "What's your name?"
"Lance Corporal Stravos."
"Corporal, you're going to be my assistant, as well as my security. You watch my back as I work; any Covies walk through these doors, you give 'em two to the chest and one to the head, got it?"
"You got it, Doc!"
The sound of a massive cannon going off caused everyone in the room to jump.
"That'll be the mass driver!" Dubbo declared. "We got hostiles!"
"Alright, let's get moving!" Riesz urged.
"Wait!" he yelled as a thought occurred to him. "IFAKs! Give them to me!"
All the Marines hastily removed their individual first aid kits and tossed them over to Riesz.
"We got incoming Phantoms!" Hosky reported from where he was standing by the door, looking outside. "Better get ready for the rush, Doc!"
Riesz jerked his head in acknowledgement as the other men dashed outside, leaving him alone with his patients. He took a deep breath to try and calm his nerves. It didn't really work.
"Corporal, start emptying these IFAKs and organizing their contents so I got easy access to them," Riesz ordered as he turned to deal with the patients he had now. Doing so, he happened to spot a number of medkits mounted on the walls. "And grab those medkits, we're going to need them."
"HERE THEY COME!"
The sound of gunfire immediately followed that shout, causing Riesz to flinch.
"Here goes nothing," he muttered to himself before turning to Cruz. "You! Sit down and let me see your head while I still have a chance!"
Ripping open a bandage, Riesz began wrapping it around Cruz's head as the fighting began to break out in earnest outside. There weren't any windows in this room, so he could only begin to guess as to how bad it was.
"We're going to be okay, right Doc?" he heard Stravos nervously ask him.
"We got a couple of Spartans backing us up," Riesz reported, realizing if Stravos had been inside this entire time, he wouldn't have seen them.
It worked. Stravos visibly brightened.
"Spartans? Tell you aren't kidding!" Stravos exclaimed, relief evident in his voice and posture. "Are they as good as the stories say?"
"Guess we're about to find out!"
Cruz finally situated, Riesz turned his attention to Miller, quickly checking over his vitals in an effort to distract himself from the battle outside, but it wasn't easy. All Riesz could think about was if they were going to make it or not, and who their first casualty was going to be.
The gunfire continued to grow in pitch, and the platform began shaking from explosions; more than likely, a result of Phantoms or Spirits firing their plasma cannons at the defenders on the ground as they approached. Above it all, the roar of the mass driver continued to ring out, reassuring Riesz that they at least had some fire support, however limited. Unfortunately, aside from that, Riesz's quick scan of the pad had revealed previous little else.
Inevitably, Riesz's thoughts drifted to that of the Spartans. On one hand, Riesz was thrilled to have them around and the realization there were two of them filled him with so much hope he thought he just might burst. On the other hand though, the more rational side of his mind was doing it's best to temper his enthusiasm. Riesz was old enough to understand when it came to the war, it was to be expected that any news piece would contain the usual propaganda, only amplified by a factor of ten in order to 'maintain morale.' So, all the stories about Spartans he had read and heard, he had figured had to be taken with a boulder of salt.
Of course, his brief interaction with them a few minutes ago did prove to him there was at least some truth to the stories he had heard. But, at the same time, a single, thirty second firefight wasn't exactly enough to reveal all of their capabilities. Maybe they were like cheetahs in the sense they were fast, but couldn't sustain it. Or they were all bark but no bite. Who could say, really?
"Corpsman!"
Riesz's sidearm was halfway out of its holster before he registered who was doing the shouting. The door hissed open, revealing Hosky supporting a wounded Marine.
"Put him right here! Where's he hit!?" Riesz barked.
"Plasma bolt to the upper thigh!" Hosky reported as he eased the groaning Marine to the floor. "Minor shrapnel wounds to the face!"
"Got it!" Riesz yelled as he turned to address the more serious of the wounds, the plasma wound to the leg. Pulling out a pair of scissors, he began cutting away the pants leg. "How you feeling, Marine?"
"Fuck! This fucking hurts like a son of a bitch!" his patient groaned.
