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LT. CAEN, RYAN. ONI OPS by Myth
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Ryan Caen: Chapter 1
Date: 8 December 2008, 5:31 am
TYRUS II, ERANADI XII
UNSCN Valhalla
Fourth Guard's Air Corps
CS: Hammer 3-9
ATTACHED: 504th ODST Pathfinders
The engines of the D77H-TCI blared into his ears, denying him any level of concentration. He could have sworn he detected a faint smile on the lips of one of the 504th boys sitting on the opposite side of the Pelican. Turbulence battered the craft as she spiraled down towards the surface of Tyrus II, now the ODST was smiling broadly.
"You all right over there, son?" His helmet was pushed back, revealing a face dominated by a forest of whiskers and a set of intense blue eyes. Red squad leader paint was stenciled onto his shoulder plates against the ebony armor.
"Fine, Sergeant." Ryan Caen replied, running his gloved hand over his head, scratching around the back of his neck. His friends would have identified the gesture as nervousness, but the Marine shrugged and dismissed it, reaching into one of the pouches on his vest for a cigarette, which soon left a film of smoke hovering in the troop bay.
There were two other Marines sitting near their comrade, quietly discussing the curves of the female naval officers aboard the Valhalla orbiting overhead, laughing every now and then, completely at peace with the intense flight conditions.
Caen leaned his head back and exhaled, blowing away some of the smoke filling the cabin. From the untrained eye, someone could have mistaken him for a fourth shock trooper in his black armor, but the Marines knew better. Every UNSC Marine knew an ONI Op when they saw one. Caen was a telltale sign that something was up. A Covenant Expeditionary Unit on the ground but no cruisers to be found in orbit was a strange coincidence at best, and when outsiders are suddenly assigned to your unit having 'spook' written all over them, you knew something was up.
Caen revealed a smile of his own and checked his kit. An M6B Magnum was strapped to his hip, its muzzle threaded with a silencer, paired with a compact M7S-SMG. Command had issued him a new generation D-DACT as well, a Dismounted Data Automated Communications Terminal that would feed him his operational guidelines and objectives. He had been issued a MK-IV helmet as well, the same variant the shock troopers wore, but he doubted he would use it after they had landed.
The city below raced up to meet them as the pilot pulled the dropship out of its dive and raced over the rooftops at dizzying speeds. The atmosphere doors slid away and the ramp dropped for a hot drop. The ODSTs slapped their helmets on and slid back the actions on their weapons. Caen lowered the bulky MK over his own head and waited a moment for the HUD to spring to life and identify his Marine companions seated across the way. The visor labeled them as Zero-Six, Three-Three and Zero-One.
"Look live, Helljumpers!" The Sergeant barked, standing and grabbing hold of one of the ceiling tethers. The others did so as well and Caen followed suit. The excitement inside him seemed to rise from his stomach to the top of his throat as he was deafened by the crackle of Covenant antiaircraft guns on the surface.
The Pelican raced over the weapon installations, spraying them with gunfire from overhead, cutting the gun crews to pieces. The pilot's voice filled Caen's earpiece a second later. "Aright boys it's going to be a little warm up here, prep for hot drop…el-zee coming up in ten!"
The dropship had slowed down alarmingly fast and banked into the gutted superstructure of what had once been a shopping mall of Tyrus's capital city of San Pablo. Caen was thoroughly impressed with the pilot for the maneuver, the ceiling of the structure couldn't have given him more than feet of clearance in any direction, though he sped through at top speeds.
Caen stiffened as he glanced through the cockpit canopy to see a massive glass wall impeding their progress, though the pilot just continued, firing a long burst from the nose cannon and crashing through the obstacle, circling their new landing zone once and then banking around to dispatch his troops.
"Hoo-rah!" The ODST Corporal growled. "Feet first, baby! Go!" Caen leapt from the ramp the five feet to the ground and tucked his body behind a fallen statue for cover.
The 504th boys landed a few yards behind him before Hammer Three-Nine raced back towards the clouds and disappeared into the stars. A heavy rain showered San Pablo, keeping down the dust from the cities near destruction, but making for poor visibility on the now darkened streets.
Caen ejected the magazine of his M7S and confirmed that there was a round in place, and replaced it. He hunkered down next to the trio of Marines and unclipped his D-DACT from his chest plate.
"What's the deal, Lieutenant?" The Sergeant asked, sweeping the streets with his HUD, searching for Covenant Forces converging on the drop site.
"Wait one." Caen replied.
"Hayes, move north and wait for us at that corner building." The Sergeant said quietly, indicating a blown out structure a few dozen yards away. "Jones, go with him and set up overwatch on the roof." Jones slung his M7 across his chest and shouldered his SRS99D Sniper's Rifle.
"You bet, Sarge. We're on it." The two black-clad shock troopers stalked out into the rain, soon disappearing into the gloom.
"Talk to me, Caen. What are we doing here?" The Sergeant's demeanor had changed slightly; he was no longer the aloof Marine that laughed at his lack of combat experience, but he was all business, and clearly eager to have an objective to direct his progress.
Caen had not answered the Marine yet, but continued to wipe away the raindrops dotting his helmet's visor. He swore and removed the MK, setting it on the concrete slab next to them and tapped the screen of the D-DACT for instructions from Command.
A few seconds past, punctuated by rumbling thunder and flashes of lightning.
"Zero-Six in position." Jones reported over the SQUADCOM.
"Three-Three is sittin' tight." Hayes replied as well.
"Got something." Caen wiped the screen of the D-DACT as a stream of text scrolled across the pad.
RENDEVOUS WITH ALPHA AT 36, 49
Caen frowned and forwarded the objective to the three ODSTs and replaced his helmet.
"Alright, El-tee, let's move." Sergeant Mackenzie took charge once his goal was in place. The Marine slid out from behind cover and jogged out into the street, dodging in and out between abandoned vehicles for cover.
Caen waited a few seconds and then followed, ducking through the rain and moving quickly towards the ruins where the other Marines were holed up.
"Freeze." Zero-Six, Jones breathed over the COM. "Covenant patrol, Sarge…Brutes. Can you get to us?"
Caen had dropped the second Jones spoke, and was now peering down the street towards Mackenzie, who crouched behind a car with his right hand to his earpiece. "Caen's too far back…strength?"
Jones swore and reduced the magnification of the scope so he could see the entire patrol. There were six of the bastards, armed to the teeth with their 'Spiker' rifles and other deadly assortment of Covenant weaponry.
"They're headin' your way, Sarge…six of them turning the corner in a few seconds, what do you want me to do?" Jones asked, threading the silencer onto the muzzle of the SRS99D.
Static. "Take it." Mackenzie replied after a second's thought.
Jones rested the rifle on the lip of the building's edge and rested the targeting sight on the head of the Brute in the rear of the column. He exhaled to steady the rifle and squeezed. 14.5x114mm Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding-Sabot round did not make any more sound than a muted pop as it left the barrel of the S2.
Immediately the sabot round slammed into the head plate of the Brute. The round punched straight through the metal plate and burst out at the base of his skull, spraying his brains across the wall in the bullet's path. The creature's head then rolled free of its body and fell to the ground with the corpse following suit.
The Brute was far enough behind his comrades that they would not have heard anything, but the smell of fresh blood immediately riled them into frenzy. The pack leader roared with rage and leapt for shelter, and a second APFSDS round perforated the chest piece of another of his pack mates.
Jones watched as the second Brute slumped to the ground, gripping the substantial hole in its chest that hadn't been there a moment before. They still didn't know where he was. One of them lifted its head to try and catch his scent. Jones snapped onto the target and squeezed. The shot went low, breaking apart a piece of the concrete barrier the beast hid behind.
The pack leader had seen the contrail of the last shot and barked an order to open fire. Jones ducked and rolled away as the rooftop exploded in a flurry of superheated tungsten core projectiles. The Brutes advanced now that he was pinned down, right towards Hayes position downstairs.
