Hey Folks, Grubkiller here.
Here is the latest chapter. Hope you enjoy.
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0631 hours, November 17th, 2552 (Military Calendar)\Sol system, unknown aerial position, planet Earth.
John saw the stars and atmosphere flashing in rapid succession before his faceplate. Decades of training took over. This was just like an ODST drop ... except this time there was no HEV pod.
He forced his arms and legs open; the spread-eagle position controlled his tumble and slowed his velocity. Time seemed to simultaneously crawl and race—something Kelly-087 had once dubbed "SPARTAN Time." Enhanced senses and augmented physiology meant that in periods of stress Spartans thought and reacted faster than a normal human.
John's mind raced as he absorbed the tactical situation. He activated his motion sensors, boosting the range to maximum. Covenant craft appeared as blips on his heads-up display. With a sigh of relief he saw that none of them were moving to intercept his descent.
They probably thought he was dead, or they just couldn't track him.
As he entered the atmosphere, he was soon engulfed in flame from the re-entry. His shield alert went off like before. His armor temperature was going critical. Maybe he would survive, but if he did, he would still need his armor today.
He had to find a solution to cut down on the temperature soon.
John risked a sidelong glance and spotted the Ghost he had used to crash through the door and escape the ship. There was debris everywhere. But he found what he was looking for.
A Forerunner hatch, like the ones he saw on the first Halo ring.
He straightened his limbs and shot off towards the door.
It tumbled uncontrollably, before he reached out and grabbed it, doing his best to steady the door, using it as a heat shield as he tore through the atmosphere.
Shards of burning metal shot past him in glittering, ugly arcs, but the good news was that his armor was starting to cool, and eventually he made it through, and the flames were dissipated by the sharp winds all around him.
The surface of Earth stretched out before them, two thousand meters below. John saw Mt. Kilimanjaro, which stood as a single peak surrounded by a carpet of green jungle, which gave way to ghostly deserts and which eventually he saw what Lord Hood had beamed directly to him. A massive atmospheric storm that stretched across the sky and covered the plains of Africa, from Mombasa in the east to Voi in the west, with orange layers of glass covering the edges of their digsite. Pillars of smoke rose across the skyline, up to the armada of Covenant capital ships commanding John's vision.
He spied a sinuous string of metal rings that stretched across the savannah. He soon recognized it: The Mombasa space tether.
The Spartan decided that that would be his vector.
He called up the terrain map and overlaid it on his display. ONI Recon had done its work well: Lord Hood's people had delivered decent satellite imagery as well as a topographic survey map. It wasn't as good as a spy-sat flyby, but it was better than John had expected on such short notice. He dropped a NAV marker on the position of the closest UNSC forces, who were trying to retake the ruins of New Mombasa.
UNSC and Covenant forces were at each other's throats on the edge of the county-sized artifact, in the middle of which, stood the massive dreadnought that he had just abandoned.
He took a deep breath and said under his breath: "Here we go."
After changing his coarse, he over pressurized his suit's hydrostatics as he came in for a landing.
That would risk nitrogen embolisms for him, but he was coming in at terminal velocity, which for a fully loaded Spartan was—he quickly calculated—130 meters per second. He had to over-pressurize the cushioning gel or his organs would be crushed against the impervious MJOLNIR armor when he hit.
Five hundred meters to go. He took one last look at the battle. UNSC forces were scattered across the horizon. It wasn't looking good for them, as Covenant forces pushed out of their perimeter around the artifact.
He brought up his knees and changed his center of mass, trying to flatten his angle as he approached the hilltops.
It worked, but not as well or as quickly as he had hoped. One hundred meters to go. His shield flickered as he brushed the tops of the tallest of the hills. He took a deep breath, exhaled as deeply as he could, grabbed his knees, and tucked into a ball. He overrode the hydrostatic system and overpressurized the gel surrounding his body. A thousand tiny knives stabbed him—pain unlike any he'd experienced since the SPARTAN-II program had surgically altered him.
The MJOLNIR armor's shields flared as he broke through branches—then drained in one sudden burst as he impacted dead-center on the side of a hill. He smashed into it like an armored missile.
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0600 Hours, November 17, 2552 (Military Calendar) / Earth, Kenya, near ruins of New Mombasa.
"Faster!" Sgt. Reynolds shouted. "You want to die in the mud, Marine?"
"Hell no, sir!" Private Law stomped on the accelerator and the Warthog's tires spun in the streambed. They caught, and the vehicle fishtailed through the gravel, across the bank, and onto the sandy shore.
Reynolds strapped himself into the rear of the Warthog, one hand clamped onto the vehicle's massive 50mm chain-gun. Something moved in the brush behind them—Harland fired a sustained burst. The deafening sound from "Old Faithful" shook the teeth in his head. Bushes and trees exploded and splintered as the gunfire scythed through the foliage . . . then nothing was moving anymore. Law sent the Warthog bouncing along the shore, his head bobbing from side to side as he strained to see through the downpour.
"We're sitting ducks in here, Sarge," Law yelled. "We have to get out of this hole and back onto the ridge, sir."