"I know, I'm going to get you fixed up. Corporal, I need a triangle bandage!"
The cloth was roughly shoved into his hand and Riesz hurriedly wrapped it around the Marine's wound. "Biofoam! And prep an autoinjector with one pre-set dose of ketamine!"
Taking the can, Riesz sprayed a bit of foam onto his fingertips and began liberally applying them to his patient's face.
"Am I good to go, Doc?" his patient demanded to know, his eyes glued on the door.
"Not a good idea to go back there with that leg of yours!" Riesz warned.
"I don't think we have a choice!"
The entire building shook as something exploded nearby and Riesz realized the man was right. They didn't have enough men to allow anyone else out of the fight.
"Alright, you're good to go!" he barked as he jammed the autoinjector into the man's arm.
"Thanks, Doc!" the man hobbled to the door, only to nearly get knocked over as Dubbo and Riley came charging into the room bearing a heavily wounded man between them.
"Doc! Turner took some shrapnel to the chest! Got blood everywhere!" Dubbo yelled.
"Shit! Put him right here!" Riesz bark and immediately began checking the man over. "Dubbo, help me remove his chest plate. Stravos, get a PVC and a bag of plasma set up and ready to roll. Riley, get the fuck out of here, you're in the way!"
Removing Turner's chest plate, Riesz barely hesitated as blood began gushing out from the wound. "Dubbo, start applying some biofoam here and here! Stravos, give me the IV then get me a chest seal and an OPA. One of those 'J' shaped devices!" he added as he began searching Turner's arm for a vein. Find one, he jabbed the IV into it and opened up the valve, watching as plasma began draining down the tube. "Alright, Dubbo, that's good! I'm going to apply this chest seal, then I'm going to need you to help open his mouth so I get can the OPA in. Stravos, need an oximeter on his finger yesterday!"
"CORPSMAN!"
Hosky came barging in with another man in tow.
"LT's been hit! Shrapnel damn near took his fucking left off!" he warned and Riesz glanced at the man and immediately spotted the man's left leg, which was barely being held together by a few strands of flesh. Blood was gushing everywhere.
"Slap a TQ on that shit to stop the bleeding, then begin applying all the biofoam you got! Stravos, need that bag valve mask!" Riesz barked. "Hey, Hosky! Mark the exact time you put that tourniquet on! Dubbo, get back outside!"
Moving into the spot Dubbo just vacated, Riesz wrapped the mask around Turner's face and strapped it down so it didn't fall off. "No, Hosky, put that higher up or it isn't going to work! Stravos, give me a reading on Turner's BPM! I need – "
"Corpsman!"
Riesz jerked his head up as Riley barraged into the room, bring with him another Marine who was screaming his head off.
"What'd we got!?" Riesz yelled to be heard over the man's cries of pain.
"Dunno! He just started hugging his stomach and screaming about how it hurts!"
"Stravos, get another bag of plasma into Turner! Riley, let me take a look!"
Riesz hurriedly looked over the newcomer. To his surprise, he couldn't immediately spot any wounds on the man. "Marine, what is wrong with you?"
"It hurts!" the man hollered. "Doc, make it stop!"
"What? What hurts!?" Riesz demanded. "No! Hosky, double that amount otherwise it's not going to hold! Stravos, check Cruz and make sure he's still awake cause if he falls asleep with a concussion, there's no guarantee he'll wake up! Marine, talk to me! I can't fix you if I don't know what's broken!"
"My stomach! It hurts! I can't take it!" the Marine screamed and Riesz hurriedly shoved a hand under the man's armor, only to find nothing out of the ordinary.
"Dude, there's nothing wrong with you, get out of here!"
"You gotta give me some morphine, Doc!" the man insisted.
"Corpsmen haven't carried morphine in centuries, dude, and meds are for people with gunshot wounds!" Riesz snapped at him. "Riley, get this guy out of here!"
"Angel 3-1 Mike, this is Able 1-1, come in, over."
