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Gathering Storm: Major Skirmish
Date: 22 May 2008, 7:30 pm
[Author's Note: This is set on a human colony named Cicada. It has a Forerunner flood containment facility underneath it.]
Look down towards a green valley, with a couple of small hills.
Simple and quiet, it's the embodiment of peace and serenity.
Look down towards a particular rolling hill.
A Mongoose ATV roars over the top, takes a few seconds of airtime and bounces away, closely followed by a lot of plasma fire and a few fuel rods.
So much for peace and serenity.
Riding the ATV is the ODST known as Adam, with Kelly clinging on the back firing rockets. They have just seriously annoyed the Covenant armed forces in the area. If, dear reader, you'd care to look at where they are running away from, you'll find out why.
A supply depot is behind them, complete with fusion tanks. You get one look, and then the depot blows up. Flaming white-hot debris flies out in beautiful arcs.
Back to the ODSTs. They're moving rapidly away, but they aren't quite out of the danger zone yet. A Phantom sweeps overhead, flinging plasma.
"Damn it to hell! Couldn't it have been anywhere else?"
Adam cursed, guiding the small but nimble Mongoose over rocks that sizzle and melt moments later, liquefied by gobbets of superheated plasma.
"Guess not, by the looks of things. D'you think that I could take it out with a rocket?"
"Don't bother, save it for other stuff."
"Okay then. See if you can lose it in that forest over there."
A quick dodge through the forest rewards them with an empty sky; presumably the Phantom has gone off. Kelly radios for pickup.
The instant the pilot on the other end picks up, Kelly senses something is wrong. Static washes over the link, mixed up with screams and loud noises of unknown origin. She puts the call through to Adam on conference mode, then realises it is music. Banjo music.
"Kelly, we're gonna have to take you in later. We've run into heavy Covvie resistance near the LZ; you're either gonna need to go someplace else or clear the LZ for us. Judging by the couple of AA wraiths here, you might want to do the former, over."
"We can't do that one, our vehicle's nearly empty."
"Doesn't look good for you then. Any other options?"
"Nope, over."
"Okay then, ready for pickup and run, then. We'll be there in two."
"Roger that. See you later."
Adam sighed.
"Good thing you saved those rockets, we're gonna have a tough time breaking through."
Kelly is silent for a moment.
"Do you think a jump will do?"
Adam's mind churns with scenarios and calculations.
"Probably. Hope there's a ghost we can ramp off of."
Silence for a few moments, then the duo are approaching the landing zone. Their arrival does not go unnoticed, however. A banshee fighter sweeps over, spitting plasma and launching fuel rods. Adam lightly weaves between flashed of white plasma that fuses sand beneath their wheels, and runs clear. He doesn't see the fuel rod flashing down in time to react, even for his augmented brain. A flash of green, and then they are in flight, still riding the remnants of their disintegrating vehicle. Nick, faithful pelican pilot of the UNSC Pineapple, sees them coming and manoeuvre them into the cargo bay. They rise and salute Lieutenant Ross Kendrick, their commanding officer, and CPO Lewis Polinski before collapsing. The Pineapple banks away, heading for home.
[Some contemporary history for you, reader, in case you are feeling a little lost. The characters introduced so far will all feature, to some extent, in stories to come; so it will be worth knowing more about them. Here we go. In order of appearance, Adam and Kelly are Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, augmented humans modified both physically and psychologically. Clad in 6.5-foot black Environ armour, they are very imposing. Cpl Adam is a master of vehicles and grenade killing. Sgt Kelly prefers heavy weaponry and medium-range warfare. Nick, pilot of the Pineapple (don't ask), is a veteran of many fights and has taken them both of out trouble more times than they can count. He has a strange taste for banjo music, which he plays at volume while executing barrel rolls. Lieutenant Ross Kendrick (also an ODST) is an elite sniper and armourer. He boasts more distance kills than anyone else in the navy, with over 1,000 kills at a distance of 250m or more. They say that he can take the head off a Jackal a kilometre away, and no one yet has had cause to doubt it. CPO Lewis is a more hands-on ODST, more at home with a pump-action shotgun than anything else. Ross, Lewis, Adam and Kelly make up Fire Team Delta. I (the disembodied narrative voice) am Hidden Sentinel, call sign SSC, a Thryst-class military AI from the cruiser UNSC Crimson Sunset. They call me Archimedes.]