Hayes watched as they fired into the upper stories of the building and rushed towards his foxhole. Two of them. Hayes fired blindly over the crest of the crater he hid in and was rewarded with surprised howls as a few of the rounds hit home. He stood and fired a sustained burst into the chest of the closest Brute. The jacketed rounds tore open the beast's chest; their entry points the foundation of plumes of dark blood as the alien crashed to the street with a splash.
The second creature roared and raised its weapon and fired, showering him with plasma. Hayes went down without a scream, disappearing into his foxhole as the Brute stalked forward.
Caen and Mackenzie had arrived, using combined fields of fire to bring down the encroaching alien. Caen rolled behind cover as a fresh sheet of plasma sizzled the air above his head as the surviving Covenant soldiers opened fire. Mackenzie was in the foxhole with Hayes. Caen advanced from car to car quietly while the Brutes strafed the Marines' position and stealthily emerged on their flank.
Both of them were facing away from him; the rain must have dosed his scent. He continued to move forward. The minor Brute popped up to take a snap shot and a sabot round removed his head. Blood showered the pack leader's armor as he roared in frustration, just now turning to notice Caen. His Spiker was out of ammunition, and he tossed it away and charged. Caen knelt and squeezed, hitting the Brute with a long burst in the gut, cutting him open.
But the creature continued. Caen tried to leap out of his path, but he reached out and clouted him in the head. He vision swam and he tasted blood, rain pounded his face and he saw his helmet lying a few feet away. The Brute had slowed, but was charging again. Caen's M7 had skittered along the pavement some few yards away. He drew his sidearm and pulled the trigger back as quickly as he could. The pistol bucked six times, the Magnum rounds thudding into the pack leader's lowered skull, scrambling his brains and dropping him to the rain soaked street.
It wasn't the first time Caen had killed, or even faced Covenant. But this was so real; for one thing it had never been Brutes. He stared at the armored body for a second. Blood pooled in his mouth and he spit, leaning down to recover his helmet and his M7.
He moved carefully back through the darkened streets and found Jones and Mackenzie crouched over Hayes's foxhole.
"Hayes is gone, man." Jones said quietly. resting his rifle on his shoulder. "Fuckin' gone."
Caen looked down at the fallen Marine. His chest was melted from a near point blank energy blast, the visor hid his face, but Caen knew that it would be contorted with pain. He had seen men die to plasma wounds before, usually stretched out over a long period of time. It wasn't pretty. Unfortunately, Hayes would not be the last.
Mackenzie tagged the body with a small NAV marker and removed his dog tags. "We'll come back for him." He said, as much to himself as to the others. "Let's move. Covenant loses a gun crew and a patrol, they aren't going to be sitting around for much longer." Caen looked for a second longer at Hayes's figure and followed the other Marines into the downpour towards the objective.
ONI Ops had seen casualties before, just like everyone else. But the feeling of losing Hayes crushed him even though he hardly knew the man. These men were completely reliant on him. They did not know what they were here for, but one of them had already died for it. He began to understand why UNSC regulars despised ONI and its operatives. The lack of control on the ground in the middle of an op cost lives, and Caen was sure that Command didn't give a fuck about that. If he and Mackenzie had been in position when the patrol arrived, maybe everything would have been different.
"Hey. Caen, wake up man. We got a problem." Jones slowed and pointed into the sky. A pair of Pelicans soared down to the surface, hotly pursued by Banshee fliers.
The dropships burst into flames seconds later and fell to the surface, no doubt killing everyone aboard. Why did Command...? Jones was still pointing skyward as the nose of a Covenant Carrier dominated the horizon, spewing entire squadrons of Banshee fliers and Phantom dropships to comb the city.
Caen reached for his D-DACT, finding it devoid of instruction.
"...a big problem."
Ryan Caen: Ch. 2: Command Deck
Date: 12 December 2008, 12:20 am
August 2552:
SAN PABLO, TYRUS II: ERANADI XII
405th ODST Pathfinders
CS: Bravo
ATTACHED: ONI Special Operations Unit (SOE)
"Cover!" Jones warned. The three humans dropped to the ground immediately as a pair of Banshees screeched overhead. The flier's noses were illuminated with beams of light, which danced across the streets searching for targets.
They had encountered two teams of Jackal patrols, both of which had met a withering blast of gunfire that left them bleeding husks on the pavement as the trio advanced.
The Banshees' wails faded into the familiar roar of the Tyran Storm. Caen stood and pressed his body against the nearest wall and edged along the surface until he reached the corner of the next street. The ONI operative reached to his chest plate and unclipped the D-DACT and held it around to corner.
The device fed streaming video to his HUD of what lay at the end of the adjacent street. A section of his visor filled with an artificial canyon, made up of high buildings looming over a street littered with wreckage from the Covenant's first strike on San Pablo three month's prior. A hundred yards down the rubble-strewn boulevard, a D77H-TCI Pelican lay propped on it side, its engines alight with tiny fires.
The Marines looked at him expectantly. "Shit that must be Alpha's bird." He rasped, and turned the corner with his M7S-SMG at his shoulder.
Mackenzie caught his arm and pulled him down. "Hold up there, son. Jones, check the windows."
The second helmeted Marine turned the corner and disappeared from Caen's view. Video from Zero-Six's HUD streamed into Caen's as he sighted down Jones's rifle and watched as the crosshairs snapped onto a Jackal Marksman. The rifle's report resounded through his helmet's speakers and the video depicted the sabot round breaking open the bird-like alien's skull. The window that framed the Jackal was suddenly turned opaque with violet ichor.
Caen watched as Jones swept the sights over the openings above the street once more before muttering: "Clear."
Caen followed Mackenzie into the downpour and towards the fallen warbird. The fires on the craft's surface still smoldered, fed by the fuel leaking from the engines. Shell casings blanketed the roadway, in addition to depleted human weaponry. Plasma scoring was evident as well. Alpha had met heavy resistance on entry, and by the look of it, lost most of their team.
Ten meters from the crash site in the center of the intersection Jones found the first body. It was an ODST squad sergeant, already stiffened from death into a seated position in the middle of the street, his helmet was removed, blood dripping in a steady stream into a crimson pool beneath him. Caen glanced over to regard the deceased commando. At first glance he thought he was still alive, simply sitting on the ground waiting for something.
"Shit, it's Bradley. He's got a baby girl back home…" Jones knelt in front of the ODST and looked into his clouded eyes for a moment. The sniper reached into his armor around the neck and felt for the man's tags. "Tags are gone, Hartley and Raines were in Alpha, they could have—"
"I found Raines. He's dead. Tags are gone too." Mackenzie reported after emerging from the troopbay of the Pelican. Caen looked into the crumpled dropship. The ODST named Raines lay against a burned out shell of a vehicle, his chest torn apart by spiker rounds.
"Pilots are too…looks like an AA round tore right through the cockpit. I can't believe they made it this far…" Mackenzie continued, checking the corpses for ammunition. "Hartley and your man are out there somewhere, anything from Command yet?"
"Still dark. But Alpha would have known to move to the Covenant point of interest in the area…possibly the base of Mount Aires at the North edge of the city…" Caen commented, still checking the D-DACT for instruction from command. "Where the hell is the Valhalla ?"
ORBIT ABOVE TYRUS II, ERANADI XII
UNSCN Valhalla
-Seven Hours Earlier-
Lieutenant Jeremy Dawes at the Operations Console of the Valhalla 's command deck watched the helmet-cam of E7-01, Gunnery Sergeant Lincoln Mackenzie, he remembered offhandedly.
Mackenzie leapt off the ramp of Hammer 3-9 to ground beneath the Pelican; water sprinkled the lens when his boots splashed into the pools of rainwater. Dawes lifted his head from the display and turned to the ONI Colonel standing in the 'Pit', a sunken center on the command deck that housed the Tactical stations and consoles.