Hearing Dubbo's distinct accent over the radio, Riesz keyed his mic. "Go for 3-1 Mike!"
"3-1, I gotta critically wounded out here, I need a stretcher, over!"
"Copy! What's your position?" Riesz demanded even as he snapped at Hosky to get his attention.
"North side!"
"Copy. Hosky, Dubbo needs a stretcher, north side!"
"I'm on it!"
Hosky dashed out of the room and Riesz took his place by the Lieutenant's side.
"LT, can you hear me?" Riesz as he checked his BPM. The LT's head rolled towards him, but he didn't say a word. "Stravos, prep an IV and get some fluids into the LT. How's Turner looking?"
"I don't really know, Doc, I'm not exactly trained for this," Stravos admitted.
"Switch!"
Riesz took Stravos's place over Turner. Even though the biofoam was in place over his chest, Turner's blood pressure was dropping and he couldn't figure out why. "Stravos, as soon as you're done with the LT, I'm going to need – "
"Doc, where do you want him!?"
Riesz jerked as Dubbo and Hosky charged into the room bearing a loaded stretcher.
"Over there!" Riesz snapped as he dashed over to the newcomer. He absentmindedly noted that it was the first Marine he had treated for a leg wound when the firefight first began.
"CORPSMAN! I NEED A CORPSMAN OUT HERE RIGHT NOW!"
"Hell," Riesz swore as a call for a corpsman came over the radio. "Hosky, get out there and figure out what's up. "Dubbo, what's wrong with this guy?"
"Got pinged in the neck by shrapnel!"
Riesz glanced down at his patient, only to immediately notice something wrong. Touching his fingers against the Marine's neck, he waited, then snarled. "Dubbo, I can't do anything for this guy, he's gone. Take him outside."
"What?" Dubbo exclaimed.
"He's a KIA! Get him out, now!" Riesz snapped he turned his attention back to Turner.
"Bloody hell!"
"Doc, DOC!" Stravos yelled as he slapped Riesz on the arm. "Cruz just broke out in convulsions! I think he's having a seizure!"
"What!?"
"Doc!" Riley roared as he came crashing into the room, dragging Mendoza with him. "Mendoza's been hit! Spiker round to the right shoulder!"
"Corpsman! We need a corpsman here in the observation tower!"
Riesz inhaled sharply as he started to feel like he was being pulled in multiple directions. There was just too many wounded Marines trickling in, and not enough medical personnel to deal with them all. And based on all fighting taking place outside, it was only going to get worse. There was only one thing Riesz could do at this point.
"Stravos! We're beginning triage!" Riesz barked as he took a look around the room and reluctantly began categorizing all of his patients. He always hated to do this; he had enlisted as a corpsman because he had always wanted to save lives, not take them. To have to look at someone and make a conscious decision to stop treating them, knowing that doing so was to condemn them to death was… difficult, to say the least.
Unfortunately, the one thing that had been beaten into his head during 'A' School was that, as a corpsman participating in the worst war humanity had seen since the beginning of time, he simply couldn't save everyone. And that trying to do so could and would cause morefatalities in the long run as trying to treat soldiers that couldn't be save meant soldiers with light injuries were being neglected.
No, at this point, Riesz had no choice: he was going to have to sacrifice a few lives in order to save that much more.
"Stravos, stop all treatment on Turner and take him outside. He's expectant," Riesz commanded. Ignoring the slight waver in his own voice, he turned his attention to Mendoza and began categorizing his wound. Spiker round to the right shoulder where the arm connected with the torso. Delayed.
"What? What are you talking about? We can still help him!" Stravos demanded to know and Riesz felt a surge of anger over the fact Stravos was apparently determined to make this that much harder.
"Don't fucking question me, Lance Corporal! Turner's not going to make it and we can't waste any more time or effort on him, not with everyone else streaming in! Take him outside, NOW!"
Stravos notably hesitated, and Riesz was just about ready to kick him out of his CCP when Stravos finally said in a meek voice, "Aye, Doc."