[Oh, and my comments are written in these -> [ ]
Gathering Storm: Major Skirmish [Part 2]
Date: 23 May 2008, 2:41 pm
[Sorry, some wierd stuff happened with my last submission, so I had to break it up]
At Basecamp Gamma, once a small outpost but now a large camouflaged base, the Pineapple glides in quietly, deftly navigating between the outcroppings of rock that hide the main aircraft hangar. A muffled double 'clang' is heard as the docking cradle clamps onto the Pelican and a walkway connects to the rear cargo doors. The trio of ODSTs disembark, leaving Nick to organise rearmament and refuelling for the next sortie. They head over to Ross' workshop, where he spends a lot of his time building and modifying weapons. It's quite a sight. On one side a tables strewn with barrels, screws, scopes, bullet/missile types and multiple half-disassembled guns locked in frames. On the other side, there are racks upon racks of weapons of every size and shape, each with its own neat box of ammunition. It is estimated (by his troops) that Ross has more weapons in his workshop than the armoury does. In the middle, there is a much used firing range, behind which there are a few comfy chairs. They sit down, though the Environ suits make it difficult. Ross is halfway through his debriefing when Kelly's curious nature comes to the surface.
"Sir, how did the Covenant know where our LZ was?"
Ross regards her coolly, his expression unreadable behind that visor of smoked grey.
"Frankly, I've no idea. It could be that they spotted our activity. After all, a supply depot is not something you leave unguarded. You took out five Phantom's worth of cargo back there. Well done; you may go."
They separate, Adam staying behind for a moment to look at Ross' latest project, a five-barrelled missile launcher. Faint sounds of movement reach Adam's enhanced ears, and he questions Ross about it.
"That? Oh, High Command said that since I have more weapons in here than the armoury does anyway, they might as well move it all here and put it in a folding armoury. You'd better play nice with me; I'm your new Armoury Officer."
"Yeah? Nice. Look, I've got to go; it's my turn for perimeter patrol. I'll see you around, yeah?"
"Okay, see you."
It's six o'clock (Earth Standard Time doesn't translate very well into Forerunner Halo Time, but I did my best. It was around six o'clock) and Fire Team Delta was doing a vital job important to Earth and all her colonies. Eating. Yes, I know, it doesn't sound very important. But you can't fight on an empty stomach! It was lasagne day (what do humans see in lasagne?) and the cafeteria was… empty (apart from them, of course. Do I have to repeat myself every five seconds?). Well, it was six o'clock in the morning. Team Delta does night shifts.
The cafeteria was actually a Pelican hangar, but since it wasn't actually big enough to accommodate the demands of Basecamp Gamma, it was adapted to be the cafeteria. It still retains the huge screen that once used to show updates of arrivals and departures, but now it has been adapted to show Fireteam statuses. Fireteam Delta's status icon blinks, then refreshes, changing from "off duty" to "reporting for mission briefing" and slowly flashing red.
Fireteam Delta packs up and head for the mission briefing.
Less than ten minutes later, they're en route to their mission.
The mission seems fairly simple, and Adam wonders why they had been chosen for the task; any old squad of Marines could do it. A scout base hadn't been heard from for a day; there was no reply from radio hailing. Fireteam Delta was to check it out. Briefly, Adam wondered if there was something HighCom was hiding from them.
Kelly reaches into the compartment above her and takes out her beloved Battle Rifle. It was a standard, gas-operated burst fire weapon and had seen her through every firefight from basic training on up. Her secondary weapon rested behind her in a rack. A SPNKR rocket launcher, it was a dual-barrelled instrument of death that fired rockets filled with high explosive.
Lewis slips shells into his shotgun. Ross had made it for him when he had been promoted to Corporal; it was a triple-barrel shotgun with two twelve-gauge barrels on top of a centred 20-gauge barrel. Coupled with his 8-inch combat knife locked into bayonet position, there was little he could not kill.