Sergeant Reynolds looked for a way out of this river gorge. "Meyer!" He shook Private Meyer in the passenger seat, but Meyer didn't respond. He clutched their last Jackhammer rocket launcher with a death grip, his eyes staring blankly ahead. Meyer hadn't said a word since this mission went south. Reynolds hoped he would snap out of it. He already had one man down. The last thing he needed was for his heavy-weapons specialist to be a brain case. Private Dessen lay at the Sergeant's feet, cradling his gut with blood-smeared hands. He'd caught fire during the ambush. The aliens used some kind of projectile weapon that fired long, thin spikes, but they didn't explode like those damn needler rounds. Dessen's insides were skewered. Meyer and Law had filled him up with biofoam and taped him up after removing the spikes— they even managed to stop the bleeding—but if the man didn't get to a medic soon, he was a goner. They had all almost been goners. The squad had left Firebase Bravo two hours ago. Satellite images showed the way was all clear to their target area. The Colonel had even said it was a "milk run".
They were supposed to scout out the western side of the peninsula that was directly south of the island on which New Mombasa stood. Their mission was to make sure that the Mteza bridge had been blown, and see how far the Covenant presence reached—just see what was there and get back.
"A simple snoop job," the Colonel had called it. What no one told them was that several satellites had been destroyed in orbit and so they weren't getting an accurate up-to-date picture of the Covenant presence north of the city.
The squad wasn't green. Sergeant Reynolds and the others had fought the Covenant before. They knew how to deal with Elites, Grunts, Jackals, etc. But these Brutes were a different story altogether. They were in greater numbers than Elites and individually tougher, and they countered every strategy with unpredictable savagery.
The Lieutenant had even gotten their Warthogs five klicks up the Dongo-Kundu highway and along the coast before the terrain became too steep and slippery for the all-terrain armored vehicles. He had the men hump the rest of the way in on foot. They moved soft and silent, almost crawling all they way through the slime to the depression they were supposed to check out. When they had gotten to the place, it wasn't just another sopping wet sandy beech.
Instead, they found more Covenant.
That's all Sergeant Reynolds got a look at before they were ordered to fall back.
That's probably why they were still alive. The ensuing ambush and blast had knocked Reynolds and his team into the sand. They ran to where they had left the rest of the platoon —found fused glassy soil, a crater, and a few burning corpses and bits of carbonized skeleton.
Reynolds saw the glow of dozens of regenerating plasma weapons in the pre-sunrise darkness . . . and that's all he needed to see to order a full speed retreat. Reynolds, Meyer, Dessen, Law, and a few others fell back, running—blindly firing their assault rifles. Covenant Grunts had followed them, peppering the air with those needle guns, mowing down the jungle as the tiny razor shards exploded.
Reynolds and the others stopped and hit the deck, splashing into the thick, red mud, as a Covenant Banshee passed them overhead. When they got back on their feet, Dessen took the round in the stomach and then he crumpled to the ground. He fell into shock so fast he didn't even have time to scream.
Reynolds and the rest of the squad hunkered down and returned fire. They killed a dozen of the little bastards, but more kept coming, their barks and howls of their Brute masters echoing through the jungle. "Cease fire," the Sergeant had ordered. He waited a second, then tossed a grenade when the Grunts got closer. Their ears still ringing, they ran, dragging Dessen with them, and not looking back.
Somehow, the survivors had returned to the Warthogs, and gotten the hell out of there . . . or, at least, that's what they were trying to do. Reynolds Warthog with a gun turret, and one transport 'Hog carrying a few other surviving Marines.
"Over there," Law said, and pointed to a clearing in the trees. "That's got to lead us back to Camp Bravo."
"Go," Reynolds said.
The Warthog slid sideways then raced up the embankment, caught air, and landed on soft jungle loam. Law dodged a few trees and ran the Warthog up the slope. They emerged on the ridgeline. The other 'hog pulled up and stopped a few yards behind them.
"Jesus, that was close," Reynolds said. He ran a muddy hand through his hair, slicking it back. He tapped Law on the shoulder. He jumped. "Private, pull over. Try to raise Firebase Bravo on the narrow band."
"Yes, sir," Law answered in a wavering voice. He glanced at the near-catatonic Private Meyer and shook his head. Reynolds checked on Dessen. His eyes fluttered open, cracking the mud caked onto his face. "We back yet, Sarge?"
"Almost," Reynolds replied. Dessen's pulse was steady, although his face had, in the last several minutes, drained of color. The wounded man looked like a corpse. Damn it, Reynolds thought, he's going to bleed out .
The Sergeant placed a reassuring hand on Dessen's shoulder. "Hang in there. We'll patch you up as soon as we get to camp." They had dropships at Bravo. Dessen had a chance, albeit a slim one, if they got him back to the combat surgeons at headquarters—or better yet, to the Navy docs on the orbiting ships. For a moment Reynolds was dazzled with visions of clean sheets, hot meals, cute navy nurses—and a meter of armor between him and the Covenant.
"Nothing but static on the link, sir," Law said, breaking through Reynolds' reverie.
"Maybe the radio got hit," Reynolds muttered. "You know those explosive needles throw a bunch of microshrapnel. We probably got slivers of that stuff inside us, too."
Law examined his muscular forearms. "Great."
"Move out," Reynolds said. The tires of the Warthog spun, gripped, and the vehicle moved rapidly along the ridge. The terrain looked familiar. Harland even spotted five sets of Warthog tracks that ran off the highway and onto the soil—yes, this was the way they came. Back on the highway, Reynolds guessed that in ten minutes, they'd be back on base. No more worries. He relaxed, took out a pack of cigarettes, and shook one out.
He pulled off the safety strip and tapped the end to ignite it. Law revved the engine and shot up to the top of the ridge—crossed over, and skidded to halt. If not for the foggy morning haze, they would have seen everything from this highly—the coastal plains, the creeks and islands, the city of New Mombasa - or what was left of it - and the Indian Ocean.
By the old section of Mombasa, on the northern edge of the peninsula, their was a clearing dotted with fixed gun emplacements, razor wire, and pre-fab structures: Firebase Bravo.