"Colonel Luechenko, Bravo is dirt side." Dawes informed him as the spook materialized at his shoulder. "They're awaiting orders."
"We are still waiting for Alpha to report in. Don't send anything yet." Luechenko said tiredly and returned to the Pit.
Dawes swiveled in his chair and regarded the man's back with contempt. Dawes had worked Ops for his entire career in the UNSC Navy, he was used to conducting and coordinating ground operations from orbit, feeding Marines on the ground the information they needed to survive. Luechenko looked as if the Marines in San Pablo should be able to sit tight for an inordinate amount of time until he deemed necessary to direct them further. There are Covenant Forces on the ground, asshole!
Despite his mental berating of the officer, the man simply stood there, his hands clasped behind his back, perfectly at ease with the situation.
Thirteen minutes passed by before the Colonel returned to speak with the Ops Officer. "No word from Alpha?" He asked in slightly accented English.
"No, sir. Bravo needs instruction, they've been in the same place for a long time."
"Fine. Alpha's overwatch bird should be orbiting the city…have them report to Alpha's last position. Once they get there I'll relay the next objective." The Colonel answered coolly.
"You assigned a Pelican to orbit a fortified Covenant position that's covered in antiaircraft guns?" Dawes asked before he had even realized he was talking to a superior officer.
He felt a vice-like grip on his shoulder as Luechenko spun Dawes around to face him. Luechenko bent down and stared directly into his eyes. Dawes expected to be screamed at. "I would like you to understand that I do know what I am doing, Lieutenant. And that I will make the decisions as to how I use the men and assets assigned to me the way I see fit to accomplish the task set before me."
"Of course, sir." Dawes said, still looking into Luechenko's gray eyes.
"Yes…I think you do. Now would you please inform Bravo to move to 36, 49." The Colonel ordered and stood straight.
"Aye, Colonel." The command went out, and received an immediate acknowledgement from Luechenko's agent planet side.
Several minutes passed as Dawes followed the progress of the four Special Operations Operators moving like ghosts through the rain. The lieutenant toggled through the helmet cams of Bravo Team as they moved closer to the objective marker.
Then movement appeared on E4-06's HUD. Brutes. The Colonel returned to watch the following skirmish from the Marines' point of view. Corporal Jones cut the Brute line to ribbons with carefully delivered 14.5mm rounds. But things only went well for seconds longer.
Dawes watched from behind Hayes's visor as a barrage of plasma fire splashed across his chest. Hayes looked down at his mutilated abdomen and collapsed to the ground. Dawes toggled back to Caen, and watched as he dealt the six deathblows to the top of the Brute's skull.
Dawes cast a glance at Luechenko, who had already turned away from the screen. "Make certain they do not run into any more ambushes, Lieutenant." As if it were his fault that Corporal Hayes was lying dead on a nameless street corner.
"Yes, sir, I will." Dawes's response was cut short by a medley of alarm klaxons and shouting as something big surprised the Navigation Officers.
Captain Anthony Deanda was the only voice that was coherent. "Report, now!" He barked over the panic. "Ingles what do we have?"
Lieutenant Ingles from navigation replied immediately. "Covenant CCS-class cruiser contacts! Two of them, sir!"
"Battle stations, Lieutenant Jacobs, charge the MACs, Lieutenant Li, arm ARCHER pods A-F and give me a targeting solution." Deanda ordered crisply. The old captain clasped his hands at the small of his back and gazed out the frontal view port of the Valhalla 's Command Deck.
"Aye, aye, Captain!" The weapons officers replied.
"Additional contact coming out of slipspace at two-zero-zero-nine!" Ingles reported.
"Classify that contact, Lieutenant." The Captain snapped, turning to look at Ingles.
"…Assault Carrier, Sir."
"Charge on the MACs?" Deanda replied.
"Seventy-three percent on both guns, sir. Forty seconds to a full charge." Jacobs answered.
"ARCHERs are armed, targeting solution is set for the closest contact." Li reported.
The Covenant task force was moving closer to Tyrus II, floating deceptively peacefully just outside the Tyran orbit. The first Cruiser sighted the UNSC Destroyer and began to rotate to prepare a broadside salvo of plasma torpedoes.
"MAC charged!"
"Fire!"
The first Magnetic Accelerator Cannon coiled and fired, firing a kinetic shell straight at the CCS. The MAC round slammed into the nose of the Covenant warship, flaring the shields and crumpling its foredecks. The Cruiser slowed its rotation, as if reconsidering its early decision.
"Second MAC firing!" Jacobs reported as he triggered the mechanism. The second struck in the same area, dissipating the energy shields and punching through the nose of the ship, lodging itself somewhere deep inside the enemy CCS.
A conflagration of ice blue explosions crawled across the smooth hull of the ship as it 'sank' into the orbit of Tyrus II. The crew cheered as the Covenant Cruiser's engines succumbed to the inferno and erupted, engulfing the CCS in a blinding flash.
The second CCS swung around, its sides bristling with plasma energy and it fired. Twin lances of white-hot plasma splashed across the prow of the Valhalla , melting entire sections of the destroyer.
"Sir, decks eight through eleven are gone! And we're losing atmosphere in four and five!" Ensign Kerr cried from Engineering.
"Plasma 'torps incoming!" Ingles cried as he fought to evade the deadly projectiles.
"Two more from the carrier!" They had only seconds before the torpedoes would cripple their destroyer, or worse.
"The MAC is charged, sir!" Jacobs warned.
"Firing solution for the CCS, Li?" Deanda asked quickly.
"Set, sir!"
"Fire both rounds, Jacobs. Li fire off our ARCHER s."
What was likely to be their last, the Valhalla fired off its salvo of conventional weapons. The two rounds struck the CCS simultaneously, obliterating its shields and ripping apart crucial compartments within the ship. The ARCHER missiles slammed into the hull of the cruiser from bow to stern, peeling away the vulnerable plating and exploding inside the craft. The gutted warship joined the wreckage of its sister ship in orbit.
The crew of the human destroyer never witnessed the miracle they had accomplished. Seconds after the ARCHER pods fired their ordnance; a lethal barrage of four plasma torpedoes tore through the hull of the Valhalla .
Dawes's vision swam before him. Blood trickled into his eyes and was smeared across his station's monitor. He felt his forehead and discovered a deep gash delivered by the bulkhead above him. He struggled out of his chair and collapsed to the deck, looking in horror at the Bridge around him.
The port side of the deck was crumpled inward, venting atmosphere. There was little left of Li and Jacobs, the Weapons Consoles had been on the port side. Deanda was lying still on the deck near the forward NAV computer, his uniform smeared with crimson. Ingles had been showered with shrapnel, his guts splattered across the NAV station monitors.
The TAC crew looked to be okay, the Pit had been sheltered somewhat from the secondary explosions. Colonel Luechenko, however, had been speared through the chest by a falling conduit pipe, and lay still in an expanding pool of dark blood.
Deanda stirred. "Who's alive?" He rasped, spitting blood onto the deck.
Kerr and the two TAC officers murmured affirmative, and Dawes followed suit.
"Damn it." Deanda stood and staggered over to Ingles station, pulling the corpse away from the controls and wiping away some of the ichors sprayed across the displays. The Captain fired the thrusters of the Valhalla , propelling into the planet's orbit, carrying it away from the threat of Covenant boarding crews that would finish the job the torpedoes had began. "If they're alive, get two squads of Marines planet side on the Pelicans, I want our men out of San Pablo, they've got a Covenant carrier-full of hostiles coming down on their heads!"
Dawes agreed, connecting to Lieutenant Commander Cunningham's HUD in the launch bays aft of the bridge. Cunningham was alive, as were most of the ODSTs, seeing that they had been stationed on the starboard launch bays, which had been faced away form the torpedo strikes. Cunningham put together two small recovery teams and sent the Pelicans on their way.