Ross sits quietly. His huge sniper rifle rests in his hands. With a maximum range of three kilometres and an underslung grenade launcher, it excelled in both long- and short-range combat. The addition of an 18-inch sword bayonet was more for psychological effect than for combat; however, Ross had killed with it. It was very effective. The other weapon Ross carried was slung on his back, a modified Battle Rifle with an underslung pump-action shotgun.
All four ODSTs were concentrating on reaching the state of mind commonly known as "battle-state". Neurological upgrades allowed an ODST to think and react faster than normal, while adrenalin gives the effect of slowing time down. This allows ODSTs to reach their fabled 10 millisecond reaction time. Ross, as elite sniper, also had to enter "sniper-state". This particular state of mind enabled snipers to do their job. It was a limbo-like state in which one could calculate the elevation and range of a target and track the head for a hit in one instant of slow-time.
Adam held an assault rifle. It was simple, but reliable. A belt full of grenades completed the set.
Nick was listening to banjo music. Luckily, everyone else had sealed their helmets.
Presently, the cargo bay door opened, giving Fireteam Delta a view of their mission. A medium-sized island sported a small mountain and a bridge to the mainland.
Nick slowed them down and landed lightly on the base's landing pad. All was deserted. It was quiet. Very quiet. Too quiet.
Over the horizon, the sun was setting.
They entered the base. The power was out, and only red emergency lighting dimly illuminated the corridors.
Ross was on high alert, eyes scanning every shadow.
"Safeties off." He said.
Four muffled clicks acknowledged him. A small movement on their HUDs almost caused all four of them to let rip, before they realised it was a call.
"Fireteam Delta, we have a situation." Nick said.
Ross replied. "Detail, please."
"There's a wreck here. A Pelican wreck."
"Bodies?"
"None. Heat signatures say crash was very recent – last few hours or so"
"Weapons? Empty missile racks? Damage?"
"Nothing gone, very little sign of harm at all; other than damage you'd expect from a Pelican that'd fallen a coupl'a hundred feet."
"Why didn't we see it before?"
"The transponder says it's parked."
"Roger that, it is odd. Rendezvous with us here."
Ross drops a NAV point just inside the side entrance to the base, where the landing pad is.
"Will do, Nick out."
He looks at the others. "We'll go and meet him. Lewis, take point. Adam, you're our rear-guard."
Back at the landing pad, Nick locks down the Pelican, making sure no-one can nick it while he's gone. Then he grabs his own gun, a 12-gauge double-barrelled shotgun and stuck a P39 95mm magnum in his hip holster. He hops out of the Pelican, and walks away.
Fireteam Delta make their way through the base – eyes always scanning the shadows ahead, red lighting not helping their jerkiness. Only Ross remains calm, still suspended in the zen-state of snipers. They are so jerky, the three soldiers totally miss the first flicker of actual movement.
By the time they realise that something has happened, Ross is already firing. A type-23 antipersonnel explosive blows the shadow to pieces. But they've all seen the shape. A humanoid form that had tentacles growing out of it. Stuff of horror stories.
Lewis examines the pieces, but Ross has been too thorough. There's nothing left that's larger than a few inches across.
Nick cautiously moves across the tarmac, magnum in hand. A flicker crosses his vision and he fires, blowing a 3-inch hole in the tarmac. God, I'm so twitchy; he thinks. Of course, everybody had heard the rumours, but nothing had ever been confirmed. Officers always clamped down hard on that sort of thing. But it never stops people from talking. Teams who went on scouting missions and never returned, entire bases that were quietly removed from record after accidents of unknown origin.
Nick is really nervous now. As a Pelican pilot, he hadn't really had much combat training, and though he was a crack shot with his magnum, he didn't know really what to do in a battlefield situation. Half-crouching, half-running, he makes his way in.
Delta are almost to the rendezvous point. Through darkened corridors they move, pausing at doorways, taking cover in corners sheathed in darkness. Then, a real flash of movement. All four motion sensors register it, a flash of red. For a moment, everybody is tense. Nothing happens. Everyone begins to relax, and that's when the real fun begins.