Elements of the 77th Marine Regiment and the 506th Tank Regiment had partially dug into the hillside to minimize the camp's footprint and provide a place where they could safely store their munitions and bunk down. A ring of sensors encircled the camp so nothing could sneak up on them. Radar and motion detectors linked to surface-to-air missile batteries.
The sun broke through the haze overhead, and Sergeant Reynolds saw everything had changed. It wasn't fog or haze. Smoke rose in columns from the ruins of the old city . . . and there were no more buildings. Everything had been burned to the ground - even the freaking lake out to the west. The entire area was blackened into smoldering charcoal. Glowing red craters honeycombed the surrounding terrain. The Kilindini Bridge that connected the Covenant-occupied island to the mainland had been detonated by UNSC forces. But it didn't slow the Covenant down one bit, as they flooded into the man-made UNSC trench network and foxholes.
He fumbled with his binoculars, brought them to his eyes . . . and froze. The area where the F.O.B. had been was gone—it had been flattened. Only a mirror surface remained. The sides of the adjacent hills glistened with a cracked glass coating. The air was thick with tiny Covenant fliers in the distance. On the ground, Brutes, Grunts and Jackals searched for survivors.
A few Marines ran for cover . . . there were hundreds of wounded and dead on the ground, helpless, screaming—some of them trying to crawl away. High above, Covenant warships hovered over the land, almost mocking the UNSC efforts on the ground.
"What have you got, sir?" Private Law asked.
The cigarette fell from Reynolds' mouth and caught on his shirt—but he didn't take his eyes off the battlefield to brush it away.
"There's nothing left," he whispered.
Even from this distance, Reynolds heard the screams of the men who had been hiding there.
"Jesus." He dropped the binoculars. "We're bugging out, right now!" he said. "Turn this beast around."
"But—"
"They're gone," Reynolds whispered. "They're all dead." Meyer whimpered and rocked back and forth. "We'll be dead, too, unless you move," Reynolds said. "We already got lucky once today. Let's not push it."
"Yeah." The driver reversed the Warthog, and the other one followed. "Yeah, some luck." He sped back down the hillside and hopped the Warthog off the embankment and back into the coastal plains. "Follow the highway and go South-East," Reynolds told him. "It'll take us all the way to HQ." A shadow crossed their path.
Reynolds twisted around and saw a pair of stubby-winged Covenant Banshees swooping down after them.
"Move it!" he screamed at Law.
The driver floored the Warthog and plumes of concrete sprayed in their wake. They bounced over potholes and fishtailed across the highway. Bolts of plasma hit the ground next to them—superheating the material and turning it to glass.
Rock shards pinged off the armored side of the vehicle.
"Meyer!" Reynolds shouted. "Use those Jackhammers."
Meyer huddled, doubled over in his seat. Reynolds fired the chain-gun, and the other Marines in the transport 'hog fired their assault rifles. Tracers cut through the air. The fliers nimbly dodged them. The heavy machine gun was only accurate at reasonably short ranges—and not even that with the Warthog bouncing all over the place.
"Meyer!" he cried. "We are gonna die if you don't get those missiles into the air!"
He would have ordered Law to grab the launcher—but he'd have to stop to grab it . . . that, or try to drive with no hands. If the Warthog stopped, they'd be sitting ducks for those fliers. Harland glanced at the terrain. It was all plains now. They were out in the open with no cover.
"Meyer, do something!" Sergeant Reynolds fired the chain-gun again until his arms went numb. It was no good; the Banshees were too far away, too quick. Another plasma bolt hit—directly in front of the Warthog. Heat washed over Reynolds. Blisters pinpricked his back. He screamed but kept shooting. If they ran over any of the plasma hits on the highway, it would have melted the tires.
A burst of heat and a plume of smoke erupted next to Harland. For a split second he thought the Covenant gunners had found their mark—that he was dead. He screamed incoherently, his thumbs jamming down the chain-gun's trigger buttons. The Banshee he was aiming at flashed, and then became a ball of flame and falling shrapnel.
He turned, his breath hitching in his chest. They hadn't been hit. Meyer had finally snapped out of it, arms shaking as he hefted the Jackhammer launcher on his shoulder.
He smiled and gave a nervous laugh and pivoted to track the other flier. Reynolds ducked, and another missile whooshed directly over his head. Meyer laughed nervously, before he vomited.
He collapsed backward, and let the smoldering launcher slip from his hand. The second Banshee exploded and spiraled into the jungle.
"Two more klicks," Law shouted. "Hang on." He cranked the wheel and the Warthog swerved off of the highway and bounced along the plains, up and over, and they slid onto a smaller paved road.
Reynolds leaned over and felt Dessen's neck for a pulse. It was there, weak; but he was still alive. Reynolds glanced at Meyer. He hadn't moved since he fired the launcher, his eyes squeezed shut. Reynolds' first impulse earlier was to shoot him for cowardice - having almost cost them all their lives— No. Reynolds was half amazed he snapped out of it at all.
0620 hours, UNSC Military Calendar Nov. 17th 2552, Earth, outside ruins of New Mombasa.
HQ was ahead. But Sergeant Reynolds' stomach sank as he saw smoke and flames blazing on the horizon. They passed the first armed checkpoint. The guardhouse and bunkers had been blasted away, and in the mud were thousands of Grunt tracks. Farther back, he saw a circle of sandbags around a house-size chunk of granite. Two Marines waved to them. As they approached in the Warthog, the Marines stood and saluted.
