Hey folks, Grubkiller here.
Here is the next part of this story. Enjoy.
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High above the plains of of the East African Protectorate, The UNSC frigate In Amber Clad hung in the air like a large bird of prey. Like many ships in her class, she looked like a rifle with engines.
Three Pelicans dropped from the hangers within the ship. Their jets ignited mid-drop, and they rocketed away from the ship, their engines thundering across the landscape, and they speared towards New Mombasa, the famous mega-city that was home to a space tether that reached forth toward the heavens.
The Covenant Carrier that had breached the orbital line, the Solemn Penance according to messages intercepted by Cortana, hovered high over the city, its gravity lift engaged, ferrying troops and supplies between itself and the surface.
The three pelicans were carrying a strike force of ODSTs, which were to be led by the Master Chief, who stood at the back of the ship, holding on to a handgrip above him as the clouds rolled by in the late afternoon sky.
"That Carrier completely ignored us. She took two in the nose before she blew through the Malta's debris field and jumped straight to its current position, right above the African city of New Mombasa." Cortana said.
The Covenant were capable of making slipspacejumps in system and were able to make them faster and with better accuracy. Such were the benefits of being a hyper advanced civilization.
"Who was the first to make contact?" Chief asked.
"405th Marine Division out of Diego Garcia." Commander Keyes responded over the comm. "But don't expect a big welcome. The Covenant wiped most of them out before they hit the ground."
"Wait a second. I'm getting something from the Carrier." Cortana said. "The message just repeats. Regret, Regret, Regret."
"Catchy." Keyes said. "Any idea what it means?"
"Dear Humanity..." Johnson cut in from the cockpit, sitting behind the two pilots, "we regret being alien bastards. We regret coming to Earth. And we most definitely regret that the Corps just blew up our raggedy-ass fleet!"
"Oo-rah!" The Pilots said in unison.
Then Cortana cut in.
"Regret is a name, Sergeant. The name of one of the Covenant's religious leaders. A Prophet. He's on that carrier, and he's calling for help."
The Pelicans were now just beginning to fly over the city limits. There were gutted buildings and pillars of smoke rising from the skyline. Several small battles were raging on the ground. UNSC forces in theater were advancing on the city from multiple directions and were slowing advancing. Convoys of M808 Scorpion MBTs and M12 LRV Warthogs were moving down the road, slowly pushing Covenant forces back in several sectors, ready to confront the main force in the city center.
Marine recon teams occupied several rooftops, spotting targets for Artillery and Aerial assets.
But the Covenant were in force across the city.
One marine sniper team called in.
"Immediate: Grid kilo two-three is hot. Recommend mission abort."
"Roger, recon." One of the pilots said, before he turned to Johnson. "It's your call, Sarge."
"We're going in." He said, pointing straight at the carrier. Then he turned his head and looked through the bulkhead. "Get tactical, Marines!"
"You heard the man, boys," said Sergeant Stacker of the ODST platoon over the comm. "It's time for some hazard pay."
In the troop bay, the Helljumpers began to check their gear, making sure their helmets were secure and their weapons loaded. The Chief continued to look down at the streets below in total silence.
Then the comm chatter continued. This time it was Lord Hood on the line.
"Marines. Operation RED FLAG has been reactivated. Master Chief, take your strike team, get aboard that carrier, and secure the Prophet of Regret. This is the only place on Earth the Covenant decided to land. That Prophet is going to tell us why."
"Yes sir." Chief said.
"Thirty seconds out. Stand by to... whoa."
The pilot was in shock as he laid eyes on something big.
It was a Covenant vehicle. A Scarab. A large, four-legged, silver-armored behemoth with an estimated height of one hundred feet. It was as tall as the buildings around it, and its metal feet jabbed into the pavement and crushed over skewered everything it stepped on. Its 'face' glowed blue, and it opened up like a flower, dripping plasma as it glowed brighter and brighter, before unleashing a powerful beam onto the strike force. One Pelican was able to evade, only for the beam to strike one of the other pelicans, basting it to hell and causing it to crash into the road in front of it.
