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And Raise Your Head With Pride! Part 1
Date: 7 February 2003, 5:01 pm

In the year 2159, slipstream space was discovered and the first manned flight to go beyond our solar system was made by the United States of America. In a ship with a cockpit only seven meters high and wide, Gerard Gambert became the first man to orbit around an extra-solar planet, Gliese 876. The trip there and back was made in less than four and a half years, and this opened the gateway for space exploration.
      By 2197, the method of using slipstream space was modified and made better. Fleets of American vessels were sent out in all directions of the galaxy, most going to solar systems where Earth-like planets had been seen with telescopes. The trips were for the most part successful. By 2200 four ships had arrived in orbit around planets capable of sustaining human life, and two ships arrived at other gas giants. Messages of their success were sent back to earth via subspace and several astronauts actually walked on extraterrestrial surfaces without the aid space gear.
      In all, six life sustaining planets were discovered by 2204, and Earth, which was bursting at its seams with over-population, sent waves of people to these planets to colonize them. American space explorers opted to go beyond their boundaries and find new planets and new systems. This proved to be quite difficult.
      There was a large gap between the planets that had been discovered already and the new planets beyond. As the Americans prepared for the much longer trip, countries from Earth?s Eastern Coalition built several ships quickly and sent them beyond the reaches of American space and into the unknown. By 2217, after many ships were destroyed because of the rushed effort, two ships made it to undiscovered planets with Earth-like conditions. These two planets were named Ionius and Abakum, and the Eastern Coalition made a rushed effort to get the two planets colonized as quickly as possible.
      The year is now 2399. The Americans have formed the UNSC (United Nations Space Command) to govern all seven planets in their territory. Two other planets, Jericho VII and Arreat V, were both planets founded and colonized by America?s allies and were not governed directly by the UNSC. Two other planets, Ionius and Abakum, became isolated pockets of resistance.
      After 2379, when American forces attacked and successfully destroyed the Eastern Coalition back on Earth, Ionius and Abakum were cut off from their founders and thus formed their own government and own military. After about 150 years of constant colonization from mainly Russia, China, and the Middle East, both planets were heavily populated with a large ground army. The UNSC, however, had destroyed their entire space fleet in a brief but costly battle in the Epsilon Eridani System. The gateway for a UNSC lead invasion of the hostile planets Ionius and Abakum was now open.
      A fleet of twelve UNSC battleships entered orbit around Abakum in July of 2399, but surface to orbit nuclear warheads destroyed one frigate and badly damaged another. The order for retreat of the badly planned invasion was called and the battlegroup?s admiral, Kenneth Alcolado, was forced to resign in disgrace. A new man, Admiral John Stevenson, was appointed to lead an invasion force onto the two planets by any way he saw fit. A very small battlegroup of only three carriers and two cruisers was assembled and they arrived in the Abakum System in October of that year. A new attempt to dislodge the two troublesome planets was about to commence.

And Raise Your Head With Pride! Part 2
Date: 9 February 2003, 3:37 pm

"Now, Colonel O'Keefe, if you would present the battle plan," Admiral Stevenson said in his usual cold voice.
      "Yes, sir," O'Keefe said, standing up and walking over to the whiteboard. O'Keefe turned around to face the twenty men assembled at the Admiral's conference table and said, "Let me begin by addressing the concern which I have heard many of you have. You seem to think we cannot invade the planet with three carriers and two cruisers. If you presume that, then I thank you, for you would be more perceptive than I have given you credit for."
      The officers at the table seemed quite taken aback by this little speech and they all looked at each other uncomfortably. Stevenson cracked a rare smile. "Our job here is not to conquer these planets but to soften them for a proper invasion. I'm sure you've all heard about Admiral Alcolado's little masquerade here. Obviously a full-scale assault is not yet possible. Allow me to explain our mission.
      "We are going to insert a group of several hundred marines into Iskorosten and we are going to capture Latsek Slavonosh, the elected leader of the Abakum Colony. These marines will be inserted via Pelican drop offs. Any questions?"
      "Yes, sir," said Major Bradley. "Why are were going to capture him? Why not just kill him by bombing him?"
      "We plan to capture him and try to negotiate for him. If this fails we will execute him and transmit it universally using a subspace transmitter. This, we hope, will serve to dishearten the people and throw them into political chaos."
      "What about his location, sir," asked Captain White. "How do we even know where he is?"
      O'Keefe looked uncomfortable at this question, as if he were unsure of the answer. "We have spies on the surface, Captain. We're told he will be in Halu's House if the city was ever attacked. That's where you're going to grab him."
      "Is Abakum intelligence aware of our position?" asked Captain Harper.
      O'Keefe shook his head. "Our proximity to Yieles VI and the asteroid belt should keep us safe from detection by both planet sensors and by telescope. We're sitting in the dark."
      O'Keefe waited briefly for any more questions, but, hearing none, he continued, "We will be sending in the bombers and fighters at 0900. Major Bradley, you will be in charge of the bombing squad and Captain Miller, you will be in command of the fighter squadron. Flight plans have already been uploaded to your individual ships. Good luck, gentlemen."
      Admiral Stevenson rose up slowly from his chair and with him the rest of the officers in the room. "Your dismissed," he said to the men, and, with a prompt and unanimous salute, everybody emptied out of the room.
      The old, pale admiral walked slowly and tiredly over to Major O'Keefe, his chief military advisor and good friend. "What do you think of the plan, O'Keefe?"
      O'Keefe, a gruff, harsh man, did not disguise his opinion, even t his admiral. "I think it is a incredibly risky plan whose outcome is less than sure, sir. However, if it works," O'Keefe looked at Stevenson with a cocked eyebrow, "what fools will the Abakums look like."
      Stevenson laughed out loud. "That's the idea, major, that's the idea."