Reynolds jumped off and returned their salute.
One of the Marines had a patch over his eye and his head was bandaged. Soot streaked his face.
"Jesus, sir," he said. "It's good to see you guys." He approached the Warthog.
"Who's in charge here? What happened?"
"Covenant hit us hard, sir. They had tanks, air support—thousands of those little Grunt guys. They glassed the main barracks. The Command Office. Almost got the munitions bunker." He looked away for a moment and his one eye glazed over. "We pulled it together and fought 'em off, though. That was an hour ago. I think we killed everything. I'm not sure."
"Who's in charge, Private? I have a critically wounded man. He needs evac, and I have to make my report."
The Private shook his head. "I'm sorry, sir. The hospital was the first thing they hit. As for who's in command... Lieutenant Tippett is the ranking officer here. The Colonel's dead."
"Great," Reynolds muttered.
"We've got a dozen guys back there." The Private jerked his head toward the columns of smoke and wavering heat in the distance. "They're in fire-fighting suits to keep from burning up. They're recovering weapons and ammo."
"Understood," Reynolds said. "I'll go and see the LT. See if you can patch up our man and get everyone else fed."
The Private nodded and Reynolds was off, stepping through the ruins.
Eventually he found a tent, next to the bombed out command building, where he found a young man, barely in his twenties, giving orders.
He had J. Tippett written on his name tape.
"Try the radio again. See if you can link up to SATCOM. Call in for an evac."
"Roger that," a specialist with a radio set on his back said.
The LT noticed Reynolds, who stopped and saluted. "Sir, Gunnery Sergeant Reynolds. Firebase Bravo."
The LT. returned the salute. "Good to see you sergeant. Can we expect any help from Firebase Bravo?"
"No," Reynolds said. "They got hit, too. There's Covenant all over the place."
The LT. looked disappointed when a plasma explosion sailed through the air and slammed into the ground nearby.
"Sir. The Covies are launching another assault!"
"Everyone, gather your weapons, and get to the main gate!" LT Tippett ordered, grabbing his battle rifle.
The Marines were gathered outside the camp, taking cover on a string of hills, using the reverse slopes as cover from the advancing Covenant.
There must have been a dozen Covenant vehicles out there. A couple Wraith tanks, and several Shadows, Specters, and a handful of Ghosts, and at least a hundred Covenant ground troops.
The UNSC Marines made due with whatever they had. 50. Cal machine guns, a few rockets for the launchers, some mortars, and sniper rifles, and about forty battle-weary Marines sporting minor injuries.
The Marines cut loose with a rocket barrage, destroying two of the enemy Shadows.
But most of the surviving transports were safely tucked behind the wraiths and attack vehicles, who started to fire on the Marine positions.
Machine-generated death blanketed the field and the hills as the Covenant weapons made use of their plasma cannons to strafe the Marine positions.
A fire team was caught out in the open and cut to shreds even as a barrage of shoulder-fired rockets lashed out at the advancing Covenant forces.
There were hits, some of which inflicted casualties, but neither of the wraiths were harmed. Then, hovering like obscene insects, the shadows opened their hatches and spilled troops out of their side slots, scattering them like evil seeds across the coastal plains.
Reynolds did the mental math as he put a burst from his battle rifle through another grunt. four remaining transports, times roughly a dozen troops each, brought the Covie assault force up to about a hundred and fifty alien bastards.
"Hit 'em!" Lister shouted. "Kill the bastards!" The response was a steady crack! crack! crack! as the company's snipers opened fire, and Brutes, Grunts, and Jackals alike tumbled to the ground dead.
Mortar rounds were sent down range and hammered the advancing Covie strike force.
But there were plenty left.
The Marine specialist from earlier crawled over to the LT and handed him the radio headset.
"Sir, SATCOM is good. I've got Cairo Station on the horn."
"This is Lieutenant Tippett." He spoke into the microphone. "The Covenant has hit Firebase Bravo and Alpha HQ . . . and wiped them out. We've repelled the enemy from Alpha site, but our casualties have been nearly sixty percent. Our Regiment is scattered all over the peninsula and we have wounded here. We need immediate casevac and reinforcements. Say again: we need casevac and reinforcements on the double."
"Roger, Lieutenant. Your situation is understood. Casevac is not possible at this time. We've got problems of our own up here—"There was a burst of static. The voice came back online. "But reinforcements are on the way." The channel went dead.
Tippett looked to the Specialist. "Check the transceiver."
He ran the diagnostic. "It's working," he said. "I'm getting a ping from SATCOM." He licked his lips. "The trouble must be on their end."
Reynolds didn't want to think of what kind of trouble the fleet could be having. He'd seen too many planets glassed from orbit. He didn't want to die like that, and he didn't want Earth glassed either.
He turned to the men in his squad. "They said help is on the way. So relax." He looked into the sky and saw a massive Pyramid-shaped ship flying by escorted by more Covenant capital ships
The Marines looked up in awe. Some panicked.
"Look at the size of that thing!"
Tippett whispered, "They better send a whole regiment down here."
A handful of other Marines ran from the bunker. They had what was left of the salvaged ammunition, extra rifles, a crate of frag grenades, and a few Jackhammer missiles.
Some of Reynolds' men took the Warthog and a few men to see if he could transport the heavier weapons. A couple of the Marines went to the rear to keep an eye on the wounded.
But the battle was becoming more desperate, as the Covenant force - reduced by half - continued its onslaught.
"Sir!" the radio specialist said, holding up a data pad. "I'm picking a new contact inbound hot. One of ours!"
The LT. grabbed the pad and looked at it.