The Walker's Anti-air cannons fired next, unleashing a barrage of plasma fire that clipped the wings of both remaining pelicans, causing them both to lose altitude.
The leftward dropship, with Johnson and the Chief on board, clipped the top of a building and flipped over on its top and slid through a low brick wall, before smashing into a large alley.
He was floating in the never-never land somewhere just out of reach of full consciousness when the dream began. It was a familiar dream, a pleasant dream, and one which had nothing to do with war. He was on Eridanus II—the colony world he'd been born on, long since destroyed by the Covenant. He heard laughter all around. A female voice called him by name—John.
A moment later, arms held him, and he recognized the familiar scent of soap. The woman said something nice to him, and he wanted to say something nice in return, but the words wouldn't come. He tried to see her, tried to penetrate the haze that obscured her face, and was rewarded with the image of a woman with large eyes, a straight nose, and full lips. The picture wavered, indistinct, like a reflection in a pond. In an eyeblink, the woman who held him transformed. Now she had dark hair, piercing blue eyes, and pale skin. He knew her name: Dr. Halsey.
Dr. Catherine Halsey had selected him for the SPARTAN-II project. While most believed that the current generation of Spartans had been culled from the best of the UNSC military, only a handful of people knew the truth. Halsey's program involved the actual abduction of specially-screened children. The children were flash-cloned—which made the duplicates prone to neurological disorders—and the clones covertly returned to the parents, who never suspected that their sons and daughters were duplicates. In many ways, Dr. Halsey was the only "mother" that he had ever known.
But Dr. Halsey wasn't his mother, nor was the pale semi-translucent image of Cortana that appeared to replace her.
"Hey" Cortana said, before mimicking the sound of finger tapping on his visor. "Wake up."
The Spartan shook himself fully awake. The world has all flooding back to him and he soon remembered why they were there.
"You all right, Chief?" Johnson asked, placing a hand on the Spartan's shoulder. "Blink if you hear me."
Chief looked at Johnson. Then he looked at the smoldering wreck of the Pelican, and the UNSC marines that stumbled out of it. Half of the men were dead or wounded, including the pilots.
"They'll regret that too, Sergeant." The Chief said as he unslung his BR55 and flicked the safety off.
"Heh. Shake it off, Marines. Clear the crash site! Go, go, go!"
The Two of the ODSTs stayed behind to keep an eye on the wounded, while Chief, Johnson, and the remaining marines moved on up ahead.
He stood under an arch way, and just as he was about to cross it, he saw that a single red dot was approaching. He could hear whimpering and hissing going from this single creature.
Perfect.
The Spartan rounded the corner and punched the little gas sucker in the face before it could even register that he was standing there. The little bastard's neck must have been broken because he dropped like a sack of potatoes and didn't even twitch after that.
The Chief moved forward and the rest of the team followed. They entered the adjacent street. They spotted a bombed-out building which had full command of the street, and it was occupied by Covenant troops. Just a couple jackals and some grunts, most of whom were asleep.
After a series of hand signals to Johnson and the Marines, they nodded and fanned out, surrounding the buildings. The Chief shouldered his rifle and switched to the silenced M7 on his hip. He Moved forward from cover to cover and took out the jackals in the street with a pair of short controlled bursts. They both fell.
The Marines entered the building. The Spartan could hear a series of bursts and little grunt-like squeals. Then came an announcement over the comm.
"Building secured."
"Hoo-rah!" Some of the Marines shouted.
"Secure this area! Dig in fella's! For now, this is home." Johnson said, as he and the others began to take up positions in the building, just as the rest of the Marines joined them with the wounded."
Johnson set up an overwatch position with a sniper rifle, while the rest of the Marines took position on the second floor, overlooking the street. The wounded were brought under cover and treated as best as they could.
The Chief started a patrol down the street with a pair of the ODSTs.
"Heads up, Phantom!" One of the Marines called out over the comm.
The bug-like profile of a Phantom drop ship hummed overhead and peeled away almost as quickly.
"Evac is on its way. We need to hold here until then." Cortana said.