Dawes assessed his station's systems quickly; realizing his link to the late Luechenko's ONI agent on the ground had been lost. They had roughly thirty hours before the Covenant Carrier would be able to reengage them, if they even thought it necessary. Dawes wiped a fresh trickle of blood away and went to work reestablishing the link to the, now stranded team wondering the streets of San Pablo.
Ryan Caen: Ch. 3: The Games of War
Date: 15 December 2008, 5:50 am
August 2552:
SAN PABLO, TYRUS II: ERANADI XII
504th ODST Pathfinders
CS: Bravo
ATTACHED: ONI SOE Unit
A message alert streaked across Caen's HUD, he signaled to Mackenzie and Jones nearby with a downward motion. The Marines acknowledged and dropped to their stomachs while Caen unclipped the D-DACT to assess the new directive.
ONI SOE, PATCH THRU TO SQUADCOM, MISSION SCRUBBED, FURTHER INSTRUCTION ON MAIN CHANNEL.
Caen sat back against the hull of Alpha's crippled dropship. That was a severe breach of ONI protocol, opening classified channels to the attached units. The directive was also missing his handler's authentication code.
"What's goin' on, man?" Jones asked urgently watching the street carefully.
Fuck it. Caen patched through the ONI channel to the SQUADCOM channel and forwarded the instruction set to the ODSTs. A small window materialized in the corner of his HUD and filled with a bloodied face of one of the Valhalla 's bridge crew.
"Lieutenant Caen, this is Operations Command, ONI Op is scrubbed, Luechenko and most of crew here are dead, Covenant warships insystem have crippled the Valhalla , and as you probably already know, you have a Covenant Assault Carrier in your airspace. Teams Echo and Delta have been deployed to assist in recovering your boys on the ground…"
"Negative, Command. We watched two birds go down not long ago, crash sites are somewhere in the Northern Sector, low probability of survivors…We still haven't found Alpha, we'll keep looking. We'll be here when you need us." Caen replied, his mind racing towards the new developments.
"Acknowledged on Echo and Delta. I'll try and reach Alpha on the compressed beam…there are three AA positions in the northern sector that are keeping us from getting more birds in the air. Take them out and we'll get you some air support."
"Affirmative, Command. Moving on the nearest gun position." Mackenzie replied, relieving the deceased Sergeant Bradley of his SOPMOD rifle. The sergeant scavenged a few magazines and tossed the collection to Caen. He snatched the BR55 out of the air and snapped back the action.
"Time to move, guys. We need that air support if we're going to make it out of here okay." Mackenzie barked. He seemed to settle into his role as leader once he knew that the UNSC Navy in command of the op again.
The emplacement was roughly a kilometer from Alpha's crash site. Caen smiled grimly under his visor. The Marines seemed to grow more relaxed as the situation deteriorated. Jones took point as the trio trooped forward, deeper into San Pablo's ruins.
SAN PABLO, NORTHERN DISTRICT
'ECHO' CRASH SITE
CS: Uniform 9-8
ATTACHED: 504th ODST Pathfinders
Lance Corporal Eric Todd blinked the stars out of his vision, as the interior of the Pelican seemed to swim back towards him. Red hazard lights illuminated the cabin, bathing him in a crimson tint. Todd's arms felt heavy as his head lolled, looking down at a pair of blood-slicked hands.
"Ah, shit. That's great." He murmured to himself, blood dripping onto the interior of his visor from his slack jaw. The ODST ran his hands underneath the armor plates of his suit, feeling wet fatigues around his ribs, feeling a sharp point where he was sure the bone was broken.
Todd reached to his neck with no small effort and released the vacuum seal under his helmet, and tossed it to the floor of the troopbay, noticing the limp form of the crew chief for the first time. "Fuck." He breathed, reaching for the medical kit plastered to the bulkhead.
He rummaged through the package for a set of biofoam syringes. The thick needles would have given him the shivers any other day, but there were more prominent issues to worry about. He felt around the exposed areas of his wounds and jammed the needle just underneath them, immobilizing the bones in place and creating a patch that would hold better than any dressing. He would need to be able to move, and the Navy jocks upstairs were in no shape to send a CASEVAC bird to fly him to safety.
Todd struggled to his feet and retrieved his helmet, smearing the blood away from the spattered visor. The battered Marine staggered out of the troop bay and looked out the rooftop that the pilots had set them down on. Two darkened figures sat near each other, leaning over something.
"Todd, you look like shit, man." Corporal 'Dutch' Holland chuckled, his own face smeared with blood, and his left eye nearly swollen shut.
Private First Class Jack Haley sat silently, staring stupidly at his impossibly bent 99D. "That shit's broken, Hal." Todd observed.
Haley looked up and studied his teammate. "Where's yours, pal?" The PFC asked, tossing away the crooked sniper's rifle.
Todd stupidly felt along his body for the M7S that should have been strapped to his chest. Was he that shaken that he hadn't even noticed he was unarmed?
Dutch held up an M6 toward him and Todd accepted it, checking the magazine and threaded the silencer into place. Haley stood as well, his MA5 carbine at his shoulder, setting off towards the stairwell that led into the building beneath them.
"He's checking the street below for a vehicle, we're sittin' tight here to see if we can get Command with the COMSAT in the Pelican." Dutch informed him, settling back down with his battle rifle across his knees.
Everyone seemed slow, rattled. Todd credited to the blazing decent through the clouds on their approach, but still, was this really that much worse than an HEV drop? Todd found himself seated back in the Pelican, facing out off the ramp, waiting for the radio to relay instructions.
TYRUS II ORBIT: ERANADI XII
UNSCN Valhalla
Dawes had had his wounds dressed by a corpsman that had made his way to the Command Deck. The bodies had been removed, and the blood had been washed down…but there was nothing to be done for the smell.
Ensign Casey had replaced the late Lieutenant Dyer at Communications, and was now reporting something to Dawes's screen. The woman's face appeared on the corner of his monitor.
"Sir, Echo has made contact and is requesting directive." Casey dictated, looking stressed and unsure of herself.
"Thank you, Casey. Transfer the report to TAC and send me the frequencies of the team to my screen." The information appeared almost instantly. Dawes punched in the codes and watched as static danced across the display.
Gradually the image cleared, and eventually filled with the viewpoint of the interior of the cockpit, depicting a pair of pilots lying limp against their harnesses. Dawes swore quietly and spoke into the microphone.
"Echo, please respond over." Dawes repeated the string of words a few times, and also sent text directives to the squad's Dismounted Data Automated Communications Terminals. Dawes had long ago overcome the feeling of awkwardness of directing ground forces from hundreds of miles above, but the feeling of emersion in the battlefield never left when you were responsible for men's lives.
SAN PABLO, TYRUS II: ERANADI XII
504th ODST Pathfinders
CS: Bravo
ATTACHED: ONI SOE Unit
Caen lay only a few yards from Jones, but both only whispered only their COM. Mackenzie was to Caen's right, lying quietly, observing the gun battery through his visor's magnification.
"Soft target…moving left of the motor pool, two-hundred-meters." Mackenzie rasped.
Caen twisted the knob on the crown of the 2x Magnification scope on his SOPMOD BR55HB. The Jackal patrolling the perimeter of the battery snapped into clarity. The ONI lieutenant squeezed off a pair of silenced rounds.
The Jackal only heard what he mistook for a breeze rushing towards him. Caen watched as the bird-like alien's skull shattered from the high-powered slugs ripping through its cranium.
"Down."
"Two more, one of each. Four yards apart, Brute's got chieftain markings…" Mackenzie reported, watching the Covenant mill about.
Both marksmen fired simultaneously, Caen dropping the unarmored Jackal, and Jones perforating the Brute's head with the higher caliber.