      The battlegroup, though small, was impressive. The three carriers, the Indefatigable, the Washington, and the Galleon were all top-notch, modern carriers that spelled moving death for any target it was after. The Indefatigable and the Washington were both 425 meters long with eighteen decks. The Galleon was 475 meters long with twenty decks. They could all carry thousands of troops as well as over one hundred tanks and pelican dropships. The Indefatigable carried few troops or tanks, but instead housed 73 bombers and 35 fighters. All three carriers each weighed approximately 175,000 tons with state of the art fusion engines and with two and a half feet of solid titanium A battle plating.
      The two Cruisers, the Montgomery and the Constellation were each Kelson-class cruisers and were both 280 meters in length with fourteen decks. They carried an impressive armament of 140 Falcon Missile pod bays on each side of the ship, as well as two nuclear warhead shafts per side. In addition to an impressive arsenal of modern weaponry, they both had three feet of titanium A battle plating with additional reinforced titanium buffers through the ship preventing it from breaking apart. They also had an additional two feet of battle plating surrounding the fusion reactor core. Both Cruisers could take a phenomenal amount of punishment without buckling. To top it all off, they both had 10 bombers and 12 fighters in their docking bay.
      But now the Indefatigable was empty. The loading bays of both the Montgomery and the Constellation were similarly vacant. For all 93 bombers and 59 fighters had gone on an air assault on Abakum.
      The LOBs (low orbit bombers) and LOFs (low orbit fighters) were practical quick strike spacecraft that could inflict the maximum amount of damage in the smallest amount of time. What they did was they got into orbit around the planet at a very high altitude to stay of out anti-aircraft range, and then, when they were over their target, they could drop to a low orbit and hit their targets with pinpoint accuracy and speed out before AA can even get a lock on them. The plan was to take out all of the SAM sites and land based airports so as to clear the way for pelican insertion. It was a good plan but it all relied on surprise, because if the Abakum could deploy their fighters, they would greatly outnumber the attack force and the assault would be a disaster.
      "We're fifty-five million kilometers from Abakum, Captain Miller," Major Bradley said to the fighter squadron leader. "ETA twenty minutes."
      "Acknowledged red leader," Miller responded.
      The 152 spacecraft sped towards the distant blue dot in a tight formation with the bombers in the middle and the fighters forming a circle all around them. They flew past asteroids and space dust, gas anomalies and small stray rocks. Miller looked at all this through his starboard window as he continued on past it. The Captain had one small tactical nuke in his arsenal, as did two other fighters and all of the bombers. It would be so easy to end the threat to them for good by just pressing one button, but FLEETCOM had forbidden the use of nuclear weapons on either Ionius or Abakum. They would have to do this the hard way.
      "Target in sight," Bradley said after about twenty minutes. All eyes in the strike force turned to look at the planet. It looked extraordinarily like Earth, except its oceans took up much more of the surface and its waters looked slightly greener. "All right, red team, turn on auto-pilot mode." Pictures of Iskorosten were taken using an onboard telescope from the Washington had given Admiral Stevenson and the other senior officers a good idea of the layout of the city and all its primary targets. Thus a predetermined flight plan had already been made for the bombers. The pilots were there simply to act as a backup should disaster strike. "Okay, red squad, let's move in."
      Simultaneously all the bombers took a steep dive towards the planet and level off suddenly at high orbit. The fighters, who had no flight plan, followed in kind manually.
      This was now the most dangerous part of the mission. For two minutes the strike force would have to remain very close to the planet and wait for the orbital spin to line up with the projected flight path. If they were detected prematurely everything would go to hell.
      "You got anything, Miller?" Bradley asked, looking at his own radar.
      "No fighters moving above the surface in the vicinity," Miller said. Then, abandoning his sensors, he looked through his enhanced visual optic telescope, scanning the surface with his own eye to see if there was any unusual movement. He saw nothing. "Nah, I can't see shit."
      "Ready yourselves, men," Bradley said. "We're diving in ten seconds."
      It seemed liked no time at all when suddenly the LOBs descended into lower orbit. The LOFs sped up to keep with them.
      In just five seconds the low orbit bombers were in low orbit and they dropped their payload: an eight meter long, 12 ton Nimitz bomb. In less than one second after the bomb was dropped, they turned up and sped up into vacuum.
      The Nimitz bombs were not actually one bomb. Instead, the eight-meter long casing housed almost 100 smaller remote guided missiles that tracked individual targets once the casing exploded at an elevation of 20 kilometers. Thus about 100 bombers actually dropped nearly 10,000 bombs.
      As soon as the bombers were out of low orbit, the fighters followed with them. "I got a missile on my tail!" one man yelled. The man, a lieutenant Peterson, hurriedly let off a flare, but it was useless; the AA missile struck his ship's hull and it burst into flame. AA missiles hit two more bombers, but no more were able to lock on.
      Miller looked through his telescope down to the surface in case any fighters were following him, but instead he saw thousands of small explosions all over the city. "Good work, Alpha team!" Miller said over the COM system. "We'll give O'Keefe something to be proud about!"

And Raise Your Head With Pride! Part 3
Date: 28 February 2003, 4:18 pm

      ?The success of the initial bombing strike exceeded even my best expectations,? Major O?Keefe said to everyone in the conference room. ?From these pictures given to us by Captain Miller, we have determined that the main fusion powerplant had been disabled, the primary AA batteries have been disabled or destroyed, the planetside sensor network severely damaged, and the SOM system?s targeting array destroyed. In addition, four of the space/air ports have been either destroyed or made temporarily inoperable. My appreciation goes to blue and red team?s excellent performance.?
      Admiral Stevenson stood up and nodded curtly to the major. ?Thank you, Major O?Keefe. Colonel Wallace...? Stevenson gestured towards the whiteboard, inviting him to stand up there. Colonel Wallace was the man in charge of the Marines of the battlegroup.
      ?Aye, sir,? Wallace said, and he stood up, walking with even-paced strides to the front of the room. ?The Admiral and I are both truly grateful that the bombing run was as successful as it was. Our carriers may now move in close to the planet and begin the invasion from there. Our ground strike force will be carried out in two different areas of the city. The first will be the nuclear missile complex just outside the city. The other will be Halu?s House in the heart of downtown Iskorosten. Make no mistake, Halu?s House is no house. In reality it is a heavily defended bunker that stretches 300 meters under the ground. Getting Latsek Slavonosh will be incredibly difficult.
      ?For the mission we will have five thousand men taking the nuclear complex and eight thousand men taking the bunker. This will be done with 250 Pelicans that will stay there with you and provide aerial cover for you. In turn the LOFs will provide cover for the Pelicans and the Cruisers will cover the LOFs.
      ?The plan for taking the nuclear facility is simple. The five thousand men will be dropped off at five different positions across the complex and they will go to the silos and hold their position there. They will remain there until we have captured Latsek and his closest political friends to avoid a nuclear strike on the battlegroup in orbit.
      ?Regarding the plan for the bunker, that will be somewhat more complex. All the marines will be dropped off at the one and only entrance to the bunker. 4000 marines will make their way into the bunker and enter Latsek?s chamber at the bottom floor of the facility. With him should be Vysheslav Volokov and Gavrilko Baatyr, both of them top political advisors to Latsek. If at all possible, get them too. As for the other 4000 marines, they will remain outside Halu?s House and form a perimeter at the entrance on the surface to prevent any nasty surprises when they emerge.
      ?Any questions??
      The whole room was silent, momentarily stunned by the enormity of their mission. And it was all for one man. Seeing there was to be no questions, Wallace, finished by saying, ?Colonel Davis, you?re in charge of the ground team at the nuclear complex. Captain Jefferson, you?re in charge of the bunker team. And don?t kid yourselves, men,? Wallace added, ?the city is on high alert after those bombing strikes and the nuclear facility and Halu?s House will be the two most heavily guarded places on the surface. Be ready for anything.?
      Stevenson stood up. ?Dismissed!? he said with a tone of finality.