"One friendly tag?" Tippett growled. "That's all they sent? Christ, that's not backup—that's..."
The LT didn't get to finish his sentence when suddenly, something slammed down into the ground behind the Marines, scattering dust and debris in a ten-meter radius.
They all jumped up in surprise. All they saw was a cloud of dust kicked up from the soil. Some of the Marines pointed their rifles at the cloud of dust. When it settled, an armored figure could be seen standing tall.
For a moment Reynolds thought it was one of the Brutes like he had seen earlier—armored and bigger than any human he'd ever laid eyes on. He froze—he couldn't have raised his gun if he had wanted to.
It was human, though. It stood over two meters tall and looked like he weighed two hundred kilograms. His armor was a strange reflective green alloy, and underneath matte black. He started moving, his motions so fluid and graceful—fast and precise, too. More robot than flesh and blood.
He strode toward the supplies that the Marines scavenged and grabbed a BR55, a sidearm, and some grenades. Though his armor was devoid of insignia, Reynolds could see the insignia of a Master Chief Petty Officer in his helmet's HUD.
He walked up to the Lieutenant and saluted. "Sierra 117, reporting for duty, Sir."
Tippett returned it. "Nice of you to drop in, Spartan. "Now take out those wraiths before they smash our lines."
The Spartan nodded, grabbed a luncher from one of the Marines, and casually walked up the crest of the hill and aimed the Jackhammer rocket launcher at the incoming wraiths and fired. A pair of missiles flew straight into the mortar tanks and twin explosions ripped through the tanks and whatever covenant troops were standing nearby. Then he discarded his launcher, and looked at the Marines.
"I'll take point," the Spartan said, and he sprinted off in the direction of the remaining Covenant warriors.
He was going at least sixty kph, faster than any human being alive.
The LT loaded another magazine into his rifle and turned to his men. "Let's go!"
Reynolds looked at his men. "Time to earn your pay Marines!"
"OORAH!" They chanted in unison before they jumped up and over their positions, and released another battle cry that drowned out the noise of war for the briefest moment, and ran in the same direction the Spartan was going.
Dust puffed away from the Marine's boots and death hung all around. They unleashed a final volley of missiles into the remaining Covenant vehicles and continued following the Spartan, rifles flashing and bayonets glinting menacingly.
Plasma fire stuttered up from the bottom of the slope as Marines charged down the hills, careful to fire staggered bursts, so the entire group didn't wind up reloading at the same time.
The Spartan ran forward, absorbing the initial volley of plasma from the entire Covenant force before he added his fire to the Marines', and sent several Brutes sprawling to the ground.
He jumped high into the air at full speed, and landed directly onto a War Chieftain's face, driving his foot down so hard that its snout flattened and its spine compressed, and his head splattered beneath the impact of the Spartan's landing.
The remaining Covenant forces, directionless as they were, broke under the Spartan's onslaught, and for once they began to retreat from the human attackers, who wasted little time cutting them down.
The Grunts and Jackals fled, but the Brutes held their ground, futilely.
The whole fight lasted only ten minutes.
It was time to get moving. The Master Chief reviewed the mission objectives as he surveyed the battlefield: rally Marine forces, break through the Covenant lines, and gain access to the excavation site— which the enemy wasn't going to give up without a fight.
"Master Chief!" Called one of the marines.
The Spartan turned and his HUD showed the Marine's name and rank.
LT. John Tippett.
The Master Chief snapped to attention and saluted. "Lieutenant," he said.
"At ease."
The Chief relaxed his stance, barely. "Sir, what's our situation here?"
"After the Covenant's initial attack, they sent a second invasion force a couple weeks later. They laid siege to Mars and broke through the Luna perimeter, and punched a hole through the Orbital line. The navy's putting up a good fight, but the Covenant made land fall. They could have landed anywhere, but they deployed most of their forces here. The ruins of New Mombasa."
The LT gestured in the direction of New Mombasa. Its ruined and twisted skyscrapers looked like they were barely standing. The smaller buildings were completely flattened. The rivers that surrounded the island were completely boiled away and the river bred turned to glass. The rings that made up the city's space elevator were scattered all across the savannah for miles and miles.
Several dozen Covenant capital ships were hovering over the city and the nearby landscape, glassing beams firing at unseen targets far off in the distance.
"Then they started digging a mighty big hole." Tippett continued. "The Covies are dug in deep all around the site's perimeter and they've set up anti-aircraft batteries. Our mission has been to take out their AA guns and punch through their defenses. But we've been hit hard. We're scattered all over the peninsula. We can't do much of anything until reinforcements arrive."
The Chief looked out over the site, obscured by the landscape and the clouds of debris kicked up by the Covenant's glassing beams. He could just barely make out the Forerunner Dreadnought through the clouds, which crackled with blue plasma.
"With all due respect, sir, we may not have time to wait for reinforcements. My mission is to gain entry to that excavation site by any means possible."
Reynolds and the other Marines who were listening just stared at him.
But the LT looked like he was chewing on the Chief every word before he finally spoke up.
"Alright. Sergeant, get your men together and let's get to work."
"Sir?" Reynolds asked.
"I've got a lot of wounded here. What work will you be doing, Chief?"
The Master Chief's helmet cocked quizzically to one side. "I've come to finish this fight," he said calmly. "To do that, We're going to drive the Covenant into the grave they've been so happily digging."
0900 hours, UNSC Military calendar, Earth, near ruins of New Mombasa.
The Master Chief climbed up behind the wheel of one of the HQ's working Warthogs, and two marines climbed aboard, with Sergeant Reynolds hopping on the gun.