"Outer perimeter is clear." Jones said, a hint of satisfaction flavoring his voice.
"Moving." Mackenzie was already advancing with his M7S up and ready, closing on the battery. Caen followed a few yards behind and apart, so one burst could not cut them both down. Jones stayed back clearing out any survivors and watching for snipers.
Mackenzie's SMG flashed and a pair Jackals flew into pieces. Caen dropped one of the gunners with a six-round burst to his chest. Contrails of smoke whipped past him as Jones felled hostiles before Caen could even detect them.
"Your clear, guys." Jones acknowledged, moving towards them.
Mackenzie looked down at a wheezing Jackal, whose chest was shredded by a burst of his M7. The ODST Sergeant lifted his boot and crushed the skull beneath it with a sickening crunch. Jones vaulted the last few barricades and went to work rigging a mass of explosives to the massive antiaircraft battery.
The Marines led the way to the security of the shadows as the charges went off. The gun structure groaned and protested, and with its supports altered to shrapnel, promptly collapsed to the ground.
Caen was developing a fondness for the grunt work, and was sure Mackenzie was grinning under his visor as the flames licked at the wreckage of the Covenant battery. The next gun was a thousand yards to the east, seated securely on the beach overlooking the Tyran Ocean.
SAN PABLO, NORTHERN DISTRICT
'ECHO' CRASH SITE
CS: Uniform 9-8
ATTACHED: 504th ODST Pathfinders
He slipped in and out of consciousness, lulled to a semi-awake state by the still humming engines and static of the COM channel. Dutch was still sitting outside, the rain pelting his armor, washing away the blood. Haley had returned now, fresh blood on his armor, from a Jackal patrol, he said.
"Echo, please respond, over." Todd's eyes shot open as his brain fought to bring his body up to speed. His hand shot to pistol on his lap, releasing the safety and leveling it out the rear of the Pelican.
"Echo, please respond, over." He was terrified that he had drifted into unconsciousness and berated himself for the risk he inflicted on his team. Haley and Dutch were inside the troopbay now, peeking outwards towards the skies, where the shriek of Banshee fliers filled the air.
"Don't." Dutch warned him as he moved towards the COM console. "Banshees are listening for outgoing. Probably a team moving towards us now."
Todd nodded, sliding the action of the M6 back until it clicked. The hauntingly familiar hum of Phantom drop craft replaced the Banshee whine. Two of the violet-hued bulbous ships coasted through the storming skies, one of them orbited the rooftop, its plasma turrets swiveling around, searching for targets. The second craft descended to a few meters off the surface and dispatched a small contingent of Jackals to scurry towards the fallen Pelican.
"Uh-oh." Two black-clad Elites splashed to the rooftop as well, plasma rifles sweeping towards the crashed dropship.
"Hit 'em!" Dutch cried, firing his battle rifle at full-automatic, dropping a trio of Jackal point troopers. The Elites behind the Jackal lines barked orders and motioned the remaining six to charge the humans.
Haley fired in two-round bursts, blowing apart his nearest target's skull. Todd fired at the Elites, missing several shots as the warriors danced in and out of cover. Finally a pair of slugs landed on one of their chests, illuminating its shields and dropping him to the floor. It was still alive, of course, bleeding hopefully, but alive.
Another Jackal wondered into his field of fire and dropped, clutching his gut, writhing in the rain. One of the Elites sprung up and strafed the troopbay with plasma fire. Dutch leapt clear of the dropship, avoiding the lethal barrage. Haley, however, was shot through the head and crumpled to the deck. Todd fired the last of his magazine and released the empty, reaching for another. A bolt of energy flew through his shoulder, spinning him around and dropping him to the floor.
Blood pooled on the deck of the troopbay, making it slick. The Covenant were advancing now, Todd noticed he couldn't hear Dutch firing anymore. Eric Todd crawled towards the cockpit, hoping to reach the COM unit before—
His eyes widened and his mouth wide slack. He could have sworn he had had more time, he didn't even hear the Elite approach. It was over now…the pain began to dull as his vision darkened.
The Sangheili infiltrator withdrew his blade and looked down at the dying human. There was honor in these adversaries if nothing else. The alien had been badly wounded before the battle and still tried to accomplish his mission with his dying breath. The Elite sighed and turned to leave the human ship. The Jackals lay strewn about the rooftop, torn apart by the human's projectile weapons. His fellow Sangheili stood a few yards away, inspecting the corpse of the Jackal lieutenant.
A hail of gunfire tore his comrade apart before his eyes as the third human sprung from the shadows and attacked. The Sangheili's lightning reflexes did little to avoid being sprayed down as well, his shields dying with a flash as the heavy caliber rounds slid through his armor and skin.
He collapsed to the ground with a splash, paralyzed. He assumed that several of the bullets had hit his spine, rendering him as good as dead. The human, however, did not deliver him the courtesy of executing him, but instead rushed to the cockpit where he friends had died. The Elite growled in agony as his blood pooled around him, cursing himself for his arrogance as he slowly died.
SAN PABLO, TYRUS II: ERANADI XII
504th ODST Pathfinders
CS: Bravo
ATTACHED: ONI SOE Unit
"Contact comin' around the bend, one hundred meters." Jones whispered into their SQUADCOM, causing the team to drop to the stomachs and train their rifles on the street corner ahead.
A different voice breathed across their channel a second later. "Bravo, hold your fire, friendly coming out…" The mystery soldier ordered, and appeared a few seconds later, dressed in a ODST body suit, the name 'DUTCH' stenciled onto his helmet, along with red paint on his shoulders. His faceplate was shattered along the left side of his face, revealing an emerald eye reddened with grief.
Jones swore and jogged forward to meet him. As Dutch advanced his steps began to falter until he finally crumpled to the street. Jones skidded to a halt and looked him over, noticing a bloody hole just under his ribs. Zero-Six drew a syringe of biofoam and stabbed the needle in just above the wound, injecting the cocktail of chemicals that hardened and formed a artificial skin over the opening. Next came the adrenaline, injected into the interior of the elbow.
Dutch jerked as the manufactured hormone raised his blood pressure and heartbeat. His visible eye snapped open and searched the faces looking down at him.
"Dutch. Dutch, you with us, man?" Jones asked him, shaking him a bit.
"…Whole team…pilots…everybody." He said quietly, a tear cutting through the blood staining his face.
"Dutch, get it together, man. It's over. There ain't nothin' we can do for 'em now." Jones assured him, pushing the Marine's rifle back into his hands and pulling him to his feet.
"Yeah…" Dutch breathed, settling and regaining his composure. "Sorry, man."
"Nothing to apologize for, Marine. Let's move." Mackenzie ordered, slapping Dutch's shoulder plates and moving into the downpour.
Caen watched as an outsider to the camaraderie and friendship these men shared on the field of battle, something that he had never had with any other agent he had worked with in the field. ONI hadn't taught friendship, or the value of watching another's back. That was most likely why the Covenant had been so efficient in weeding out ONI teams and dispatching them during covert operations.
During the Insurrection Wars, ONI had known its enemy better than it had known itself. Now that the agency could not rely on the OPFOR's reactions, they had suffered high causalities in the field. That was the purpose of the ODSTs on this mission in the first place. Caen had no doubt that without them; both he, and his counterpart in Alpha, would both be lying dead on the streets of San Pablo.
They were closing on the 'B' battery now, and witnessed something especially surprising. The antiaircraft gun was slumped over, its barrel buried in the concrete floor. Delta's Pelican had gone down and skidded into one of the supports of the cannon, bringing the entire structure down on its crew's heads.
Caen and the Marines looked in sadness at the crumpled, blackened hulk of Delta Team's Pelican, V-048, its occupants surely buried inside. Bravo advanced into the area, cleaning up the survivors of Victor 4-8's final assault.