      The cruisers and carriers moved out from Yieles VI and set a course directly for Abakum. They did not use slipspace to get there, for that would bring too much attention to them from too far away. Nevertheless, Yieles was only four hundred million kilometers away from the hostile planet, and the trip would take less than ten minutes.
      ?We?ll be in orbit around Abakum in two minutes, Captain,? helmsman Hindman announced to Kyle Palcutt, the captain of the Montgomery.
      ?Thank you, Mr. Hindman,? the Captain said calmly.
      ?Sir!? Lieutenant Forbes cried from the sensor station. ?We?ve got inbound fighters, sir. I?m reading approximately 1200 of them. ETA our position, one minute, thirty seconds.?
      Palcutt stood up from his chair. ?Lieutenant Hindman, bring us about! Mr. Yelkes, send a warning to the rest of the battlegroup.?
      ?Aye, sir!?
      The Montgomery came to a full stop, and seconds later, the three carriers also ceased moving. The Constellation moved up from the rear of the group and halted approximately fifty thousand kilometers from the Montgomery, brandishing a full broadside to the eventual position of the fighters. By this time the enemy had come within firing range of the Montgomery.
      ?They?ve fired, sir!? Forbes said. ?All of them. Impact in twenty seconds.?
      ?Lieutenant Wagner, fire the cannons!? Palcutt yelled.
      ?Firing,? Wagner announced.
      The Montgomery?s two hundred rapid-fire 100mm Halcun guns fired a wall of lead into 1200 incoming missiles. There were visible explosions as hundreds of the missiles detonated prematurely due to the massive bullets ripping through them. Despite this effort, out of 1200 missiles, there were many targets the Halcun guns failed to eliminate.
      ?Brace for impact!? Forbes cried.
      Five hundred and fifty missiles struck the hull of the Montgomery. The ship lurched as the collective explosions rocked the ship dangerously. Palcutt, who was not strapped in to his chair, slipped and rolled to the main view-screen.
      ?Damage report!? Palcutt asked angrily, standing up at the same time and wiping blood from his lip.
      ?Varying degrees of damage to the outer hull,? Forbes said, examining his computer. ?The enemy fire was not concentrated. No breach. Inner hull is in tact. No casualties have been reported.?
      Palcutt nodded. ?Now, Mr. Wagner, fire the Falcon missiles,? he said with relish.
      ?Missiles away,? Wagner announced.
      140 Falcon missiles were fired from the Montgomery?s broadside towards the swarm of enemy fighters. Likewise, the Constellation had loosed two full broadsides of missiles and all three carriers had each launched forty missiles at them. Palcutt watched with anticipation as the bright glowing missiles approached the incoming fighters, highlighted in green on the view-screen. Then, quite suddenly, there were hundreds of large explosions within the enemy force.
      ?Attack successful, sir!? said Forbes. ?Half the fighters have been destroyed.?
      The Constellation had moved up alongside the swarm of fighters and was now firing a constant stream of bullets at the fighters. The bullets created havoc within the bulk of the enemy. Nevertheless, before retreating, the fighters let loose one last salvo at the Montgomery.
      ?Wagner...? Palcutt began.
      Wagner understood immediately. ?Yes, sir.?
      The Montgomery once again opened fire with her 200 Halcun turrets, and once again it shredded many of the incoming missiles. This time, because of the severely diminished enemy force, only 120 missiles got through.
      ?Damage report, lieutenant,? Palcutt breathed.
      ?Still no hull penetration, sir,? he reported. ?All systems are in tact.?
      Palcutt briefly watched the remaining four hundred fighters retreat back to the planet. ?Mr. Wagner, send our fighters after them.?
      ?Aye, sir,? Wagner acknowledged.
      The Indefatigable and the Constellation had already both released their fighters and the 12 fighters of the Montgomery were just joining them. The remaining enemy spacecraft were trapped. If they turned around, the heavily armed cruisers would annihilate them, but if they continued to retreat, the superior fighters would catch up with them and destroy them one by one. Unfortunately, the enemy fighters did the worst possible thing. One half continued back to Abakum, while the other half valiantly turned around and prepared to hold their ground. It was a sad, miscalculated error. A single salvo from the Montgomery destroyed the awaiting fighters, and the UNSC fighters destroyed the rest of the retreating force.
      Not a single survivor made it back to Abakum.

      The battlegroup entered orbit around Abakum five minutes later, and preparations for invasion were undertaken. The troops for the bunker?s strike force was taken from the Washington and the Galleon. The nuclear complex?s strike force was derived from the Indefatigable, the Constellation, and the Montgomery. Men were constantly being shuttled back and forth between the ships in Pelicans and different types of vehicles were exchanged to meet with mission perimeters. Plans were made, revised, and thrown out. Marines locked and loaded their weapons and lined up in cargo bays, ready for the word to move out.
      ?What do you think, Colonel,? Stevenson asked Wallace, a touch of anxiety audible in his usually impassive voice.
      ?I think it will work, sir,? Wallace said, intelligently leaving his own face devoid of emotion or opinion.
      Stevenson turned away from Wallace in disgust, not knowing what to believe. ?It is a lose-lose situation, Colonel,? he said tiredly, his helpless tone making his old frame appear even more fragile. ?FLEETCOM has not permitted excessive civilian casualties, so that rules out nuclear strike and carpet bombing. So they give me five ships and tell me to attack their political system. The men will be outnumbered ten to one down there. Success will not come without a high price, if it comes at all.?
      ?And if you succeed, admiral?? Wallace asked patiently.
      ?Then those bastards will blame me for the large amounts of casualties we will surely suffer down there!? he yelled angrily. ?Somebody in office wants me out of the navy, Colonel.?
      ?At the expense of possibly thousands of men?? Wallace asked skeptically.
      Stevenson waved a hand derisively as if that were not important. ?Those bastards are all corrupt, Colonel.? He began walking around the room again until he finally ended up bent over the table gazing at the image of Iskorosten taken by Captain Miller. ?Something bad is going to happen, Wallace. I can feel it. We?re playing into the hands of fate and going through the gates of doom.?

      ?Hold on tight, gentlemen,? Kirk Fogle told the Marines in the Pelican. ?There will be some firing on the surface.?
      Pelican A-13 lifted off from the deck of the Galleon following the others that had already left. Garrett Harrison, a newly recruited marine, sat in the leather seat of the Pelican transport with the other 60 Marines, gripping his strap tightly with closed eyes. He had never been in action before. In fact, almost no one in the strike force had any combat experience. This would be the largest ship to surface ground force ever assembled in history. It didn?t help to know that, after ten years of constant war, most of the soldiers in Iskorosten had more experience than the Marines.
      ?Five minutes!? Fogle said over the COM channel from the cockpit. Harrison looked through a window in the Pelican. The hull was glowing red as the transport ship descended into the atmosphere. He looked beyond the fiery glow to see the other hundreds of Pelicans following suit. It comforted Harrison somewhat just in seeing this. It made him feel safe and secure with all his comrades at his back.
      ?One minute,? Fogle announced. The Pelican was now well into the atmosphere now, and the glowing ceased. Fogle felt his stomach lurch as the effects of gravity were suddenly felt again. This combined with his nervousness made him want to wretch, but he overcame the urge.
      Harrison suddenly heard a beeping sound and a red light began blinking near the back exit. ?Brace for impact!? Fogle yelled, and, one moment later, the Pelican rocked from side to side as something struck it. It compensated quickly, however, and everything righted itself again. Harrison wondered what the hell had happened, so he looked out the window again and observed what was happening to the other Pelicans. Rockets were coming from the surface and striking the Pelicans? hulls. The thick battle plating was resisting the explosions, however. Nevertheless, these handheld AA weapons would make it hell for these ships when they would start covering the soldiers on the ground.
      ?We?re here, Marines!? Fogle called over the COM system. ?God be with you.?
      And the door to the Pelican opened.