"Ready when you are, Chief."
The Chief nodded at the non-com behind him and put his foot on the accelerator, sand shot out from under the vehicle's tires, and the 'Hog left parallel tracks as it raced north. Three more hogs - one gun and two transport - followed close behind.
The LT had stayed behind with what was left of the marines to care for the wounded and keep the road open for reinforcements, while the Chief went out to rally surviving Marines and punch holes in the Covenant lines.
They tore down the highway, avoiding craters and moving through single file, with the transport hogs in the middle and the gunner hogs at the front and rear. Within minutes, they began to encounter resistance.
"Firing!" Reynolds called, and pulled his trigger. The Spartan saw Covenant troops scurry for cover, steered right to give the three-barreled weapon a better angle, and was soon rewarded with a batch of dead Grunts and a badly mangled Jackal. The Spartan drove the Warthog off road, turning to avoid obstacles, careful to maintain the vehicle's traction over the open area beyond the highway.
They were soon met with the sounds of battle, and it wasn't long before the humans came across a series of ancient bombed out concrete structures. Military-style, likely old British fortifications built during the Second World War, or for some 20th century colonial war.
Now it was bombed out, and its front gate was blasted open. Several Covenant troops lay dead by the entrance, and a phantom had crashed into one of the bunkers nearby, still belching purple flames.
A second phantom was circling up above. The noise generated by its engines covered the sound made by the Warthogs and was engrossed in providing cover for the area beyond the gate, which was crawling with Covenant troops.
The gunner tracked the aircraft but knew better than to open fire and attract unwanted attention.
"Looks like some of our boys are still giving the Covenant some trouble." Reynolds said.
"Yeah, but how are we supposed to get around that?" The Marine riding shotgun asked, gesturing towards the Phantom.
"What do you think Chief?" Reynolds asked.
The Marines waited to see what the Spartan would do next.
"Check your weapons," he advised, as he hit the ignition switch and the big engine roared to life. "We have some clean-up to do."
"Roger that," the gunner said grimly.
"Oh shit!" The other leatherneck exclaimed as their warthog tore past the front gate with the other hogs in tow.
There was no telling what the Covenant troops expected the humans to do, but judging from the way they ran around screaming, the possibility of an old-fashioned frontal assault just hadn't occurred to them.
The Marines opened up on the Covenant troops and the Chief ran some of them down.
Then, once the outer part of the structure had been cleared and the last Covenant soldier dropped, several Marines who had been taking cover inside the ruined bunkers unleashed a volley of SAM missile pods into the air at the Phantom. Several hit the Phantom's weak spots and it began to trail smoke before igniting and losing altitude.
The Marines that were in the structures appeared soon after that, holding their assault weapons in the air, and cheering. A sergeant, with a bandage around his head called out. "It's good to see you, Chief. It was starting to get a little bit warm around here."
Covenant and Marine bodies littered the grounds inside the base.
The Chief nodded at the Marines, but shook his head mournfully. He had seen this carnage too many times on too many worlds before they were turned into balls of glass.
One way or another, it ends today.
"Affirmative," he said, acknowledging the Marines.
That's when he started to get a transmission from LT. Tippett back at HQ. He answered.
"Master Chief, I've just received word from Major Czernek. He's assumed command of what's left of the Regiment and is trying to make another push towards the Covenant perimeter. I'm patching him through to you now."
The Chief paused and waited for the transmission to redirect towards him.
"Major. This is Sierra 117." The Spartan said.
A man with a thick western slavic accent responded.
"Go ahead, Spartan. Have you found my men?"
"We're rallying scattered Marine units, but the Covenant have impeded our progress. Recommend we hold off assault on excavation site."
"Negative," Major Czernek replied. "We must press our attack. This could be our only chance. So rally my men, and get over here ASAP. Failure is not an option."
"Yes sir, moving as fast as we can." The Master Chief was back in the 'Hog and halfway to the next Marine distress beacon by the time the Major signed off.
"Good luck, Spartan. Czernek out."
It took the better part of the afternoon to check the rest of the peninsula and the areas surrounding Mombasa's ruins, locate the rest of the survivors of the Regiment, and deal with the Covenant forces who attempted to interfere. But finally, having rounded up dozens of Marines and naval personnel, the Spartan watched as the last of the wounded were being loaded onto transport hogs and driven back to the rear.
At the same time, the first elements of UNSC reinforcements were starting to arrive, with more hogs, trucks pulling massive trailers filled with ammo and supplies, and tanks.
"You put in a long day, Chief. Nice job." Reynolds said, patting him on the shoulder.
The Spartan nodded.
Then he looked off in the distance as a a massive storm started to form above the Excavation site. What he thought was just debris kicked up from the Covenant fleet excavating the digsite, was in fact a massive swirling storm cloud that hung above the site.
A voice crackled over the UNSC network.
"Admiral, this is ONI Recon 111. We have eyes on the crater. Atmospheric disturbances are intensifying above the artifact. I think Covenant are trying to open up a slip-space portal with whatever they dug up."
"Then we don't have much time," Lord Hood said. "Marines, the Prophet of Truth doesn't know it yet, but he's about to be kicked right off his throne. You will take this city back, and drive our enemies into the grave they've been so happily digging. One final effort is all that remains."
"Acknowledged," the Master Chief said before he hit the accelerator.
It was time to take the fight directly to the Covenant.
1600 hours, near Covenant AA perimeter, near ruins of New Mombasa, Mtongwe naval base, Kenya, Earth.