Caen strode to the rear of the Pelican, finding a pair of Jackals searching the bodies in the troopbay, oblivious to the UNSC presence due to their silenced weaponry. The ONI lieutenant approached quietly, slinging his M7 across his chest. His right hand drew the M6 at his hip, his left, the KBAR knife at his shoulder.
The nearest Jackal didn't even turn around and Caen jammed the knife's blade into the base of the creature's skull, provoking a blood-curdling screech as it convulsed on the edge of the blade. The farther one turned and squawked furiously at him, reaching for the plasma rifle at its waist. Caen fired twice, low. The Magnum recoiled silently, and delivered two fist-sized holes in the Jackal's stomach, doubling it over, its rifle skittering to the deck.
The gun battery was clear, and the Covenant gun crew was dead. Another achieved objective that could not have been farther from the initial directive from Colonel Luechenko. Caen reminded himself that he did not even know the entirety of ONI's operation here and shrugged as he crushed the Jackal's skull slowly, savoring the pressure he applied to the animal's cranium until it popped with a wet splash.
He reverently collected Delta Team's dog tags, regrettably leaving the charred bodies in place. Mackenzie was waiting for him outside, and Caen surrendered the six sets of tags to the Sergeant and walked past him.
He was learning the ways of this war for the first time. A war where nothing went as expected, and to know your enemy was only to be surprised by him with greater consequence on your next meeting. The ODSTs understood that, but it did not make it any easier to watch your squadmates die, or to find your friends burned to death simply owed to bad luck. At that moment Lieutenant Ryan Caen understood that Intelligence was a game played by an old world that had long ago passed into extinction. A game where there were only kings and pawns, and where the pawns played the kings' games, paying for the extension of the game with their lives.
There was no explaining the Covenant. ONI had sent them here to discover what the Covenant were interested in at Mount Aires. Caen couldn't give a damn about what holy artifact the bastards were drilling for. The only thing that mattered now was surviving to fight the Covenant as a true warrior, not buying information with the lives of dozens of professional soldiers.
Caen looked into the sky at the Assault Carrier that had swatted the Valhalla away like a troublesome insect. The Covenant ship hovered serenely over the mountain, squadrons of aircraft soaring down into the city from its swollen hangers. Caen wondered hopelessly if they really could continue to fight this war. He pushed the thought away as soon as it had come. He was asking the wrong question because it wasn't a question at all. It was simply to fight, or to die. With every few minutes devoted to decoding the little things about this war; he identified with the Helljumpers standing by him, more and more with each passing thought.
Ryan Caen: Ch. 4: Games Played and Won
Date: 21 December 2008, 9:20 am
August 2552:
SAN PABLO, TYRUS II: ERANADI XII
504th ODST Pathfinders
CS: Bravo
ATTACHED: ONI SOE Unit
The final Covenant anti-air emplacement was perched on the crown of a sports stadium dome. Caen and the ODSTs observed from a flooded rooftop, which had collapsed into building below in some sections.
Jones was the eye of the squad right now, watching the avian Jackals stalking the balconies of the stadium's face. The snub-nosed Type-52 plasma cannons decorated the stadium's battlements as well. Shade heavy turrets were set protecting the AA gun itself, making a direct assault impossible. Jones groaned quietly as he reported his findings.
Mackenzie unclipped his D-DACT from his chest plate and faced the small device towards the sky. The COM terminal acted as a satellite direct beam transmitter and began to try and contact the Valhalla .
"Command this is Bravo, requesting directive, over." Mackenzie rasped into the mic.
"Bravo, this is Op Command, what's your situation?" Dawes asked from orbit.
"Command, 'C' battery is heavily fortified, over." Mackenzie said, watching the Covenant troopers patrolling along the stadium walls.
"Affirmative on that, Bravo. Your decision, can you neutralize the battery?"
Gunnery Sergeant Lincoln Mackenzie met the gazes of the others. He knew his Marines, and even Caen, would rush the structure, and die trying, if need be, to take down the battery. "…Negative, Command. Covenant strength is too much for us to deal with this one…"
"Your in luck, Gunny. We would've passed out of contact if you waited a few more minutes. Keep your heads down, Marine. Sky-fire's coming down in ten."
The storming skies broke open to a super-heated kinetic round burned a path through the clouds, revealing a glimpse of the stars above. The MAC round landed directly on top of the 'C' gun, and continued through the stadium, deep into the foundation below.
The entire stadium was obliterated, the remaining superstructure sinking into the crater made by the MAC's blast. "Command, Bravo reports a kill on Charlie. Repeat, 'C' battery is down."
"Alright, CSAR bird is on its way to give you a lift." Dawes drawled over the COM.
"Sir? Did you make contact with Alpha?" Caen asked, looking to the skies, which had closed and filled again with the Tyran rain clouds.
"…Negative, on Alpha, Lieutenant. No contact."
"…Acknowledged."
The Marines watched the streets below carefully. Apart from a Phantom and a pair of Banshees inspecting wreckage, nothing of consequence happened until the Combat Search And Rescue bird descended on the rooftop and lifted them into the skies.
Caen strapped into the troopbay's jump seats and exhaled as the CSAR Pelican raced back into the clouds, and then to orbit. The dropship soared through the vacuum until it intercepted the crippled Valhalla .
The UNSC Destroyer was less than a shadow of its former self. The entire port side of the ship was molten slag, no doubt leaving half the crew dead. Caen shuddered as his view of the exterior of the Valhalla disappeared as the launch bay surrounded him. The CSAR touched down and released its Marines.
The three ODSTs removed their helmets and stalked towards the armories to return their gear and grab some sleep before the next patrol. Caen stood on the deck of the hanger, slightly confused at what he was to be doing. His commanding officer was dead, and the mission was scrubbed. As far as the ONI officer was concerned, his usefulness as an intelligence officer was nil.
A naval Petty Officer informed him, however, that his duties were far from complete. The NCO instructed him to report to the Command Deck for debriefing, immediately. Lieutenant Caen complied, winding through the ship's corridors and emerged at the Bridge checkpoint a few minutes later.
A fire-team of shock troopers stood with MA5 rifles at their shoulders guarded the blast doors leading into the Command Deck. The Master Sergeant waved him in, relaxing somewhat.
Caen entered the dilapidated Bridge, looking in horror at the amount of destruction the area had suffered. Deanda spotted him and directed him off the Bridge to the briefing room situated aft of the deck. The lieutenant saluted and obeyed, walking past another pair of ODST sentries, he entered the conference room. A long oak table dominated the room, with three other officers already seated. One of them was Major Mikhail Il'ych Alexandrov, now his commanding officer since Colonel Pavel Ivanovich Luechenko's death several hours beforehand. The two ONI agents had both had relatives in the intelligence business as far back as the Soviet KGB. Caen saluted the older agent and turned to the two others. One was the ODST commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Cunningham, and the other was the Commander of the Valhalla 's Air Group, Captain Richard Brackenbury.
The Marine and Naval officers saluted him lazily and returned to their reports. Caen took his seat and waited for the remainder of the command crew to enter. Captain Deanda and Lieutenant Dawes finished the set, taking their seats and addressing the group.
Alexandrov spoke first. "I believe it is time that you learned the extent of our mission here." The ONI officer said; his voice flavored with a St. Petersburg accent, a relatively common one throughout the UNSC.
"Indeed." Brackenbury commented not without a little contempt.
The spook ignored him. "The Covenant are interested in something one of our covert branches discovered beneath Mt. Aires. Some sort of relic that falls into the characteristics as the one the found on Sigma Octanus a few years back, that we believe is of great importance to the Covenant… there is a bunker underneath the mountain where our agents are holed up.
"Our initial objective was to get inside and extract the relic before the Covenant got to it first… since the Covenant has three battalions on the ground with an entire Carrier Air Group over the city will make it difficult to do so." Alexandrov sat back down, leaving the conversation open to the other members.