And Raise Your Head With Pride! Part 4
Date: 28 February 2003, 4:18 pm

      ?Go go go!? Fogle yelled to the marines in the Pelican. Immediately Harrison and his comrades hopped off the hovering aircraft and onto the courtyard in Iskorosten. The courtyard was a perfect square, three hundred meters long and across. Its purpose was that of a glacis of an ancient castle. It was situated right in front of the bunker?s entrance to deter aerial insertions much like this one. 90,000 square meters of open ground, surrounded by guard towers and turrets; effectively a killing ground. And it was.
      ?Man down!? Harrison cried as a sniper hit corporal Benson next to him. ?Medic!? A nearby medic ran to Harrison?s position, only to be mowed down by a machine gun. Harrison watched in horror as the man?s chest caved in on itself.
      ?We have to get to the bunker!? Lieutenant Samson was screaming. ?Get the fuck off this courtyard, men!?
      ?Mortar!? someone screamed from afar as the whistling of the projectile became heard by all. The mortar round dropped into a group of running men, tossing them like rag-dolls into the air, their severed limbs flying off in all directions.
      ?Get to the fucking bunker!? Samson continued to scream, until he was hit in the head by a well-aimed shot by a sniper in a guard tower.
      Suddenly, four turrets surrounding the courtyard exploded with a violent ferocity. Looking at the smoldering wreckage of the entrenched structures, Harrison knew that no handheld weapon could deliver an explosion of that magnitude. He assumed the LOBs were finally giving them support.
      ?Heads up!? a man cried next to him. A rocket flew past Harrison, missing him by mere inches. The veteran soldier instinctively dove to the right, narrowly avoiding the powerful explosive?s blast radius.
      At last, the hundreds of Pelicans flying above leveled off in mid-air and began firing their 55mm rapid-fire cannons liberally all around the perimeter of the courtyard. Sides of buildings literally caved in as the explosive tipped bullets wreaked havoc around the defenders? positions.
      Harrison looked ahead. Already there were several hundred men at the gates of the bunker. With their backs to the wall, they were firing with their own weapons, assisting their retreating comrades. It was still a slaughterhouse in the open grounds. The Marines were being fired at on all sides by hundreds of defenders. One man had his legs blown off by a machine-gunner. Another group of men was blown to pieces by the cascade of explosives. With each man who died, Harrison flinched.
      At last, Harrison reached the protective entrance to the bunker. He turned around and immediately started firing with his A-89 assault rifle with scope. He wasn?t firing at much; every time he saw an enemy, another man had already spotted him. Nevertheless, his incessant firing provided a certain amount of cover for his fellow marines, for it at least helped to keep the defenders? heads down.
      A man next to Harrison jerked forward as a splash of blood washed the cement wall behind him. A bullet had gone straight through his chest. He tried to say something, but only a mouthful of blood came out. ?Medic!? Harrison called for the man, but a passing medic took a single look at the wounded man and headed past him. The explosive tipped bullet had for the most part shredded his insides. His case was hopeless; nobody was going to waste their time on him.
      An explosion bigger than others caught Harrison?s attention. Looking up, he saw that one of the Pelicans was rotating, out of control. A gout of flame erupted from one of its side engines. Apparently a lucky shot had hit the craft?s fuel lifts. ?A-24 has been hit!? someone said through the COM channel. ?24 has been hit, they are crashing.?
      ?We?re going down hard!? the pilot, Whitney Keene, reported. ?We?re out of control, the engine has been destroyed. We?re going down.? The Pelican was now completely out of control. Other Pelicans had to fly out of the way just to avoid a collision. 24 suddenly crashed into a building at the perimeter of the courtyard hard, making it flip completely in the air. It skidded across the roof of the structure briefly, then fell of the other side, out of sight. Harrison felt for the pilot of the Pelican. If she was still alive, which he hoped she was not, she would go through hell.
      ?We got T-251 tanks approaching at my position...? the transmission was cut off as an enormous explosion simultaneously shook the ground.
      ?This is Captain Jefferson, we need air support on some incoming T-251 tanks, approaching at the west road of the courtyard, over.? Harrison overheard this conversation.
      ?Roger that, Captain, hold tight. Over.?
      Suddenly a group of ten Pelican, which were circling overhead, turned immediately to the west road. They leveled off at the gap in between the buildings forming the road and let off a salvo of Hawk missiles. Moments later Harrison saw black smoke rise from the street and the Pelicans turned to continue their circling positions.
      ?Captain!? Lieutenant Parsons called from the opposite side of the Bunker entrance. ?Sir, I think all of the Marines are here.?
      Jefferson surveyed the bloody courtyard. Mangled and charred bodies profusely littered the smoldering ground. Smoking craters pockmarked the well-laid and neat stones of the once central and important area. But there was no movement of any kind in the courtyard, save for a few flies moving in early for a handsome feast. Jefferson saw instantly that Parsons was correct. ?Marines! Set up a perimeter! Collect with your set Fire Teams and await the order of your commanding officer.? The courtyard was now silent. The only noise Jefferson heard was the shuffling and clanking of thousands of Marines assembling and the distant gunfire of the assault on the Nuclear Facility. ?Okay, all demolitions experts to me!?

      Whitney Keene stirred from her comatose state and looked around her. Next to her was her dead co-pilot, his jugular cut wide open by a shard of glass projected into his neck from the shattered cockpit window. There was nobody else in the Pelican.
      Whitney lifted her head out from a break in the glass and was instantly barraged by numerous shots fired at her from waiting defenders. The bullets ricocheted off the battle plating harmlessly, Whitney having ducked just in time. She reached for her own weapon that was kept near the controls, but it had fallen from its casing in the crash. She instead reached over for her co-pilot?s A-89 assault rifle. She stood up on her chair and left the cover of her Pelican, exposing only her head so she could defend herself.
      She aimed at where she had heard the shots fired at her earlier and liberally fired in the general vicinity. Her random spray of bullets amazingly hit both of the men waiting for her, but all the shots fired were bound to draw attention to her grounded Pelican. Whitney knew she had to get out of here. Unfortunately, she noticed with some distress and pain that her right leg was broken and it had a shard of glass embedded deep in her calf muscle. She wasn?t going anywhere unless a med-evac got to her soon.
      It wasn?t long before Whitney continued to be harassed. Bullets slammed and bounced off the titanium shell all around her. She lifted her weapon and looked through the scope. Taking careful aim she killed all four of her assailants down the street. More bullets were whistling all around her now, and sparks were flying everywhere as metal hit metal. She fired several more rounds at a group of men down the opposite end of the street, but this time she did not go without injury. A high-powered bullet ripped through her shoulder, and the explosive shards of metal almost severed her arm. She flinched at the pain, but she did not hold back. She pumped the man who had wounded her full of lead and ducked down into the cockpit to reload.
      As soon as she was done, she rose again and fired several more shots at the roof of a building adjacent to her. It was then that she noticed that two rockets were blazing towards her. Her eyes widened and she ducked once more into the cockpit. One rocket soared uselessly over her head as she ducked, but another slammed into the hull just beneath her feet. The Pelican groaned and teetered precariously, threatening to flip entirely from its loosely entrenched position.
      Once again Whitney rose from her protective hiding place and searched for the man with the rocket launcher. She could not find him, and had to turn her attention to other problems. She continued firing blindly at targets that were impossible for her to hit. Suddenly another bullet slammed into her body, this time, her chest. Luckily the low-caliber bullet came at an obscure angle so her bulletproof Dekket suit and light battle armor saved her life, but shards of metal still got through and embedded themselves painfully into her body. Whitney continued firing.
      Another poorly aimed rocket slammed into the ground next to her Pelican, sending a large amount of soil and asphalt into the cockpit. A grenade also landed close to her with a similar effect. She was firing sporadically now; all of her lost blood made her weak and light-headed. She could no longer aim properly. Yet another bullet hit her, this time at her stomach. Unfortunately the battle armor was weakened from the last shot and it shattered on impact. The high velocity of the explosive tipped bullet combined with the shards of metal completely tore up Whitney?s intestines. Massive amounts of blood escaped through he fingers clasped tightly on the wound. Still no Pelican hovered overhead. This would be the end.
      Whitney stood up a final time, blissfully unaware of the incredible pain all over her body. She fired great amounts of bullets in all directions, taking two more hits to the arm and chest. At last a grenade flew through the air and landed perfectly into the cockpit. Whitney did not even try and grab it. Instead she sought out its thrower, killed him, and waited for the end.

      ?Jesus,? O?Keefe exclaimed as he saw the grenade explode in the Pelican?s cockpit.
      Stevenson stared blankly at the telescopic picture of smoke and flame rising from the doomed Pelican. He shook his head sadly. Whoever that was in the cockpit had been one of the bravest souls the admiral had ever seen.
      ?We?ve set up a Perimeter, admiral,? Jefferson reported to the admiral. ?Ready for detonation.?
      Stevenson nodded, even though the captain could not see him. ?Roger that, Jefferson. Proceed as planned.?
      And the Marines continued what they were doing.