A dark shape leaps out of the nearest shadow at Lewis. In the red half-light, it's clearly not human. It might once have been, but there is nothing remotely human left in the monster in front of them. battle-state allowed them the luxury of looking at the enemy; however, this was a mixed blessing today. A marine uniform was still visible on the monster; a semi-rotting hand reached out. Tentacles curled from the chest cavity, curling on the ground. Lewis didn't hesitate. He pressed the trigger, saw the thing thrown backwards against the wall. Pumping the shotgun once, he rotated the next barrel in.
The spent shell clinks on the floor.
A dozen more shapes on the motion sensor. No point in stealth now, the enemy knew they were there. Ross changed to his battle rifle and cocked the underslung shotgun. Lewis slipped a new shell into his shotgun.
Then there was no time to think, the enemy were upon them.
[for the purposes of this replay, I'm going to name these "things" Combat Forms. You'll find out why.]
This time, though, they were assisted by hundreds of tiny, squid-like objects. They weren't harmful to the ODSTs, but Kelly thought it looked like a shape in the combat forms' chests. Oh, and they drained shields really fast.
Ross tossed a grenade. All hell broke loose. Simultaneously, Kelly hefted her rocket launcher, Lewis flicked to full-auto mode on his shotgun, Ross moved his hand back to the battle rifle, and Adam lifted his assault rifle. They all fired together.
The bullets reached their targets first, going at just under 450 m/s, slamming into targets and walls. Lewis' shotgun pellets were slightly slower, going in at 370 m/s, and Kelly's rocket was last but not least. When all magazines were empty, there was a temporary silence as the smoke drifted away, and everybody reloaded. There was nothing to be seen but green blood. Motion sensors gave nothing away.
Now, this is the problem with motion sensors. In the effort to remove background motion from the sensor, the detection threshold was reduced. In short, it only sensed things that were moving fairly quickly. So sensors didn't notice the Combat Form on the ceiling, moving slowly until it was overhead of Ross. It dropped silently. One moment Ross was scanning the corridor ahead, then the next moment he was wrestling a deathmatch with the Combat Form. The rest of Team Delta registered the intruder immediately, but they were all powerless to respond. None of them had a clear line of fire that wouldn't kill Ross in the same shot. Lewis' bayonet was too unwieldy, and the Combat Forms didn't seem to feel pain, either.
Nick was progressing along the corridors when he heard sounds of shooting. He hurried on and rounded a corner just as the Combat Form pounced on Ross. He dropped to one knee and sighted down his magnum, just like he'd done hundreds of times in the firing range after dinner. Only this time a miss would kill his friend. Steadying his hand, after years of searching, he found "battle-state", though it wasn't as intense as what the ODSTs were in. He clicked the laser sight and sighted down the scope. Everything was in his hands now. However strong ODSTs were, the Combat form was slowly but surely winning against Ross.
Pull the hammer back, to chamber a round.
Cock the hammer.
Wait for the moment between breaths.
Tense hand in anticipation of recoil.
Tense trigger finger.
Finalise shot alignment.
Fire.
The bullet flew straight and true, impacting the Combat Form in the head. Commonly known as a "headshot", this time the heavy magnum bullet blew open the head on contact. The lifeless body dropped to the floor. But, then again, it hadn't really been alive anyway.
Ross brushed himself off. "Nice shooting there. Is that the last of them?"
Kelly clicked the 2x scope on her battle rifle, and activated the night-sight. Carefully scanning the crevices and shadows, all was still. "Affirmative. All hostiles eliminated."
"Let's move out then. Lewis, you take rear with Nick. Kelly, Adam, take point. I'll cover."
They fanned out silently, although this was next to useless in a narrow corridor. Then, Lewis spotted movement. Zooming in using his suit's binocular function, it was one of the squid things. It weaved it's way across the floor and walls, finally jumping into the dead body of the nearly-decapitated Combat Form. The Combat Form got back up again.
"Erm, Ross, you need to see this." Lewis said, slightly nervously.
"Yes? What's the… what the…" Ross wasn't afforded the luxury of completing his sentence, because he saw the monster he'd seen blown apart lurch towards them. Nick spun and put two rounds into the creature's chest. It was knocked back a step by the huge rounds, but kept coming. For an unshielded hostile to take two rounds and still live was unheard of. A further testimony to the unearthliness of the Combat Form was that now you could see a hole going through the chest, where the bullets had punched through. Nick wasted no time, emptying the rest of the 8-round clip in the reanimated Combat Form's limbs. It collapsed onto the floor, missing arms and legs. Fireteam Delta watched impassively as Nick reloaded and destroyed the creature's body totally. A metal service tag clinked onto the floor at Adam's feet, and he picked it up. A logo of the UNSCDF was etched into the metal tag, with the deceased soldier's name on it. Edward Grennings, he thought, you died facing things that you can't fight.