"Riley!" Riesz snapped and gestured at Mendoza's wound. "Leave the spike in, but stuff the area around it with biofoam to prevent any of the blood from leaking out. Then wrap it up tight with this bandage; goal now is to get as many Marines back into the fight, we'll worry about actually fixing it later."
Without waiting for a response, Riesz dashed over to Cruz to try and figure what was going on. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Stravos lifting Turner in a bridal carry with a very somber look on his face, and he felt a twinge of guilt which he immediately suppressed. He could feel guilty later: at the moment, he simply couldn't afford to.
Just as he threw himself onto the ground next to Cruz, Cruz abruptly went still, much to Riesz's alarm. Reaching out, he placed his fingers around Cruz's neck to feel for a heartbeat, only to realize he couldn't find one. "Hell. Hey, Riley! Cruz has gone into cardiac arrest! I need your help!"
"I'm still working on Mendoza!" Riley yelled back.
"Shit!" Riesz grabbed his radio. "Able 1-1 or Ester 2-4, I need one of you back at the CCP right now! Hey! Anyone copy?"
Without waiting for response, Riesz moved to remove Cruz's armor as fast as possible so he could have unimpeded access to Cruz's chest. Behind him, he heard the doors hissing open, and he distractedly glanced up, expecting to see either Dubbo or Hosky standing there, bearing another patient.
It was neither. Instead, a slightly wounded Covenant Brute Minor stood with its back to the doorway. The Brute glanced over its shoulder, looking mildly confused at the scene that had been abruptly revealed.
"Oh god... contact, CONTACT!" Riesz roared as he whipped out his sidearm and started shooting at the same time the Brute did.
The room erupted into chaos as Marines, both wounded and not, scrambled for cover as the Brute sprayed the room down with Spiker fire. Riesz felt himself screaming in pain as a hot metal spike skimmed along his neck, leaving a shallow cut. At the same time, a single spike punched right through Cruz's newly exposed chest, causing blood to immediately begin spilling out however there wasn't anything Riesz could do at the moment.
"Shoot 'im, shoot 'im, shoot 'im!" Riesz desperately screamed at the top of his lungs, even as Riley hefted his rifle and started to do just that.
Frantically ejecting his empty magazine and shoving a fresh one in, Riesz racked the slide and resumed shooting as fast as he could, even as the Brute began backing out of the room. Unfortunately for the Brute, it was too late: one last burst from Riley's rifle caught the Brute in the face, blowing the alien's brains out the back of their head, painting the doorway in red. The ground visibly shook as the nearly five hundred and fifty kilogram alien hit the deck, before the doors quietly slid shut, cutting the view off from the rest of the room.
Wheezing from all the adrenaline now running through his veins, Riesz at least still had the presence of mind to reload before shoving his sidearm back into its holster.
"Marines, sound off!" he hoarsely yelled. "Who's still alive?"
"Riley!" Riley yelled as he fumbled with trembling hands to reload. "Fuck! This! Shit!"
"Mendoza?"
"Still alive, but I still got a spike in my arm," he groaned.
"Riley, see if you can't deal with that," Riesz commanded. "LT?"
The LT waved from where he had dove on top of Miller to try and protect him from the fire.
"Mendoza, if you can stand, watch the damn door. Riley! I need a can of biofoam!" Riesz barked as went to work on Cruz, trying to stem some of the bleeding. A small part of him wondered if it was even worth it: he hadn't even had a chance to address Cruz's cardiac arrest and now the man had been shot? It wasn't looking good for him.
As Riesz went to work, the door abruptly hissed open once more, and he felt his heartrate spike as he grabbed his sidearm. This time, however, it was actually Hosky, who looked around the room with an astonished look on his face at the bodies lying on the floor and all the spikes sticking out from the walls.
"What the… what happened!?"
"What happened? We got jumped! What happened to you!? I thought you guys were supposed to be holding the Covenant back?" Riesz demanded to know. "Hell, didn't you have two Spartans to help? How the hell did this happen?"