      ?It?s affirmative,? Jefferson said to Lieutenant Jacobs, the demolitions expert officer, as he closed the COM link between him and the admiral. ?Detonate when ready, son.?
      ?Fire in the hole!? Jacobs cried.
      ?Heads down, fire in the hole!? Jefferson reiterated.
      A massive explosion shook the ground as three hundred kilos of C-12 explosives detonated on the bunker?s formidable steel gates. The explosion ripped through the doors like they were aluminum foil, blowing one side clean off its hinges and leaving the other hanging dangerously on the other side.
      ?Fire team Sierra, move in!? Jefferson called out to a group of marines. ?Go! Go!?
      One hundred men moved out from behind the swinging gate and crept into the darkness beyond.
      The gateway lead to a long tunnel that went deep underground. Its walls were painted black and the road was asphalt, which made the unlit passage even harder to see in. ?Equip your NOD marines!? Jefferson called out, as he took command over the group. Suddenly, from down the tunnel, someone fired at them. ?Find cover!? Jefferson cried.
      The Marines slid down their night vision visors, which were part of their helmet. ?Augh, I?m hit!? someone cried.
      ?There, at the end of the tunnel!? Harrison cried suddenly, opening fire. Where Harrison was pointing there were over two hundred enemy defenders, taking cover behind well-placed crates and indentations in the wall.
      ?Fire team Alpha and Charley, converge on our position!? Jefferson was yelling through his COM device. ?We?re pinned down!?
      Two explosions down at the enemy position alerted Fire Team Sierra. ?Rockets inbound, take cover!?
      The RPGs hit the walls with tremendous force, throwing several Marines back and killing Jefferson.
      ?Jefferson has been hit!? Harrison yelled over the COM network. ?I repeat: Jefferson is KIA.?
      ?Take them out, Marines!? Lieutenant Parsons called as he entered the tunnel with Fire Teams Alpha and Charley. ?Kill the rocket launchers!?
      The tunnel erupted with fire as the Marines coordinated their attack so all of their bullets simultaneously hit the enemy forces. The UNSC force didn?t go without casualties, however. Medics were scrambling around wounded men who were sprawled out on the road, unable to move.
      ?Fire in the hole!? Lieutenant Jacobs cried suddenly. Nobody had noticed him enter, but with him he carried a 400mm howitzer cannon. The enormous gun suddenly fired its shell towards the men at the opposite end of the tunnel. The shell exploded just before impact, sending a burst of flame and a hail of shrapnel and ball bearings tearing through the remaining defenders. Several Marines fired more shots at their position but the sergeants yelled at them, telling them to save their Goddamned ammo.
      ?All right, move in, to the next gate,? Lieutenant Parsons called out, now in command by default. The thousand or so Marines ran pell-mell down the tunnel now that all resistance had been eliminated. ?Okay, Jacobs,? he said once they reached the second gate, ?do your thing.?
      Jacobs began unpacking a large quantity of C-12 out of his satchel, but he thought better of it. ?Lieutenant!? he called, summoning Parsons. ?I believe this door is magnetically sealed using a MSEIS. If I can hack into the security system of the complex, I believe I can open the door without damaging it.?
      ?And why the hell would we want to do that?? Lieutenant Parsons inquired impatiently.
      ?It would prove to be an excellent point of retreat should an emergency arise,? he responded calmly. ?Plus we could save on C-12.?
      Parsons pondered over this for a moment, then said, ?I?m giving you three minutes Jacobs, then we?re going in as planned.? As Jacobs set up a small hacking station in the tunnel, Parsons used the opportunity to signal in reinforcements. ?All right, Fire Team?s Bravo through Beta, we?re ready for you.?
      ?Roger that, Lieutenant,? came several responses from the Fire Teams? commanders. Parsons looked up the tunnel towards the blasted gates and there he saw hundreds of running forms advancing on his position, silhouetted against the sun, which was still high in the sky. Soon about 4000 Marines would be in the bunker.
      ?How long, Jacobs?? Parsons asked the demolitions lieutenant, who was beating furiously on a keypad on the hacking station.
      Jacobs wiped rivulets of sweat from his brow that was pouring down his face. ?One minute, lieutenant.?
      ?Yea, well hurry up,? he said angrily. He too was beginning to sweat heavily. Abakum was located twenty million kilometers closer to the sun than Earth and Iskorosten was located on the equator. This combined with the horrors of the courtyard, all of the Marines were now drenched in their own sweat.
      ?Okay, lieutenant, I got it,? Jacobs announced. ?Just give me the word and the door will open.?
      Parsons held up a warning hand. ?Steady on, Mr. Jacobs, we need to get into a defensive position.? Parsons opened a COM link between him and all the Marines in the tunnel. ?We?re gonna open the door, but we can?t get caught off guard. Grab some cover under or behind anything you can find. If all the cover has been taken retreat to the back of the tunnel and await our word to advance.?
      ?Acknowledged, commander,? came the responses of all the sergeants and lieutenants. There was suddenly a flurry of activity as thousands of men ran to holes in the tunnel caused by the howitzer shell or the crates and indentations in the wall made originally for the defensive position of the Iskorosten defenders. Nearly two thousand Marines ended up retreating back up the tunnel.
      ?Okay, Jacobs, open her up,? Parsons commanded.
      ?Yes, lieutenant,? Jacobs said, and, with a flinch, he pressed a single button. And the doors opened....
      But nothing happened. Beyond the gate was simply another dark tunnel leading further down into the bowels of the earth. Several Marines looked around at each other in confusion but no one let down their guard - this silence was even worse than a maelstrom of bullets. Parsons paused and didn?t do anything, clearly waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, he asked Sergeant Hesketh, the mobile sensor man, to scan the second tunnel.
      Hesketh produced a small gadget from his ammunition pouch and attached it to his helmet eyepiece. After gazing down the tunnel for a moment and reading the information being fed directly to his eye, he reported, ?I?m picking up heavy signs of remote signal activity.?
      ?Remote signal activity?? Parsons asked, alarmed. ?In what capacity??
      Hesketh didn?t answer immediately. He continued to observe his eyepiece. ?I can?t say for sure, sir. However I am assuming from both common sense and from these sensor readings that it is either from a large cluster of mines or from remote controlled turrets.?
      Parsons nodded. That was what he had been thinking as well. ?Jacobs, come to me,? he ordered. ?Can you detonate remote controlled mines from here??
      Jacobs instantly shook his head. ?Sorry sir, but with the equipment I have I couldn?t even detonate the simplest of mines.?
      Parsons frowned, but he had another idea. ?Hesketh, scan the tunnel for heat signatures that might resemble either a mine or turret. Maybe we can rule one or the other out.?
      ?Yes, sir,? Hesketh responded faithfully. After a moment of scanning, he said, ?I can?t find traces of either, sir. However all turrets must emit a certain amount of heat because of the electricity that must be used. Mines on the other hand, if properly configured, can go without emitting any heat at all.?
      ?Which means by logical deduction it?s mines,? Parsons said thoughtfully.
      Hesketh nodded.
      Parsons brought down his eyepiece from his helmet and opened a COM channel. ?I want all Marines to bring down their eyepiece. To all who can see a waypoint, I want you to throw a grenade where the WP is.? After tapping some codes into a mobile computer that Hesketh lent him, he said, ?Now!?
      Eighty-three Marines threw their grenades into the tunnel, but only eighty-three explosions occurred. ?God damnit,? Parsons exclaimed.
      ?May I make a suggestion, sir?? someone behind Parsons inquired.
      Parsons was momentarily taken aback by the man?s sudden appearance. Looking around he saw a young man with dark brown hair and a muscular build. ?Name, son?? he asked, noting the single stripe on his uniform, indicating he was a Private.
      ?Garrett Harrison, sir,? he said.
      Parsons nodded. ?Go ahead,? he said.
      ?Well, sir, in training these days they teach you what to do if you suddenly found yourself in a minefield. They went over several different types of mines, and one was a P-class mine that was incredibly resistant to all explosives. It can differentiate between the force of a person walking on the surface and an explosion on the surface. It came then take the force of an explosion on the surface, absorb it, and deflect it back all around it. It was designed specifically for this purpose.?
      Parsons scratched the back of his head with irritation. ?So how in hell are we supposed to disarm them??
      Harrison was unhesitant in his response. ?These mines can only absorb such force from the surface. When an explosive is close enough to the mine it will detonate. And once the combined concussive blasts go off underground, the rest of the mines should detonate in kind. It?s their one weakness.?
      ?Excellent idea, son,? Parsons said wearily. ?But may I ask how in God?s name you think we?re supposed to set off a grenade that far under the earth??
      ?Not a grenade, sir,? Harrison said reproachfully. ?A solid-shot howitzer shell.?
      Parsons rubbed the stubble on his chin for a moment, and then he patted Harrison on the shoulder. ?Nice work, Private,? he said. He walked over to Jacobs who was busying himself at a mobile computer. ?Lieutenant!? he called. ?Do we have any solid-shot howitzer shells??
      Jacobs did not bother to ask why he wanted to know. Leaping up, he ran over to the howitzer cannon, which was near the middle of the tunnel. ?Give me some help, here,? Jacobs requested to a cluster of Marines hiding in a pothole. Soon the Marines and Jacobs had pushed the heavy artillery weapon near the second tunnel entrance. ?Where do you want it shot, sir?? Jacobs asked Parsons.
      The lieutenant retrieved his mobile computer. ?I?ll give you a waypoint, lieutenant,? he said, typing on the keypad.
      ?Waypoint received,? Jacobs reported.
      ?Fire!? Parsons yelled.
      The massive launching blast of the howitzer cannon deafened all that were near. The solid-shot flew through the air and plunged deep into the ground. Less than a second later the shell exploded under the earth, followed immediately by a second explosion, and suddenly the whole tunnel exploded with such tremendous force that it threw several men back further into the tunnel, even though they were over a hundred meters away from the blast. For a moment Parsons was convinced that the second tunnel would collapse, but the concrete and steel reinforced shaft withstood the explosion.
      ?Is anybody hurt?? Parsons called out to the Marines near the tunnel entrance.
      Absurdly he heard several men laughing, picking their bleeding bodies up from under piles of loosened pieces of cement. ?We?re all okay, sir!? a sergeant called up to him.
      ?Okay, move in!? Parsons called, and he signaled for the Marines stationed at the other end of the tunnel to come to them and follow them down the tunnel.
      The four thousand Marines moved as one body down the long tunnel without any mines going off. They all had their night-vision visors down over their eyes; they were deep underground now, and no light sources were apparent. At last they reached the third gate, and Hesketh came up the door to see if he could find out how it was locked and perhaps what was beyond it.
      ?What do you have, sergeant,? Parsons asked Hesketh.
      ?One moment sir,? he said, looking at his mobile computer, then with his eyepiece, and again at the computer. ?This door is magnetically sealed as well, sir. However, the sound waves I?m emitting are coming back saying there is a heavy concentration of a titanium-steel compound. I would deduct that there is a heavy metal grating reinforcing the door.?
      ?Can you read anything beyond the gate?? Parsons asked.
      ?Negative sir. The electro-magnetic seal and thick barrier is interfering with sensors.?
      ?All right, Jacobs, you?re up!? Parsons called to the demolitions expert.
      ?Randell! McCarthy! Get your men and follow me!? Jacobs called to other officers in the demolitions team. Jacobs came to gate and unpacked a load of C-12 from his satchel, and other men were down the same. They placed the C-12 at strategic positions along the solid gate, mostly around the small crack in the middle where the two doors would normally part, and around the foundation.
      ?We?re ready, sir,? Jacobs announced.
      ?Back up, everybody!? Parsons warned.
      Once everybody had backed up, Jacobs gripped a remote controlled device and yelled, ?Fire in the hole!? He pressed a button.
      The immensely powerful C-12 explosive tore through the steel and titanium reinforced gate and blew it wide open. Parsons looked up from the edge of the pothole he was sitting in and tried to peer through the dust and debris to see was on the other side. He could see nothing, so he tried looking through the scope with night vision. It worked, but just barely. Whatever was beyond was most definitely not another tunnel. It looked like a surveillance room, full of monitors and communication devices and computer stations. He could also make out some moving objects, though whether they were automated devices or people, Parsons could not determine.
      Parsons opened a COM link. ?We?ve reached the bunker, men.? Suddenly a hail of bullets came from the entrance to the bunker, ripping up the asphalt of the tunnel in great spouts of debris. ?Open fire!? Parsons called out. ?Aim carefully! Don?t hit Latsek!?
      Thousands of reports came in answer of his order. Machinegun rounds ripped through the thin enemy defensive line and the hostile forces fell quickly under the massive onslaught of their numerically superior foes. ?We can?t have this many men in that small a room,? Parsons thought aloud. ?Fire Teams Bravo through Beta, go topside and assist the other Marines in holding the perimeter.?
      ?Yes, sir,? came many responses over the COM channel as the three thousand Marines of the Fire Teams ran up the tunnel and back into the courtyard. ?Okay, Marines,? he said to the remaining thousand men, ?you all know what Slavonosh looks like. Right now I?m transmitting two more faces to your eyepieces. Their names are Vysheslav Volokov and Gavrilko Baatyr, and neither of them can be killed either. Take them alive with stun rounds. Fire Team Charley, Delta, and Alpha, remain here at the entrance and make sure nobody tries and escape through there. All right, Marines, let?s move out!?
      Fire Team Sierra filed into the Bunker, fanning out as soon as they got past the blasted gate. The room was only about 40X50 meters, and almost every square centimeter of it was cluttered with desks and computers and other such furniture and equipment. It was a tight squeeze for the 250 Marines, but they managed. Flipping over desks and knocking computers down, the men were thorough in their search. At last, Harrison and two other Marines flipped over a large desk to find a man cowering under it. ?Sir!? Harrison cried to Parsons. ?We?ve found someone!?
      Parsons ran over to the Marines. ?It?s Latsek!? he said with relish.
      Suddenly, on the opposite side of the room there was a gunshot and a solider yelling. ?Knock him out!? Parsons commanded to Harrison, and the private dutifully fired a stun round at the pathetic form of the once great leader.
      When Parsons arrived at where he heard the gunshot, he entered into a scene of madness. In a small closet at the side of the bunker there was a man who Parsons recognized as Vysheslav Volokov holding a small charge in his hand that would have the potency to kill him if dropped. Next to him on the floor was a very dead Gavrilko Baatyr, a pistol in his hand and a hole in the back of his head. The lieutenant turned his attention back to the more pressing matter.
      ?Drop it!? Parsons yelled in Russian, using his limited knowledge of the language to encourage the man to not kill himself.
      Harrison, who had suddenly appeared next to him, offered, ?I could shoot him with a stun round.?
      Parsons shook his head. ?No, it?s too risky. He may drop it.?
      Harrison showed Parsons one of his stun rounds. ?No, sir. This uses a high voltage shock that will temporarily paralyze him. Have someone standing by to grab him.?
      Parsons considered this precarious maneuver, but he ended up nodding. ?I guess I don?t see any other choice.? He opened up a COM link to one of the Marines standing nearest to Volokov. ?Sergeant Patterson, be ready to grab the Russian, we?re gonna shock him.?
      ?Affirmative, sir,? Patterson replied.      
      Meanwhile the situation was escalating. Volokov was screaming wildly in Russian, holding out the device on his hand, readying himself to drop it. Just then Volokov seized up, his arms clamped down automatically to his sides and saliva began dripping from his wide-open mouth. Patterson immediately moved in and snatched the deadly charge from his hand, quickly but delicately. All the while the Sergeant had had his eyes closed, and now that it was safely in his hands, he breathed a sigh of relief.
      ?All right Marines, let?s move out.? All the Marines except Patterson moved out of the bunker and back into the tunnel. ?Throw it into the closet, Sergeant!? Harrison yelled as he ran out of the room.
      Patterson took a deep breath, gripped the charge, and threw it into the closet. As the explosive detonated against the wall, the Sergeant dove back, and walked away unscathed. ?You all right, Patterson?? Parsons asked once he got to the blasted gate.
      ?Yes, sir,? he responded morosely.

