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Halo: The Stalingrd Of Kazmaal by thindog



Stalingrad [part I]
Date: 16 January 2004, 9:30 PM

First Sergeant Tehran Wilson woke with a start. The firing had started again. He had thought it was safe enough to catch a bit of shut-eye. "Must've overslept.", he groaned. He was located in the a middle window of a blown out shopping center. He peered out the shattered window and immediately pulled his head out of the way as plasma bolts flew past him. He calmly lit up a cigarette. "Looks like its gonna be a long day." he muttered.
The Covenant had dropped in a few nights ago. Nearly occupying the entire city in one swift motion. For a while, the fighting was out of control, but now definitive boundaries had been established after the severely outnumbered marines had put up one hell of a resistance. Jerricho city had become the next Stalingrad, blocking the invading Covenant for stealing the resource rich plains of Sham' alee.
Wilson finished his cigarette and crawled over to a small hole in the wall. He zoomed in with his battle rifle just in time to pick off the last grunt in a group which had taken cover behind a scorched and battered wall. The grunt was hit in the back of the skull and a gout of aqua colored blood geysered out painting a portion of the wall. "Little bastard.", he swore.
He began to search for other targets, and was rewarded by the small head of a Jackal peering out of a fourth story window. Bang! His shot rang out and he was rewarded when the now headless corpse of the Jackal fell from its perch on the fourth floor, leaving a huge blood splatter where it landed.
The Marines with their scope capable weapons were giving the covenant surprisingly good resistance even though they were outnumbered by about 4 to 1. Wilson's radio flickered static and then Lieutenant Perez called in, "Wilson get your squad down to H.Q., ASAP!" "Roger that," he replied, "blue team on me!"
They hurried down the stairs and out the back. After about a block of walking, crouching low to avoid stray plasma bolts, they reached about the only building that had windows with glass still in the frames. Marine platoon 4 of the 51st Helljumpers Division had set up its H.Q. in a small but sturdy looking drugstore. As the four marines plus Wilson entered the building he was met by the cigar chewing Lieutenant.
"How's the line holding?" Perez asked. "The boys are doing fine. Once we established our position not a single Covenant has been able to cross main street in one piece.", he responded. "Now listen up good," Perez said in a serious tone that got the attention of the others who had been distracting a radio operator long enough for PFC Johnson or Slick to palm the man's smokes. "I've got an assignment for you. Its gonna be tough but you boys are some of the best under my command." this acquired Johnson's attention and the Operator seized the opportunity to snatch back his pack of cigarettes. "Our scanning has shown that the building just south of here on the wrong side of main street has some marines trapped in it. Behind enemy lines! I want you boys to go in there and get those boys out. See second Lieutenant Parks about weaponry. Dismissed."
"Johnson! On me." Wilson called. They were standing in a basement of a semi destroyed office building. The room housed the Helljumpers' meager weapons and supplies. "I want you to get a Sniper rifle and some camo and find the best possible position you can to cover our route. Be in position by," he glanced at his watch which read 13:32:07, "1400 hours sharp." "Yes sir." Johnson said. The cocky young private began to gather his equipment. Wilson grabbed four frag grenades and eight clips of ammo for his Battle rifle. "Alright boys get a quick smoke or something we got 15 minutes til we move out." he yelled. He grabbed an SMG and several clips of ammo for that as well. Fifteen minutes later he called for the marines to move out.
As they neared the target, Wilson and the others saw a definite problem. Main street was literally a 60 foot dash into oncoming fire. There was no way they could possible get over there without getting themselves killed.
They sat behind a burnt out building pondering what to do when a private named Munez said, "Hey! I got it. We go in through the sewer. It probably runs straight under the street." "Good thinking soldier!" Wilson said. They moved over to the sewer grate and lifted it up. The first man to jump down, private Reilly landed in about 1 foot of liquid, with a soft splash that nonetheless echoed in the wide subterranean plumbing.
Wilson went next and was followed shortly by the other two. He flicked on his barrel light and proceeded silently down the sewer. Private Boone noticed the first opening and opened the lid to reveal the underside of a Wraith. He quickly slid the lid shut again as the Marines worked up a strategy. At first they wanted to move on to the next opening but they felt that they couldn't just leave the Wraith in a prime location to bombard their fellow Marines. Just then a movement further down the sewer alerted them of the possible hostiles. "Wort! wort! wort!" an elite. The marines turned off their lights as one and switched to night vision to see two elites standing beneath the next opening in the sewer. Wilson took aim and gave the signal to fire on three. Five seconds later, the first elite fell to the ground dead. The second one had nearly made it up the ladder to the sewer opening before PFC Boone wielding an assault rifle took him out. PFC Boone was also the one to grab three plasma grenades the elites had dropped and stick them to the bottom of the Wraith.
Mimin was taking cover behind a partially destroyed wall when the Wraith behind him just exploded, no apparent cause, just blew up. He yelled and stood up to get a better look at the blown up Wraith, which was not a good plan.
90 ft. away in the new Green recruit, PFC Ambrose squeezed the trigger on his Battle rifle and entered the 50s club as the little foolish grunt stood up in broad daylight. (50 career kills)
The marines proceeded to the opening where they had killed the elites. They began the ascent up the ladder , PFC Travis leading the way. Travis crawled over into the nearest building and took cover he waited one or two minutes and motioned the 'all clear' signal. The others quickly proceeded to the building. Wilson slowly made his way to the top floor of the building and peered out the window in time to see an elite that had just spotted PFC Boone, drop dead, a trail of gas leading back up to the mid section of what had been a skyscraper.
Up in the skyscraper, Johnson reloaded his S2 AM sniper rifle, popping in a fresh clip. He scoped in an took aim, and after a few seconds of patience he was rewarded by a red armored elite, running over to another building. *Bang* the elite's brains splattered in a purple star on a nearby wall. He called in to Wilson on his radio, "The plaza is clear send your men across now!"
PFC Boone and PFC Munez hustled across the temporarily deserted plaza to the target building. They rushed in and hustled up to the second floor almost running over a fellow marine in their haste.





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