It was at that point that the Chief started seeing red dots approaching their position. He signaled for the two hell jumpers with him to return to the building and dig in. Chief turned and aimed down the alley at a group of covenant grunts approaching.
They spotted him and they opened fire. The Master Chief chose to target the most distant alien first, thereby ensuring that he would still get a crack at the others, even if they turned and tried to escape. The BR55 shots came in quick succession. The Grunts barked, hooted, and gurgled as the well-aimed bullets dropped their lifeless carcasses down onto the pavement.
He pulled back to the building, as Cortana informed the Sergeant of what just happened.
"Yep. If they didn't know we're here before, they do now."
Just as Johnson said this, a spear of purple energy appeared out of nowhere and pierced a helljumper right through his helmet, and he dropped.
"Shit! "Here they come! Up high!" One Marine called out
The Chief and the Helljumpers aimed for the rooftops and sure enough a couple jackal snipers and elites had been stalking them. They returned fire, dropping a couple of them and forcing the rest to find cover behind the reverse slopes of the rooftops.
Johnson fired his sniper rifle and took the helmet off an elite, along with some of his skull.
More Covenant troops started pouring into the street from different directions.
"More on the street, left side!"
The Master Chief saw the elites and the grunts they led, and jumped over the side of the building from the 2nd floor. He drew and primed an M9 HE-DP grenade. He turned just in time to see another Elite—this one in the scarlet armor of a veteran—charge him. The grenade was already in hand, and the distance to the target was sufficient, so the spartan let the M9 fly. The grenade detonated with a loud whump! and tossed the enemy soldier into the air, while shattering the windows of a nearby car. The rookie elite was close now, and roared a battle cry. The alien hosed the Master Chief with plasma fire. His shields dropped precipitously. The Spartan backed away, fired his battle rifle in short controlled bursts and finally managed to knock the remaining Elite off his feet. With their leader down, the Grunts broke ranks and began to scamper away. The marines cut their retreat short in a hail of bullets.
No sooner had this group of covenant troops fall did the Spartan and marines hear the loud crack! of Johnson's sniper rifle.
"We got Jackals in the courtyard!" He shouted.
In seconds, a team of Marines poured fire into the Covenant positions and forced them to find cover, before the Chief flushed them out with grenades.
Seconds later, a new threat appeared. A group of green insectoids flew over the roof and swarmed over the Marine's position.
"Incoming, headin' over the rooftops!"
The Marines opened fire and unleashed staccato rips of automatic fire into the swarm. A dozen bugs dropped, but there were still more. One Marine got swarmed and picked up and dropped over the side, landing with a sickening crunch.
"What the hell are these things, Sergeant?!" One of the rookie marines called out.
"Drones. A whole swarm. Take 'em down. Short controlled bursts."
Finally, all of the bugs had dropped. Only for the familiar hum of a Phantom's engines drifted over the rooftops, and sure enough it was soon hovering over the street.
"Eyes up! Phantom's back!" Johnson shouted.
The alien dropship started firing on the Marine positions. Johnson was forced to head below, and so were the marines. The Chief started to draw it's fire and force it to shoot at something else instead of the marines.
But just when the situation was getting dicy, a volley of rockets zoomed out of no-where and slammed into the side of the Phantom. The engines began to whine and overheat and the whole dropship went up in a brilliant blue flash that vaporized most of the ship, save for a few small chunks.
The remaining marines let out a cheer as a Pelican dropship came in over the rooftops and hovered over the rooftops.
"Somebody call for a ride?"
"Thanks for the assist, pilot." Johnson said.
"Glad to be of service. But my girl's a little big for that courtyard. I see a good LZ on the other side of these buildings. Meet you boys there. Over?" The pilot asked as he began to peel away from the area.
"Copy that." Johnson said as he and Chief began to rally the Marines. "Someone get a satchel on the gate!"
One of the Marines nodded and walked up to a set of heavy doors that led to where they needed to go. But just before he could set the explosives. Something pounded against the gate from the other side.
"CRAP!" He shouted before he ran back to the building.
"Yeah, I can smell it from up here." One marine joked, nervously.
"Stow it Marine, and get ready." Johnson said, as every marine aimed at the gate.