"My boys are a little shorthanded since our boxing match with the Covenant heavy hitters. We don't have the numbers for a ground assault." Cunningham observed grimly.
"We only lost a fraction of the Air Group, I can lead the squadron planet side and knockout the carrier's point defenses, and send the Hornets in to hit the infantry on the ground." Brackenbury suggested.
"My Marines can ride shotgun with the Hornets to make the grab once the sentries are taken care of." Cunningham added, happy to involve his Marines in the process.
"The Longswords are the only thing we have that can punch out the Carrier's point guns, and we lost Commander Golden's wing during the first battle." Deanda said to his aviator counterpart.
"Yes, I suppose it would require a bit of effort on my part."
"EMP." Caen said quietly.
"What was that, Lieutenant Caen?" Alexandrov asked, interested.
"We would need to drop an EMP charge right above the Carrier, the blast will knock out their shields for a short time, and our Longswords race in and hammer bastards." Caen said, impressed by the idea.
"If their shields are gone, we could land my Marines inside the carrier and rig a Shiva to blow their asses back into orbit…" Cunningham mused.
"Colonel, you know that it would be near impossible to extract your men from the carrier, even if you managed to land them there." Deanda pointed out.
"I'd only be taking volunteers, Captain." Cunningham said, resting his hand on his M6 for emphasis.
"On any other circumstance I would not approve the op, but since the carrier will finish us off after its done on the surface, I think this is our last chance… Brackenbury, you're willing to lead the Longsword wing?"
"Of course, Deanda."
"Cunningham, put together your boarding party and your Special Ops team to extract the relic." Deanda ordered.
"What if the teams on the ground can't get to the relic in time?" Cunningham asked; he would need to know the specifics when he briefed his men.
"They'll blow the mountain and deny the relic to the Covenant Forces or die trying." Deanda ordered.
Cunningham smiled. "I wouldn't have it any other way, sir."
Brackenbury stood and left the room to assemble his pilots. Cunningham followed to choose his teams. Caen stood away from the table and pursued the Lieutenant Colonel.
"Colonel Cunningham!" He said.
"Yes, Lieutenant?"
"I'd like to be attached to the team retrieving the relic, sir. I wouldn't feel right sending your men to finish what we started." Caen said apologetically.
The Marine Officer considered it for a moment. "...You understand that my Marines will be in charge down there, and ONI rank doesn't translate any better than a recruit when you're in the field…you still sure you want in?"
"Of course, sir. I've never trusted anyone more than your Marines, sir." Caen replied, standing at attention.
"Fine, Caen, I'll attach you to Bravo again, without Hayes we're a man short anyway. Don't let me down."
"Not a chance, sir."
ORBIT ABOVE TYRUS II, ERANADI XII
UNSCN Valhalla
STARBOARD LAUNCH HANGER
Alpha Longsword Wing would be led by Captain Brackenbury, and would hit first. Alpha consisted of twelve C709 Longsword Interceptors. The Interceptors would fire guided munitions at the point defense turrets along the carrier's hull and neutralize them for the later wings to complete their duties.
Bravo Assault Wing would be lead by Commander Healy, and would consist of six AV-14 Hornets and twelve Sparrowhawk gunships. ODST 'Bravo' platoon would deploy from the Hornets once they had cleared an LZ.
Charlie Assault Wing would be led by Lieutenant Colonel Cunningham, and would be made up of a D77H-TCI Pelican and a pair of AV-14 Hornets. The Marines would be piloting the Pelican, mainly to make sure it was still there when they were done with their job on the carrier, and the Hornets would attempt to protect them from Covenant fighters.
Delta Support Wing would consist of a pair of CSAR birds, a feeble gesture at trying to recover the probable loss of friendly aircraft to the surface.
Caen strode to the Hornet he was assigned to and looked it over. The landing skids had been modified to mount a M41 LAAG cannon on either skid, so that its passengers could defend against the more agile Banshees from ambushing the AV-14. The Navy pilot nodded to him and took his seat in the cockpit. His name was stenciled into the canopy of the craft. LT. KENNEN, M.
Caen attached the tether to his belt and cinched it tight. Corporal Jones acknowledged him and strapped in as well. There were only two Marines assigned to each Hornet, and only eight of the twelve Marines were going in for the relic, since the rest were needed to keep the Covenant off their backs while they searched the bunker.
Mackenzie and another ODST were strapped in on the AV-14 next to them; Mackenzie gave him a thumb's up. The other members of the 504th tethered themselves to their Hornets and secured their pressure suits.
The Valhalla would be entering the atmosphere directly over the carrier to deploy the EMP and its Air Group. Caen watched as the CSAR teams suited up as well, members of Echo Platoon that made up the search and rescue teams. Cunningham and his volunteers were loading a pair of Shiva nukes into the troopbay of their Pelican.
Alpha Wing was already outside, following the destroyer through orbit, ready to strike the second the shields of the carrier collapsed. Every aircraft's engines flared to life, preparing to speed out of the hanger bay the second the signal was given.
The EMP charge was fired directly into spine of the carrier, detonating immediately, knocking out a flight of Banshees patrolling their airspace. The carrier was too large to be knocked out of the air, but, as Caen predicted, the shield flickered and disappeared.
"Shield's are down, we are go! Go! Go!"
The Longswords raced down towards the carrier, firing their ordnance of ASGM-10 missiles at the point defense cannons bristling along the carrier's hull. The heavy missiles converted a pair of the defense cannons to slag in seconds, and another flew apart as a set of lighter rockets slammed into it.
Seraph fighters raced skywards to engage the Longswords before they did any more damage to their mother ship. The Interceptors broke formation and opened fire with their 110mm rotary cannons, ripping the Seraph vanguard to ribbons. As the Longswords engaged the Seraphs and the last of the point cannons, Bravo and Charlie deployed.
Bravo raced towards the surface, strafing the plazas below with gunfire. Caen couldn't hear the screams of the Covenant infantry below but knew them to be there. Caen watched as the heavy turrets tore the troops apart. A flight of Banshees sprung into the air to engage the Hornet wing.
The Sparrowhawks sped forward maneuvering around the slower Banshees and firing into their cockpits with precision gunfire. Caen gripped the handles of the M41 LAAG turret and mashed the firing studs, watching a line of tracers chase away a Banshee flier. He heard Jones's gun roar to life as well, and the answering plasma explosion of a Banshee, now spiraling towards the streets below.
"Enemy triple-A coming up hot! Take 'em out!" The Wing Commander ordered. The Hornets and Sparrowhawks strafed the Wraith artillery tanks, firing guided munitions at them, engulfing them in ice blue flames.
Caen watched as Mackenzie's Hornet fell into formation adjacent to theirs. He could see the armored form of the Sergeant firing the LAAG on the skid. Two violet forms streaked in from above the other Hornet, firing a salvo of plasma bolts directly into the cockpit of Mackenzie's AV-14.
Caen cried out in grief as the Hornet burst into flames and dropped like a rock to the roof of a building below, exploding with another blinding flash. Two more Hornets and a Sparrowhawk fell to plasma fire in the following minutes.
"Hang on, boys!" Lieutenant Kennen barked as he banked the Hornet down towards the surface, avoiding plasma bursts from a passing Banshee. Kennen depressed the triggers of the tri-barreled cannons on the Hornet's wingtips, gutting a column of Covenant support craft lining the streets.
A Sparrowhawk formed up on their wing to take Mackenzie's place, firing a salvo of 102mm HEAT missiles, splashing two Banshees to the flooded surface. The Sparrowhawk pilot turned his head towards him and spoke into the COM.
"Kennen, put your Marines dirt-side, now!" Just as he finished his instruction, the Sparrowhawk erupted in flame and exploded in mid-air.