A kilometer from the edge of the excavation site, the battle for the very survival of the human race was in full swing.
When the Chief's warthog rounded the string of hills to the west of Mombasa, near what remained of an old naval base on the northern edge of the peninsula, he realized that every single landmark or geographic marker that made this place stand out was gone.
The trees had been leveled, every one blasted to splinters or burned to charred nubs. Even the water had been boiled away and all the wrecked ships were just sitting on the lake bed.
There were bodies, too; thousands of Covenant Grunts, hundreds of Jackals and Brutes littered the open field. There were also humans—all dead. John could see several fallen Marines still smoldering from plasma fire. There were overturned Scorpion tanks, Warthogs with burning tires, Wraiths that belched purple flames, as well as demolished Ghosts and Banshee fliers.
The naval base on the far side of this battlefield was flattened, but the UNSC were making good work of it, however. Reinforced concrete bunkers bristling with machine guns surrounded a line of trenches and foxholes. So far it looked as if the Covenant had not managed to take them, though not for lack of trying.
As the Chief led the small convoy of warthogs and supply trucks, he saw the yellow-green blob appear in his peripheral vision, and made the decision to turn toward the enemy both to make the 'Hog look smaller and to give the Gunny an opportunity to fire.
But he ran out of time.
"Incoming!"
The Spartan had just started to spin the wheel when the energy pulse slammed into the side of the Warthog and flipped the vehicle over. All three of the humans were thrown free. The Master Chief scrambled to his feet and looked up-slope in time to see a Hunter drop down from the hill above, absorb the shock with its massive knees, and move forward.
The rest of the convoy opened fire with grenade launchers and chain guns. Small explosions went off all around the Hunter pair, and breached their armor, allowing small gaps for the chain guns to put them down, but not before one hunter was able to get another shot off and take out another 'Hog and its whole crew.
More Covenant soldiers poured onto the base grounds.
"Contacts ahead!" One Marine shouted as he let loose with his BR-55 into a horde of Grunts.
"Get to cover!" Reynolds shouted. "Watch your fields of fire!"
As the Sergeant directed the convoy and his men, the Master Chief went to look for Major Czernek. Plasma rounds and bullets whizzed past his head and explosions went off all around him. The surviving Marines of the 77th Regiment and the 506th Tank Regiment had held off the Covenant assault with batteries of chainguns, Warthogs, and several dozen Scorpion tanks for hours. They managed to destroy several AA emplacements, but the Covenant counter attack had cost them dearly.
John made his way through a network of trenches and came across a cluster of Marines. He picked his way past a tangle of Grunt bodies and the twisted metal and charred tires that had once been a Warthog. The men looked as if they had been to hell and back. They all sported burns, abrasions, and the kilometer-long stare indicative of near shock.
They gaped at John, mouths open; it was a reaction that he had often seen when soldiers first glimpsed a Spartan: two meters tall, half a ton of armor, splashed with alien blood. It was a mix of awe and suspicion and fear. He had gotten used to it over the years.
His visor showed their FOF tags and their names and ranks. One of them, an older Marine in his fifties with a missing leg that was being attended to by a corpsmen. But he was still standing up, rifle in one hand, binoculars in the other, still welling out orders to his men.
His tag flashed across the CHief's HUD: Maj. Pawel Czernek.
"Spartan 117, reporting as ordered sir," Chief said. "Sorry I missed the battle."
Czernek gave a strained groan as the Corpsmen patched up the Major's stump.
"'Missed'?" Czernek gave a short, bitter laugh. "Hell, Chief, this was just round one."
"What's our situation?" The Chief asked.
"What's left of the regiment has been trying to break through for the past hour." Czernek said. "But we still have a chance to break through. I need you press our attack, and clear away those big guns. They're taring up our reinforcements."
"Affirmative," the Chief said.
The Spartan rushed back through the trenches, where Marines were fighting desperately to hold off wave upon wave of Covenant troops.
A short run through the trenches took him back to the drop-off point and the battle that was raging across it.
Several Marine fireteams were under fire from at least two Wraiths and a squadron of Ghosts, but putting up a good fight nonetheless. He knew that the heavy weapons offered the greatest danger to the Marines.
He sprinted from the protection of the trenches, paused to shoot the nearest rider with with his BR-55, then headed toward a foxhole, wear a dead Marine was slumped over a .50 Cal machine gun. He could feel the heat radiating off the weapon's barrel as he carefully pulled the body off of the gun and took his place behind the controls.
There were plenty of targets, a rather busy Ghost primary among them, so the Chief decided to tackle that first. A couple of well-aimed bursts were sufficient to take down a couple Ghosts and get the Wraith's attention.
The alien mortar tank turned its attention to the Chief's foxhole, lobbed comet-like energy bombs high into the air, and started to walk them toward him. He decided to bail out, and was twenty meters away when one of the bombs scored a direct hit on the foxhole he had just occupied.
The Marines saw him coming and took heart from his sudden appearance back on the scene. A corporal tossed him a weak grin, and whooped, "The cavalry has arrived!"
"We can sure use your help—those tanks have us pinned," Sergeant Reynolds chimed in.
The Chief looked around for anything useful.
A Warthog had flipped nearby, spilling supplies out onto the ground. The Master Chief rushed over to it. He paused to grab a rocket launcher, but knew the range was extreme, and that it would pay to get closer. So he slung the launcher across his back for now, checked the load on his Battle Rifle, and used it to gun down a party of Grunts that made a run at the Marines' position.