It was still shaking violently, kicking up dust, and began to dent and loosen off its hinges. Then the gate smashed open, and a pair of Covenant Hunters marched out of the gateway
They were huge and wore steel-blue armor as well as handheld plate-armor shields.
The Chief had faced such creatures before, not long before Reach fell, and several times across Halo.
Covenant Hunters were tough, dangerous foes—practically walking tanks. They were slow and appeared clumsy, but the cannons mounted on their arms were equivalent to the heavy weapons a Banshee carried, and they could leap into motion with startling suddenness. Their metal shields could withstand a tremendous amount of punishment. Worse, they would never stop until the enemy lay dead at their feet . . . or they were dead themselves.
"Hunters!" Cortana exclaimed.
"FIRE!"
The Helljumpers opened fire, grenades exploded, and the pair of Hunters roared defiance. One of them lifted his right arm and fired his weapon, a fuel rod beam cannon. One of the ODSTs screamed and fell, his flesh melting.
The Marines launched more grenades fired into the air, slid into the grav lift beam, and detonated harmlessly.
Sergeant Johnson yelled, "Hit 'em, Helljumpers!" and the ODSTs poured fire onto the massive alien juggernauts. Bullets pinged from their armor and whined through the streets and buildings.
The Spartan swiveled around, and fired a volley of bullets into one Hunter's exposed back. The Hunter roared in pain before turning on him. He heard a warning tone as a Hunter's weapon discharged. Burning energy smashed into him.
His shield bled energy and began to shriek a shrill alarm.
The ground vibrated as the enraged alien charged up the street, right for the downed Spartan. The Chief rolled to his right and came up in a low crouch. The alien was close now, within five meters. A row of razor-sharp spines sprang up along the Hunter's back. With his shields depleted, the Chief knew that those spines could cut him in two. He dropped to one knee and fired his BR55. Bullets bounced harmlessly from the alien's armor. At the last second, he dodged left and rolled to the side. The Hunter didn't anticipate the move, and the razor-spines passed over the Spartan's head, missing him by mere inches. The Chief rolled onto his belly—and saw his opportunity. A patch of orange, leathery skin was visible along the Hunter's curved spine. He emptied the BR55's magazine into the unprotected target, and thick orange blood sprayed from a cluster of bullet wounds. The Hunter gave a low, keening wail, then collapsed in a puddle of his own gore.
The second Hunter, which was giving the Johnson and the marines a hard time gave a distressed battle cry at the sight of his bond brother's death. He charged at the spartan, only for Johnson and his men to unleash a storm of bullets into the Hunter's back.
It collapsed near its brother.
Chief scanned the area for enemies. "All clear," he called out.
The remaining ODSTs called in all clears as well.
"Second squad, this is Cortana. What's your status, over?"
A second later, they got a reply.
"This is Sergeant Stacker. We're operational, ma'am... barely. Our pilots didn't make it."
"Roger that. Find a hole, and stay put. We'll come to you."
Eventually, they made it to the LZ, which was in fact a collapsed highway bridge, and popped red smoke for the Pelican, which arrived, depositing a fresh squad of Marines onto the deck, while Johnson helped get the wounded on board.
"Johnson, this is Commander Keyes. Once you get the wounded sorted, I need you on that bird. Armored columns and fresh reinforcements are moving into the old city. They'll need an aerial escort that isn't afraid of a little hostile ground fire. The Chief'll move on ahead and clear the beaches of Covenant Artillery."
Johnson and Chief shared a look.
"Understood. I'll keep an eye on 'em ... Chief, good luck." He saluted.
Chief nodded, and marched down the alley with the Marines.
The Spartan and his marines spent the next half hour moving from street to street, clearing out buildings with grenades, getting into duels with Jackal sniper teams, and getting swarmed by drones from above.
If it wasn't for Cortana's navigating, the spartan and marines would have gotten lost in the bombed out buildings and maze-like alleys.
Piles of Covenant dead littered the streets. But so did many marines. And even more civilians.
"Christ!" One marine exclaimed. "Do you think anyone made it out in time?"