Caen had no idea how many aircraft in Bravo were still flying, but he knew they had lost nearly half of their Air Group just en route to the main objective. "Alright boys, clear the zone, I'm putting' you on the ground." Kennen warned. The Hornet's nose sunk towards the streets, its weapons blazing, cutting away Covenant Infantry moving for the AV-14 fighter.
The Hornet paused a meter above the pavement and Caen shed his harness and leapt to the ground, immediately falling to his stomach. The familiar pound of the rainfall immediately threw his senses into clarity. Jones crashed down beside him. Kennen's Hornet climbed into the air, clawing for altitude to avoid the Covenant small-arms fire.
Two more Hornets dispatched more Marines behind them and lifted off, one of them taking a direct fuel rod hit. The craft hung in the air for a moment and then crashed back to the surface. Caen advanced with the other five Helljumpers who had survived the insertion. Their weapons flashed in the darkness as they moved forward, the screams of their enemies filling the air before them.
The Sparrowhawks hovered above, spraying the areas ahead with their rotary cannons. The base of Mount Aires appeared out of the gloom, a gaping hole torn into its side from the Covenant dig crews.
The Covenant defenders retreated into the mountain to seek shelter from the human air support. Caen shot a pair of Jackals in the back and pursued, the Marines at his flank.
The shock troopers entered the mountain behind the Covenant, cutting down a pair of Grunts attempting to hide from their human adversaries. Caen fell back to allow the Marines to lead the way. They black-clad warriors advanced with professional ease, moving forward one at a time, covering each other carefully.
The Covenant seemed to have disappeared, swallowed by the mountain's gaping maw. Gradually the rough walls of the tunnel gave way to a paneled corridor not unlike those of the Valhalla .
They encountered a several Covenant corpses and continued, until impeded by a sealed blast door adorned with the Office of Naval Intelligence crest. Jones threw a glance at Caen.
"What do you think, Caen?" He asked, resting his MA5 on his shoulder.
"I'm not sure…" Caen advanced towards the door, and upon doing so, the barrier slid away. A flash of plasma illuminated the darkness below, quickly streaking towards them. A Private standing a few feet from Jones crumpled to the ground, perforated through the chest and head by bolts of energy.
The rest of the squad opened fire into the darkened hallway beyond. A low wail reported that the way was clear a moment later. Caen activated the night vision setting on his HUD and peered down the corridor. The figure of a mangled Elite lay propped against a wall, twenty yards down the hall.
Bravo Team continued to skirmish against Covenant defenders deeper and deeper into the mountain until finally reaching the site the aliens had been after. The ONI complex was state of the art; a full team of scientists had been scheduled when the installation was active, along with a squad of field agents and even a pair of Colonels from High Command.
The ODST team had finally reached the Ops Center of the complex, where the bodies of a dozen Covenant soldiers lay strewn about, in pools of violet and cobalt. Ericsson and Sterling had paid the price as well, the two ODSTs lying still at the doorway of the room.
Now only Jones and Sergeant Major Liam Chrisden were left alive of the Marine Bravo Team. Caen cast a fleeting thought for Colonel Cunningham's men aboard the carrier, and if they had even survived the drop.
In the center of the control room lay the relic, set in its Forerunner-esque casing, surrounded by cutting tools and other devices. It appeared that the ONI team had tried to remove it from the stand, for better research, but had failed and built the complex around it for study. Caen gazed down at the floor, noticing the bodies of a pair of gray-clad ONI agents, mangled by plasma burns, lying at the base of the relic.
"We're clear, Sarge." Jones said quietly.
"Alright, it looks like we won't be moving this thing, so set the nuke and lets get the hell out of here." Chrisden ordered, indistinguishable from Jones, apart from the red squad leader markings on his epaulets.
Jones slid the straps of his pack off his shoulders and extracted the C-12 shaped charges and passed them to Caen and Chrisden. The explosives were set along the supports of the control room, and when they went off, would essentially collapse this section of the mountain, burying the relic from the Covenant.
"Okay, let's get the hell away from here, Sarge you got the detonators?" Jones asked.
"Yeah, go." The three humans retreated from the ONI complex, towards the surface.
The base of Mount Aires was now a sprawling battlefield. A loose ring of HEV pods created a perimeter around the excavation site, their ODSTs holding back wave upon wave of Covenant infantry. Sparrowhawks orbited the site, aiding the Marines with air superiority.
One Marine Sergeant turned to look towards and them and shouted to his platoon. "Bravo is clear!"
"Hoo-rah!" A few shouted enthusiastically. Gunfire illuminated the night with golden flashes, and plasma danced back towards them with white-hot bolts of deadly intentions.
"Delta Wing, this is Kilo Platoon, we have Bravo and are ready for extraction over!" The Kilo Sergeant barked into his COM.
Caen barely heard the CSAR pilot's reply, deafened by his own MA5 bursts. A moment later, a charred Pelican coasted out of the clouds, two Sparrowhawks forming up on her wings, chasing a Banshee flier away from her. The Pelican dropped to the surface, the Marines of Kilo Platoon and the survivors of Bravo filing aboard, finding a seat wherever they could.
The CSAR struggled for altitude and finally limped away from the battle. Chrisden sat next to Caen at the door of the dropship, looking back down at Aires. He depressed the detonator and watched as dust and debris shot forth from the tunnel the Covenant had created. Seconds later the entire mountain shifted and collapsed in on itself, blanketing San Pablo in dust, blinding the Covenant infantry units.
Caen watched from the ramp as the surviving pilots of Alpha Wing swarmed over the carrier, harassing its fighters, buying time for Charlie Platoon inside to finish their objective.
Suddenly flames shot forth from the mouth of the carrier, along with a series of secondary explosions. A blackened Pelican sped out of the conflagration, its engines spewing black smoke. The 77H clawed for altitude until it was just too much for the engines. The Pelican spiraled in its death throes towards the surface, and skidded off the rooftops until finally crashing through the heart of a skyscraper and lodging itself inside.
"All Wings, fall back, repeat all Wings disengage!" Brackenbury ordered over the COM. The last four Longswords peeled away from the carrier and raced skywards, followed by the two Sparrowhawks from Bravo. The second CSAR bird ascended as well, materializing from the clouds of dust that hid the surface.
The Air Group streaked into the hangers of the Valhalla just as the blinding flash engulfed the Covenant Assault Carrier. The reactivated shielding harnessed the nuclear blast within itself, literally gutting the craft before it hit the surface only a mile below.
The carrier's husk crashed to San Pablo with a ground-shaking tremor that flattened an entire district of the Northern Sector. The Air Group survivors and the Marines of Kilo, Bravo and Echo stood at the ledge of the open hanger, gazing down at the victory they had accomplished, and at the cost it had come. Caen stood among them as they saluted the comrades who had died on the surface, fighting an impossible adversary and emerging the victor.
The Covenant Carrier Confession's Price now lay defeated as a monument to the fighting spirit of the men and women of the UNSCN Valhalla . Hundreds were dead. Mackenzie, Hayes, Todd, Haley, Ericsson, Sterling, the pilots of almost an entire Air Group, half the crew of the Valhalla , Delta Team…Caen shivered at the scale at which this victory had come.
Maybe Caen didn't know why the Covenant had dedicated a battle group to a single relic, or why hundreds of UNSC personnel had died defending it from them, but they had denied the Covenant their objective, and took from them everything that they had. It was a victory of the likes the UNSC had not seen nearly enough of.
Another flight of CSAR birds were warming their engines, preparing to search for survivors. Jones was already boarding one of them. Caen's head throbbed and cried out for rest. No. Caen secured his helmet and leapt aboard the nearest Pelican and again descended into the war-torn city. Alpha was still down there somewhere, and until every last Marine was accounted for, he would not abandon them.
One of the Marines next to him slapped his shoulder and nodded at him. Caen smiled under his visor and looked out towards the shrinking Valhalla as the clouds of dust swallowed the dropship and his next objective began.
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