He went to flip the 'Hog over, just as another mortar bomb exploded behind him and blew a nearby bunker into pieces. A Marine screamed as a meter-long piece of rhubarb penetrated his abdomen and nailed him to the ground. The Spartan grabbed hold of the Warthog's bumper, then used his armor's strength enhancements to flip it back onto its tires.
One Marine jumped aboard and manned the LAAG, and another jumped into the passenger seat. Gravel sprayed out from behind both of the rear tires as the Spartan put his foot down, felt the 'Hog break loose, and steered into the skid. The sudden movement gave their position away to the Wraith.
It belched, and a comet arced their way and slid sideways across the center of the valley as if to block the humans from reaching the other end. The Spartan saw the fireball, raced to pass under it, and heard the LAAG open up as the range to the Wraith began to close. But there was an infantry screen to penetrate before they could dance with the tank, and both the LAAG gunner and the Marine in the passenger seat were forced to deal with a screen comprised of Brutes, Jackals, and Grunts as the Chief slammed on the brakes, backed out of a crossfire, and turned to provide them with a better angle. The M41 roared as it sent hundreds of rounds downrange, plucked Grunts like flowers, and hurled them back into the bloodied snow.
The Marine in the passenger seat yelled, "Youwant me? Youwant some of this? Come and get it!" as he emptied a clip into a Brute. The eight-foot-tall warrior staggered under the impact and fell over backward. He wasn't dead, however, not yet, not until the front of the Warthog sucked him under and spit chunks out the back.
Then they were through the screen, and more important, inside the dead area where the Wraith couldn't fire mortar bombs without risking dropping them on itself. That was the key, the factor that made the attack possible.
"Hit him!" he ordered. The gunner, who couldn't possibly miss at that range, opened fire.
There was an earsplitting roar as large-caliber rounds pounded the side of the tank. Some glanced off, others shattered, but none of them managed to penetrate the Wraith's thick armor.
"Watch out!" the Marine in the passenger seat exclaimed. "The bastard is trying to ram!"
The Spartan, who had just managed to bring the Warthog to a stop, saw that the private was correct. The tank surged forward, 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 right. The vehicles were so close as they passed each other that the Wraith scraped the 'Hog's flank, hard enough to tip the left-side wheels off the snowy ground. They hit with a thump, the LAAG came off-target, and the gunner brought it to bear again.
"Hammer it from behind!" the Chief yelled. "It has less armor in back!"
The gunner obeyed and after a sustained volley of heavy caliber rounds he 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. What remained of the tank slammed into a boulder, and the tide of battle was over.
All around them, Covenant forces were starting to break.
With their path clear, Scorpion tanks hammered away at the Covenant artillery emplacements and destroyed them one by one.
Marines launched a sustained counter-attack and began to retake the trenches.
A drop-off prevented the Spartan from taking the Warthog any farther. He bailed out and made his way through the smoke and debris. A hot wind whistled past his visor and debris dusted the surface of his armor.
He walked up to the edge of the cliff with Sergeant Reynolds and several other Marines, and they were finally able to catch a glimpse of whatever it was that the Covenant was digging up.
As he waited for the marines to move up the hill, John stood there, peering over the cliff. This was the best view he'd had of the storm since he made landfall. Now, he finally saw what lay underneath, filling the deep crater below. Covenant ships of all shapes and sizes swirled above the enormous artifact within the crater.
The structure was simple in design, mostly flat and one hundred kilometers wide as confirmed via the Chief's heads-up-display. The grooves and lights he spotted on the artifact looked like most of the Forerunner artifacts John had seen before. It seemed even here at Earth, he could not escape the handiwork of the Forerunner.
Dead in its center sat the Prophet of Truth's Dreadnought pointing straight up at the eye of the storm. It looked more at home here than it had on High Charity.
The Marines looked out in awe at the artifact, which was starting to pulsate.
"Awe shit!" One Marine exclaimed.
A Covenant cruiser hovered thirty meters off the ground. The ship bristled with energy weapons and plasma artillery. His Spartans couldn't get within weapons range of that thing without being roasted. A gravity lift connected the ship to the surface of Reach, and troops poured out—thousands of them: legions of Grunts, three full squadrons of Banshees, plus at least a dozen Wraith tanks.
Not to mention the hundreds of Brutes who had formed a wall at the edge of the artifact, at the bottom of the slope below them.
Barking and howling, they challenged the Chief.
With only a couple hundred Marines and a handful of vehicles out of two entire regiments, the odds weren't in their favor.
"The-there is just too damn many of them!" Another Marine put in.
"Stow the BS," sergeant Reynolds growled.
The Chief loaded a fresh magazine into his
Several of the Marines noticed, and started doing the same.
"You ready to do this?" One Marine asked another.
"I guess so. Good a day to die as any." Another responded.
As the Marines started passing ammo towards each other, and getting ready to face the full brunt of the Covenant, Sergeant Reynolds grabbed the radio off of a nearby specialist and started barking into it.
"Is anyone out there?" Reynolds barked. "I've got the whole damn Covenant out in front of me! Does any read me?"
At that exact moment, several slip-space ruptures opened up in the sky to the East, back the way the Marines had fought, heading straight for their position.
At least twenty extra Covenant ships, heading baring down on them.
Tiny red blobs appeared on the hulls of the Covenant ships. They glowed and intensified and drifted together, collecting along the lateral line of the craft.
"This isn't good, is it sir?" One Marine asked.
"Probably not." The Chief said. "Take cover."
The red light continued to collect along the lateral line of the Covenant ship until it was a solid band. It brightened. Then it burst forth.
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Well folks, that was the latest chapter.
Hope you enjoyed.
Until next time, Grubkiller out.