Kelly made the connection first. "I think that the squid things are some kind of parasite, and that they infect people, turning them into – what should we call them? Combat Forms? That would be good, because then the small things can be Infection Forms."
Ross contemplated the situation. "Nothing has changed. We still need to get to the central command centre and retrieve the CCTV recordings. Then we can get the hell out of here."
It was a sign of Fireteam Delta's respect for Ross that no one made a sound. Even when ordered to re-enter this nightmare, no-one made a complaint, instead acknowledging with grim faces. Nick was going into combat shock, and so didn't reply.
They made their way through the base without encountering any more significant resistance, and soon they were close to the central control rooms. Ross counted to five, and all four burst in. Nothing happened. Then alarms went off, UNSC security damning them to hell. Klaxons rang and orange warning lights sprang up, revolving. Outside there were sounds of fast shambling.
"Make it quick, Adam. We don't have much time."
Adam plugs a memory crystal in, pauses for a second to gather his wits, and begins downloading.
"Estimate 60 seconds to download completion."
Easy enough, thought Nick. Hold our ground for 60 seconds, then get to the hangar.
The silence was unnerving.
The shadows were still.
There! And there! From both entrances!
A total of around 10 Combat forms approached from both doors. Countless Infection forms crawled across the floor.
Adam dropped to one knee and pulled a chain of ammo from his belt and slid it into his assault rifle. No time for reloads.
Ross' sniper rifle rang once, twice, three times, four. Four combat forms fell.
Lewis' shotgun roars. Two down. One behind him, only given away by stepping on a shell.
He takes the knife from under his shotgun and throws it overarm.
Ross pulls his sword out and throws it to Lewis. He nods and locks the new weapon onto his gun.
Ross goes into overdrive, putting shot after shot into the heads of Combat forms. Adam, beside him, is busy putting as much lead into the floor as possible to stop the Infection forms from getting closer.
But there are always more. They've stopped coming from the back now, but there are loads more at the front.
Adam checks the memory chip.
"Done, let's get the hell outta here."
Ross talks while firing. The team kill counter reads 35.
"OK, let's move out. Lewis, take point. Guard Nick. Kelly, Adam, watch our flank. I've got your back."
The ringing of Ross' rifle sets the pace. Bang, bang, bang, bang.
50.
Nearly there. Lewis is blowing enemies to pieces before them, Ross beheads them behind.
75.
Out onto the tarmac. Nick rushes into the cockpit and starts emergency takeoff.
Ross fires one last shot, then turns and runs into the troop bay.
80.
The Pelican fires it's engines, slowly, ever so slowly, taking off.
The wave of Combat forms arrive on the tarmac. At least 25 of them jump for the Pelican. All the ODSTs can hear is thump, thump, thump, as they land on the dropship.
Nick swings the chin-mounted chaingun round, but there is no angle to fire with.
"We're losing altitude! The engines can't take it!"
Ah. thought Ross. That's it. They're cleverer than I thought.
Slowly, the Pelican bowed to all the weight being placed on it, and started falling.
Nick was on his own train of thought. The other Pelican! No missiles fired, just fall damage! Oh, I should have thought! I should have checked the inside!
He radioed to base. "Basecamp Gamma, this is Bravo Three-One-Six, this is a Mayday call. We are going down. Repeat, mayday, we are going down. Request immediate backup. Advise hostile infantry."
No reply. Only static.
Alone in the wilderness, the lone Pelican – of the UNSC 1056th Pelican Unit B316, assigned to Basecamp Gamma, currently transporting 708th ODST Division Fireteam Delta, falls.
In the same instant, 26.2578 klicks away, at Basecamp Gamma Tactical Control Room, a small green dot on the main screen flashes red and beeps. It reads B316, and it is now labelled 'MIA'.
/////End of Major Skirmish/////
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