      ?Admiral, the Marines have secured Latsek and are awaiting extraction,? O?Keefe reported to Stevenson, listening in on a conversation going on down below.
      Stevenson nodded but didn?t say anything. Instead he leaned forward from his chair on the Constellation and said into a microphone, ?Pelicans A-23 and A-26, the Marines have secured Latsek and need to be extracted immediately. Touch down on the courtyard and remain there until the prisoner is safely on board.?
      There was a slight pause and some distorted fuzz, but finally a faint, ?Roger that, sir,? was audible.
      Stevenson?s eyes were still fixed on the view-screen, showing images of the piles of corpses in the courtyard and the smaller piles littered around the fence of the nuclear complex; all men who were now dead, because of him. And all because of one man, whose life or death may not make a difference in the outcome of the battle for Abakum.
      But the Admiral?s thoughts were not lingering in such matters now, for suddenly the lights on the bridge went out and the ship suddenly lurched forward as the engines suddenly went dead. The emergency lights slowly flickered back on, revealing a scene of chaos. Men were sprawled about on the floor, caught off guard by the sudden rocking. Computer screens were dead, replaced now by a soft glow to light the darkened room.
      ?Report!? O?Keefe called as he picked himself up from the metal floor.
      The sensors woman, Laura Kean, abandoned her unresponsive station and pulled out a mobile computer out from under her seat. It was battery operated, and would not rely on a malfunction in the main power supply. ?Sir,? she said, ?I?m getting transmissions saying that all of the other ships were affected as well, including the LOFs.? She typed something on her computer, and then looked up at the Admiral again. ?I believe it was a remote controlled orbital EMP mine.?
      ?And you didn?t detect it?? Stevenson sneered at Kean.
      Kean did not shrink from her admiral?s piercing stare. ?EMP mines are almost impossible to detect, sir. I ran scans all around the planet but I did not pick up anything in orbit.?
      Stevenson didn?t blame her. EMP orbital mines were ideal for this sort of situation. Because of their constant emission of electromagnetic pulses and nothing else, even modern scans made it difficult to detect them, unlike nuclear or conventional orbital mines. ?So COM systems are down?? Stevenson asked blankly.
      ?Yes, sir,? Kean replied.
      ?Sir!? O?Keefe said, nudging him in the shoulder. ?Look, Admiral.?
      On the view-screen, the telescopic image of Abakum, which was solar powered, showed an eerie sight. Thousands of enemy fighters were converging of the LOFs still in orbit, which had no sensor capabilities. ?That battle over Abakum,? the Admiral realized out loud. ?It was all an act. They have plenty more fighters? The fighters began closing in on the LOFs. ?Kean, how long until communication systems are operational??
      ?Five minutes at least, sir,? Kean reported. ?That?s too long,? she whispered as an after thought. The battlegroup was out of range for Halcun weapons or nukes to be of any effect.
      Too long. The enemy fighters fired, and the small force of LOFs was obliterated.
      Stevenson wiped his face of the sweat even as the temperature on the ship dropped. He never took his eyes off the enemy fighters. He wasn?t sure what they were going to do, but based on their suicidal actions in the battle above the planet, he was sure they were going to come and attack the stationary battlegroup.
      He couldn?t have been more wrong.
      ?They?re heading for Iskorosten!? O?Keefe said with horror as the massive wave of hostile craft turned and headed back for the surface. The enemy was not stupid. They knew the Halcun guns and nuclear shafts were still operational even with main power offline. They were not going to waste their lives or ships.
      ?Without the LOFs the Pelicans will be without protection!? Kean realized, a mask of terror encasing her face. Cruisers and carriers were not designed to fire on ships that small below low orbit. ?They?ll all be destroyed.?
      ?And without the Pelicans the ground force will be stranded,? Stevenson finished gravely. ?How long until COM systems are back online?? the panicking Admiral spat, watching the Pelicans circling around the city, oblivious of the danger that was about to befall them.
      ?Still about four minutes, sir,? Kean said anxiously.
      Too long.