"We're going to assume that the UNSC is removing the civilians from the city. We will proceed as planned." Master Chief said.
As much as he felt for these people, they had a job to do, or else this similar scene would play out over and over again in cities all across Earth, like it already has out in the colonies... and Reach.
Later, as they were going down the road, they could hear the rapid taps of machine gun fire and the whines of plasma. They were getting closer to Second Squad's location. They rounded another corner and found a 4-story building.
Hotel Zanzibar.
That was the name of the hotel that Sergeant Stacker's squad was holding.
Covenant soldiers littered the street out in front of the hotel, which was being guarded by a squad of ODSTs.
"Chief. Glad you could make it." Said the non-com with his Texas drawl.
Chief walked up to the sergeant, who was missing his usual sergeant cap, and had some blood trickling down the side of his head, but it wasn't serious. Some of his men were missing their helmets, and some were armed with Covenant plasma weapons. A few of them were wounded.
"What's your status, Sergeant?"
"A third of my men are dead, but the rest are wounded, except for me and three others. The crash site's on the other side of this hotel, and Covies are crawling all over it." He said.
"Take us there." Chief said.
Stacker nodded. "Follow me."
The Marines and Chief followed the veteran sergeant down a dark corridor, using their flashlights and helmet lamps to brighten up the hall. When they were close to the other side, a series of Covenant jackals and grunts were trying to move in, only to be ambushed from the shadows by the hell jumpers and slaughtered.
A pair of surviving grunts ran screaming out of the dark hotel, only to be gunned down by a pair of Warthog gunners
"You make my mother-in-law look pretty!" Stacker shouted as he gunned both of them down.
Just as the fight seemed over, Covenant Artillery started to bombard their location. They blasted a chunk out of the hotel, and one of its corner's collapsed. Just then, more grunts and jackals started to charge towards the hotel
"We gotta take that artillery out."
Master Chief and the Marines fired into the horde of aliens. Grunts and jackals fell. Ranks of them were erased by grenades, but they kept advancing.
"Tech Aids H.Q. This is Sergeant Stacker. I got a hostile Artillery 200 meters east over my position. Bring smoke, over."
"Hostiles right." One ODST called out.
"Dammit, H.Q. is anybody on this freq!?" Cortana asked.
"Cortana, this is Major Easley. Hang tight. We're inbound."
Just then, a flight of two Longswords flew over the plaza in the direction that the enemy artillery was coming from. They dropped their bombs on an unseen target. Then there was a powerful explosion.
"Verify delivery of ordnance on target, over?" The Major said over the radio.
"Good effect on target, enemy battery has been knocked out," Sergeant Stacker said into the radio set.
Just then, a trio of warthogs roared down the street, chain guns blasting. More grunt and jackals fell, and some were swept up underneath the hogs. They stopped in front of the hotel, and Chief and the Marines went out to meet them.
The all-terrain vehicles got their name because of the twin tow hooks on the front that looked like tusks. They were each mounted with a standard M41 light antiaircraft gun, or LAAG. The weapon fired five hundred rounds of 12.7X99mm armor-piercing rounds per minute and was effective on both ground and airborne targets. Each vehicle - this variant anyway - was capable of carrying up to three soldiers.
The Marine driver in the lead warthog looked at the Chief, before jumping out. "Special delivery from Commander Keyes."
The Master Chief nodded and hopped behind the wheel, started the engine, and strapped himself into the seat. The engine roared and the wheels kicked up geysers of dirt. The Warthog accelerated down the road, which had been cratered by an explosion.
"Hang on," Chief told his two passengers, as they caught some air, and landed on the other side of the crater with a spine-jarring thump.
"Whooo hooo! Let's do it again."
The three warthogs drove past Second Squad's downed bird, gunned down the covenant troops that were near it, and tore on down the beach.
"The highest concentration of Covenant troops is directly below the carrier. That bridge that links the two halls of the city is the most direct route to the city center. I put a nav indicator on your HUD," Cortana said, "just follow the arrow."
"Figures," the Spartan said, a hint of amusement in his level voice. "You always were a backseat driver."