Hosky hesitated, still looking shocked. "It's… hard to explain. But the area is clear and we've got Pelicans incoming for an extract. Staff Sergeant Mobuto says to start getting the wounded ready to move."
Riesz sighed as he reached out and grabbed Cruz's tags. Cruz had been shot close enough to the heart that it didn't matter what Riesz did: Cruz was gone. "Riley."
Riley jumped and looked up. "Yeah, Doc?"
"Grab the other end of the stretcher. You and I will carry Miller out. Mendoza, can you walk?"
"Yeah. I think so."
"Grab the Lieutenant. Hosky, help him. Let's hurry it up guys. The sooner the wounded get to an actual medical facility, the better chance they'll have at surviving."
Without another word, Riesz bent over and grabbed the front of the stretcher. He waited until Riley had grabbed the other end, before heading for the door. Walking outside, he nearly tripped over Stravos's body. Riesz stopped to look. Stravos had been shot right through the left eye, probably as he was laying Turner down. The bolt had passed through the left hemisphere of the brain, passed through the longitudinal fissure, and exited out the other side. Death was… near instantaneous.
Riesz stood there for a moment as he waited for the grief to hit, only to find he felt… nothing. Too much had occurred today for him to really be able to process and at this point, he was just done. He just…
"PELICAN INBOUND!" someone yelled, snapping Riesz out of his funk. Tapping into whatever fuel reserves he had left, Riesz stepped over Stravos' body and headed outside where...
…woah.
Riesz found himself stopping once more, this time for a far different reason. He had been thinking that the fact that a single Brute had managed to break through the defenses and engage Riesz and his CCP directly didn't exactly bode well for the so-called fighting prowess of the Spartans. Now, however, looking at the aftermath of the battle, Riesz had to wonder how the Covenant hadn't broken through earlier.
There were Covenant bodies everywhere. Almost every surface imaginable had some sort of alien corpse or blood stain or entrails strewn over it. And it wasn't just the lesser aliens like Grunts and Jackals; from where Riesz was standing, he could see nearly twenty of the larger aliens. And those were the only ones that were intact. By a conservative estimate, there were probably body parts for another ten or eleven Elites and Brutes. It was… astonishing, almost, in a rather morbid way.
Standing in the midst of all this carnage, was the gray Spartan. The Spartan itself didn't look injured, and instead, just stood there reloading their entire arsenal of weapons.
"Doc!"
Riesz jumped and looked around wildly at the shout, only to see Sergeant Mobuto standing nearby, waving at him.
"Come on, Doc, we got a Pelican inbound!" Riesz heard him shout and point towards the sky where two Pelicans were, one holding position and providing security, while the other was headed directly for the landing pad. "Let's get everybody on board before it's too late!"
Riesz nodded and sprinted for the pad, reaching it just as the Pelican landed and began lowering its ramp. At once, four figures came charging out: a Navy captain based on the rank insignia he was wearing on his service uniform, and three Naval Infantry guards. Without waiting for permission, Riesz just charged onboard, quickly finding a spot on the deck to put the stretcher down. Behind him, he could hear the Captain approaching the gray Spartan and start to say something, but Riesz was too distracted trying to get his patients strapped in to pay any heed.
He only looked up when he heard the Captain abruptly yell out: "Cruiser, adjusting heading for the Autumn! Noble Four, I need fire on that cruiser or we're not getting out of here! Do you copy?"
"You'll have your window, sir," Riesz heard a gruff voice reply, and as the Captain, the gray Spartan, and the guards rushed up the Pelican ramp, he took that as his cue to find a seat and quickly strap himself in.
"Bridge, this is the Captain," the Captain called into his radio. "We have the Package. Returning to the Autumn, over."
"Copy that."
Riesz let out a mute sigh of relief. They were finally getting out of here.
FWOOZFWOOZFWOOZ!
"Look out, look out!" the Pelican pilots began screaming and Riesz felt his heart leap to his throat as he looked out the cockpit window in time to see the Pelican that had been providing security burst into flames as it was struck several times by plasma cannon fire. As the Pelican cartwheeled towards the ground, a single Covenant Phantom flew by overhead, and for a moment Riesz was convinced he was toast, and that everything he had just done in the last thirty minutes was for nothing.