      Harrison stood next to the first blasted gate, looking out with squinted eyes at the mangled corpses that covered the courtyard in a blanket of blood and gore. In the buildings around the courtyard, in some of the in tact turrets and towers, and even in the rubble of destroyed ones, were thousands of Marines guarding the perimeter against the constant threat of an enemy relief force. So far, however, only small skirmishing groups of snipers and rocket launchers had posed the only threat to the bunker.
      Fire Team Sierra lined up in the gate?s alcove and watched two Pelicans descend from the sky and come to a stop about two feet off the ground. Four men carried the unconscious bodies of Volokov and Latsek and lifted them onto the deck of the hovering Pelican. Then fifty of Fire Team Sierra?s men jumped into the Pelican as well, acting as guards for the prisoners. The other Pelican was there to provide cover for the prisoner transport. The rest would remain here and secure their positions until everything could be safely mobilized and organized.
      A man hopped out the back of one of the Pelicans, and he walked up to Lieutenant Parsons and shook his hand. ?I?m Major Lewis, I?m going to be taking over here.?
      ?Thank God, sir,? Parsons said earnestly, all too eager to give up his command.
      Harrison breathed a sigh of relief. Everything would be okay now. It would only be a few hours and everyone would be safely aboard the flying fortresses...
      Almost exactly as soon as the two Pelicans were safely above the clouds, Harrison noticed something on the horizon. He nudged Parsons. ?What?s that, sir?? he asked, pointing to a distant, vague black mass. ?Looks like a dark thunder cloud to me.? It was only seconds later that the incredibly fast moving ?clouds? were no longer vague, distant shapes, but horrifying clear enemy fighters. ?The Pelicans!? Harrison yelled.
      The thousands of fighters began to take a more organized approach to the situation and they split up into equal groups, flying low and directly towards the circling transport craft. They literally filled the skies like a swarm of locusts. The only difference was these locusts had F-217 Sidewinder missiles, and they fired them at the helpless Pelicans. Some quick-thinking pilots tried to pull out and into the upper atmosphere, but every one of them had 12 missiles on their tail; there was no escape. 250 blackened and mangled masses of twisted Pelican hulls fell from the sky and peppered the city, demolishing many of the buildings they landed on.
      ?Get into the bunker!? Parsons yelled to the Marines, vulnerable in the courtyard to an aerial strike from the thousands of aircraft.
      ?Negative that command, Marines!? Lewis yelled.
      Parsons ran over to the Major and placed a restraining hand on his shoulder, as he was about to walk away. ?May I ask what the hell you are doing, sir?? the lieutenant asked. ?We?ll be slaughtered by those Goddamned fighters!?
      Major shrugged Parsons? hand of his shoulder and turned to face him. ?Fighters aren?t designed to strike ground targets, lieutenant,? Lewis pointed out, stressing on his rank. ?Besides, the LOFs got our backs.?
      ?Where the hell were they there, sir?? Parsons cried out. ?They were probably destroyed by those thousands of fighters.?
      ?The enemy wouldn?t go against fighters in orbit,? Lewis answered coolly. ?They?d risk being destroyed by the cruisers.?
      Sure enough, the swarm of enemy fighters cleared the skies once all the Pelicans were destroyed and flew back in the direction that they came. Lewis said nothing, but he haughtily turned his back on Parsons and pulled down his COM device from his helmet. ?Okay men, this is Major David Lewis. Fire Teams Beta through Zulu, remain in the courtyard and defend against all offensives the enemy will surely bring. I?m taking command here.? Lewis turned around to once again face the fuming Lieutenant Parsons. ?Parsons, I want you to take Fire Teams Charley, Delta, Alpha, and Sierra into the tunnels and act as reserves as well as cover if we need to retreat.?
      Parsons took a moment to regain his composure, then said, ?Yes, sir,? purposely exaggerating ?sir?. ?Fire Teams Charley, Delta, Alpha, and Sierra, we?re going back into the tunnels to provide reserves for the good Major.?
      Harrison approached Parsons as the once again entered the dark tunnel. ?Is he crazy, sir?? he asked in disbelief. ?They?re just going to get a bomber in here! They?ll all be killed!?
      ?Don?t over-think think it, Goddamnit,? was all Parsons could say. ?It?s the Goddamn chain of Goddamn command.? Despite these words, Harrison saw a tear form in the lieutenant?s eye and a small drop of blood escape his tightly closed lips as he bit on his tongue so hard. Upon seeing this sight from the usually cold, hard lieutenant, Harrison began to realize the enormity what the Major had just done himself. He had literally sentenced to death over six thousand men, tightly packed together in the courtyard above. This obscene decision combined with the fact that he could do nothing to prevent it made Harrison sick to his stomach.
      The Fire Teams made their way halfway down the second tunnel, stopped, and trained their scopes uselessly to the UNSC held courtyard above.