The three warthogs continued down the beach. It was covered in bomb craters and burning covenant bodies and equipment. It looked like the air strike earlier had really crippled their efforts in the old city. They gunned down or ran over a few stragglers.
The waypoint Cortana had set for the Chief led to a large gap that had been ripped into the side of highway tunnel.
The gap was huge, plenty large enough to handle a Scorpion tank, which meant that the Master Chief and the other drivers had little difficulty steering their Warthogs through the initial opening.
Cortana's sensors had identified this as NM 105 E, the very road that would take them over the bridge, and directly into the city center.
Once inside, things became a little more difficult as the Spartan and the other drivers were forced to maneuver the LRVs up ramps onto the shoulders of the road to avoid wrecked vehicles, through a series of tight turns, and right to the very edge of a pit, which was where the road used to be.
A quick recon confirmed that the gap was narrow enough to jump, assuming the 'Hog had a running start. The Master Chief instructed the other drivers to back away, before doing the same, warned his passengers to hang on, and put his foot to the floor. The LRV raced up the ramp, sailed through air, and jounced to a hard landing on the other side.
"I'm picking up lots of Covenant traffic," Cortana said. "It sounds like our reinforcements are starting to arrive, and we're pushing the Covenant right out of the old city. If we can clear them a path, we'll have a chance to get this operation back underway."
"Good," the Master Chief answered.
"There's something else." Cortana said. "The Covenant are surprised and confused. I don't think they expected us to be here.
"It's about time something broke our way." Chief said.
"I didn't mean, you and me. All of us. Humanity on Earth." Cortana clarified.
"That's odd."
"I know, but it does help explain why they came here in such a small fleet."
The Warthogs' headlights swung across the tunnel walls as the Spartan turned the wheel, and the LRV emerged into a large open area where two roads merged. It was at that point that a convoy of covenant shadows hovered out of no where, nearly colliding with the warthogs.
"Son of a-!" One marine driver called out before swerving right to avoid the alien troop carriers.
The Shadow was broadly arch-shaped, and colored a deep purple, with the driver cabin located at the vehicle's front and protected by heavy frontal armor, with a shade turret located on the top. The centre of the arch boasts powerful gravitic fields capable of hosting a single Ghost, equipment or a small bench seating eight passengers.
The gunner of the lead vehicle growled and started firing on the three warthogs. The other followed suit, spashling boiling hot plasma onto the roads and over the windshields. The High drivers sword to avoid running over the plasma splashes on the ground to avoid melting the tires.
"Hit 'em!" The Chief ordered.
The gunners, who couldn't possibly miss at this range, opened fire. There was an earsplitting series of roars as large-caliber rounds pounded the side of the troop carriers. Some glanced off, others shattered, but some managed to find weak spots as one of the vehicles stated smoking and then exploded, crashing into the tunnel wall.
The other vehicles began to speed up, and were surprisingly fast for their size, but not fast enough to outrun a warthog.
The other gunners on the three remaining vehicles in the convoy started blasting. The troop compartments started to open up and the Covenant troops that were riding them started to get in on the action as well, blasting the three warthogs.
One warthog drove right up alongside a Shadow and the M41 roared as it sent hundreds of rounds at nearly point-blank range, plucking Grunts like flowers before they tumbled out of the open crew bays and onto the pavement. The Marine in the passenger seat yelled, "You want me? You want some of this? Come and get it!" as he emptied a clip into an Elite. The eight-foot-tall warrior staggered under the impact and nearly over the side. But with his last breath, he tossed a plasma grenade onto the hog.
After a few seconds of panicking, the three marines and their vehicle vanished in a ball of blinding white light that engulfed them and the shadow they were attacking.
"Damn!" One marine yelled from another hog as they swerved to avoid, only to run over a puddle of burning plasma, which melted their tires instantly and forced them to come to a complete stop.
"Damnit, we suck!" Chief heard him say over the comm. "We're dead in the water, sorry Cortana."
"It's alright. Just hold your position until our reinforcements pass through. We'll carry on." Cortana said.
Chief swerved to avoid more plasma blasts on the ground.