But the Phantom didn't fire. Instead, it flew towards the main facility, coming to a halt over the mass driver –
"Oh, shit!" Riesz yelped as he realized where the Covenant were going. "Come on, we gotta get out of here!"
Distracted as everyone was, he didn't think anyone actually heard him, but then he heard one of the Sailors standing by the ramp scream out, "Lieutenant! Get on board! We gotta get the hell out of here!"
Riesz watched as the gray Spartan stare at them, a DMR in their arms.
"Negative," the Spartan finally said, and to Riesz's horror, added, "I have the gun. Good luck, sir."
The Navy Captain seemed to hesitate for a moment before replying, "...Good luck to you, Spartan."
With a simple gesture of his head, the Pelican began pulling away, leaving the Spartan alone on the platform.
"Wait, we're not just going to leave them there, are we!?" Riesz couldn't help but exclaim as the Captain walked towards the cockpit.
"I'm afraid we don't have a choice, son," the Captain gravelly replied. "Those are Elite Zealots up there; only a Spartan has the skills to fight their way to that gun and clear us a path. Pilots, get us to the Autumn!"
"Aye, sir!"
The Pelican took off towards a UNSC Navy cruiser that was sitting docked on the ground nearby. As they got closer, a shadow fell over the entire area, and Riesz glanced up to see an entire CCS-class battlecruiser approaching them, and he nervously swallowed.
"Cruiser, moving into position. I need it dead!" Riesz heard the Captain call out into his radio. At once, there was a brilliant flash, followed by a loud retort. "Mass driver won't crack those shields! Steady, Spartan!"
"Captain Keyes, incoming Phantoms and Banshees!" one of the pilots called out in warning as a number of Covenant aircraft began emerging from the bowels of the battlecruiser.
"Stay the course, Ensign," Keyes barked. "Those ships aren't here for us."
Riesz nearly scoffed at that. They were on a Pelican; it wasn't like they could do anything to any of those aircraft. It wouldn't take but a second for any of the Covenant birds to shoot them down. But much to Riesz's surprise, what Keyes predicted proved to be true: almost as one, all of the Covenant aircraft completely ignored them, and instead seemed to be more concerned about the mass driver the Spartan was now manning.
The reason why for the indifference was revealed to Riesz a moment later when a bright light filled the sky, and Riesz glanced skyward to see the CCS battlecruiser was beginning to charge its ventral energy projector.
"Fuck me dead, mate," Riesz heard someone say, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Dubbo staring at the same thing he was, and he couldn't help but nodded his head in agreement.
Fortunately, it would seem that Keyes was made of sterner stuff than Riesz was because instead of panicking, he yelled out instead, "Fire now, Lieutenant! Hit her in the gut!"
There was a brilliant flash of light and at once, a massive explosion ripped through the underside of the battlecruiser! Riesz didn't even know who the first person was to start cheering, but he found himself joining along as Keyes yelled out, "Good guns, Spartan! All stations: brace for cast-off."
Another shadow began to envelope the Pelican, but this time it was only the ceiling of the Autumn's hangar bay as the Pelican flew in and began landing. Outside, Riesz could hear the mighty roar of R7 thrust couplings, and the entire Pillar of Autumn began to shake as she struggling to take off. Over the chaos, Riesz managed to hear Keyes send one last message:
"This is the Pillar of Autumn. We're away. And the Package is with us."
As the Pelican touched down and secured itself to the hangar bay deck, Riesz unclipped his chin strap and removed his helmet. They had made it.
He had survived.
Now they could go home.
General Notes
- This chapter is set in the level, Pillar of Autumn, which is the tenth campaign level of Halo: Reach. While much of the dialogue, especially the ones that Keyes says, is taken word for word from the game, the specific setting isn't actually based on any particular section of the level, and really just a blend of places.
- For the purpose of this story, Noble Six is male and wearing their default armor.