"Watch out!" the Marine in the passenger seat exclaimed. "The bastard is trying to ram!"
The Spartan saw that the private was correct. The Shadow was listing to the right, and was just about to crush the LRV, when the Master Chief slammed the lighter vehicle into reverse. All four wheels spun as the 'Hog backed away, guns blazing, suddenly on the defensive. Then, having opened what he hoped was a sufficient gap, the Spartan braked. He slammed the shifter forward and swung the wheel to the left. The vehicles were so close as they passed each other that the Shadow scraped the 'Hog's bumper. The LAAG came off-target, and the gunner brought it to bear again.
"Hammer it from behind!" the Chief yelled.
The gunner obeyed and was rewarded with a sharp explosion. A thousand pieces of metal flew up into the air, turned lazy circles, and drifted downward. Black smoke boiled up out of the wreckage and shrapnel flew everywhere.
Into the Hog's engines, and into the shoulder of the gunner, who screamed. What remained of the troop carrier slammed into an abandoned moving van.
Their hog had seen better day, and the Chief was forced to come to a stop, as the last Shadow zoomed down the tunnel.
The Marine in the passenger seat got out and helped his buddy out of the gunner seat. He filled him with bio foam and did his best to patch him up. He looked over his shoulder at the Chief. "We're in a bad way Chief. I don't know how we're going to continue on, until our armor rolls through."
The Spartan looked over at the wrecked Covenant vehicle and saw a small Ghost that it had been carrying was laying upside down.
"I do." He said as he walked over and flipped it right back over.
He jumped into the seat and activated the controls. He had used one before, and he had put it to good use back then as well. He hit the accelerator and woodshed down the tunnel, eventually catching up with the Shadow that had escaped them earlier. And it had friends.
They had reached a junction, where there were several Covenant vehicles and turret emplacements. Covenant troops emerged like maggots spilling out of a rotting corpse from their troop carriers. As soon as they saw the Spartan, they unleashed a storm of plasma fire onto the spartan
"The Covenant must be trying to regroup." Cortana said.
"Not going to happen." Chief said, and he pushed the controls forward, accelerating as he swept the area with his own plasma fire.
The Chief peered over the edge of the Ghost's hood.
He was dangerously exposed. The road was devoid of cover, which left him exposed on virtually all sides.
The giant enclosure was dimly lit; visibility was poor and the muzzle flash from his cannons and the Covenant's played hell with his night vision.
There were a few shipping containers, crates and abandoned civilian cars. The Covenant were dug in among them. A Grunt popped out from cover, his plasma pistol glowing green—he'd overcharged the weapon. The little SOBs liked to dump energy into the weapon, and discharge it all at once. It drained the weapon damn quick, but it also inflicted hellish damage on a target.
A pulsing green-white orb of plasma sizzled past his Ghost.
He downed a few ghosts and dropped a couple dozen alien troops. But the Shadows had formed a road block as they fired their shade turrets at him. He noticed that one was turned sideways with its hatch open.
And they were all hooked up to refueling stations.
Perfect.
He accelerated through the gap throwing a couple grenades at the fuel tanks as he passed by. Seconds later a powerful explosion ripped through the barriers, wiping out every alien and vehicle in the blast radius.
But the Chief saw the tunnel exit and headed for it. Only for his damaged Ghost's engine to start overloading. As he passed through the door, he jumped out, and the small hover craft exploded.
After getting back up, he saw that the whole area looked like a tornado had passed through. There were dead marines and plasma burns everywhere. There were just two marines left out of the entire platoon.
One marine was sitting down on the pavement, leaning against a toll booth, panting hard. He barely seemed to notice the half ton suit of armor walking past.
The other one was looking down her sights at what had caused this. It was a scarab. The same scarab that took them down earlier.
She looked over her shoulder at the Chief. "It blew right through us. 50 Cal, rockets, didn't do a thing. I hope you've got a plan."
"Yeah. We're going to take New Mombasa back from the Covenant. To do that, we're going to kill every last one of them."
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Well folks, that was part 3.
Hope you enjoyed.
Until next time, Grubkiller out.