      ?What the hell is the status on the COM systems?? Stevenson asked Kean.
      ?Ship-to-ship COM links are online Admiral, but we?re encountering some technical difficulties with long-range communication systems.?
      ?Well fix it Goddamnit,? Stevenson yelled angrily. Stevenson watched helplessly as about 6,300 Marines formed a compact perimeter in the courtyard. ?What the hell are they doing, O?Keefe?? he asked shakily. ?One bomber would kill them all!?
      O?Keefe likewise shook his head in disbelief. ?I don?t know, Admiral.?
      ?Admiral, look!? Lieutenant Sanders yelled from the helm station.
      Stevenson turned his gaze from the courtyard to just beyond the city limits, and the Admiral?s eyes opened wide in horror. What he saw were three unmistakable bombers flying in close formation, and they were heading directly for the courtyard. ?How long, Kean?? Stevenson asked quietly.
      ?Unknown, sir,? she replied.
      Admiral Stevenson shook his head. There was no way they could do it in time. ?God rest their souls,? he said, as a single tear rolled down his wrinkled face.

      Harrison continued to look through his scope, not because he feared any danger of a ground force breaking through, but because he tried to observe the skies for any activity as best he could from his position in the tunnel going deep into the earth. So far he saw nothing, but at the angle he was in, this was not surprising. Suddenly, however, Harrison reared his head as a blinding flash appeared in the courtyard, amplified by his scope, and the very air he breathed became a burning inferno in his lungs.
      ?OFB!? Parsons cried, flinging his satchel off his back and reaching into it. ?Get your breathing masks!?
      An OFB, or oxygen fuel bomb, was a commonly used incendiary bomb often dropped on compact infantry formations or in dense jungles. Inside the bomb were four tanks of liquid oxygen. When the device detonated, the oxygen in a split second vaporized into a gas and unleashed massive amounts of it in a very small region, saturating the area with it. Less than a second later a highly flammable substance was unleashed and spread out over the effected area. The result: a massive fireball, incinerating anything in its blast radius. Even as far down as four hundred and fifty meters from where the bomb was dropped, the incredibly hot oxygen was singeing the lungs of the unfortunate Marines.
      Parsons took a deep breath from his mask and yelled to Jacobs without inhaling, ?Close this Goddamn door, lieutenant!? Parsons was now deeply grateful that Jacobs had not blown this gate.
      Jacobs did not bother to take his mask off. He merely nodded and set up his mobile computer station and, after tapping some commands into it for a moment, the double doors slowly began to join from their resting crevices in the wall. The Marines took one last look at the dissipating flame, and the gap in the gate closed.
      And the Marines sealed themselves in an enemy bunker in a hostile city.

And Raise Your Head With Pride! 5
Date: 18 March 2003, 6:38 PM

Part 5


All the transport Pelicans in the battlegroup have been destroyed. We have no other mode of planetside transportation and the 13,000 men down there are stranded with no way out. We need immediate assistance from any UNSC ships in the area. Do not worry; the nuclear facility is under our control and all orbital mines have been defused. The way is clear.
Admiral John Stevenson.
Stevenson studied his message once and then sent it on a universal transmission. Unfortunately, a message sent at this range to even the closest UNSC ship in the vicinity would take at least half an hour, and another half hour or a response to be sent back. And the time it would take for the ships to actually get here would take much more time than that.
"Sir, communication systems with the planet are operational, sir," Kean reported.
Stevenson did or said nothing for a moment. What use was a COM link now that all the men were stranded on the surface with no way off. All he could really do is assure and comfort them with false hopes, and the admiral was not the type of man to do so. Nevertheless, he had to give them confirmation that the battlegroup was at least still here. "Kean," he began, sitting down in his chair as he spoke, "open a link to all ground teams.

The assault on the Nuclear Facility had been much more successful than the disastrous attack on Halu's House - initially, anyway. When the men entered the complex and secured the silos and launching areas, they had suffered less than fifty casualties. Ever since then, however, small groups of constantly moving snipers around the perimeter had taken incessant potshots at the unfortunate UNSC soldiers holding the facility, not knowing where these bullets were coming from. These raids had gotten even worse since the sky rained blackened Pelicans, and thus the formidable force of 5,000 had diminished to 3,850.
The men were without hope. The Pelicans were all destroyed and the battlegroup had no others. They were trapped here on the surface, stranded and left to die among a force with numerical superiority and aerial capabilities. Most knew that the only reason they were still here was because they had such great numbers and because the mobile AA vehicles had kept the aircraft at bay to prevent a nuclear explosion in the city due to a reckless Abakum bomber.
Colonel Davis, unlike the unfortunate Captain Jefferson, had survived the initial attack on the complex and was now safely inside one of the silos underneath the earth, issuing orders from there. Colonel Davis was intelligent, probably one of the most educated men on the planet's surface, but unfortunately he was a hopelessly incompetent officer. Twice he had ordered a pathetically small force of men to go outside the facility's perimeter and try and hunt down the troublesome snipers - neither group had ever come back. Captain Douglas had almost begged the Colonel the send out a larger force of about a thousand to rout out the elusive skirmishing groups, but Davis refused, saying "I will not risk that many men."
To which Douglas replied, "We're running out of men anyway!"
But Davis was not to be moved from his rigid position, even as his army slowly dwindled away, one by one. It was twenty-five minutes after the Pelicans had all been destroyed that a message was at last audible through the fuzz of the channel to the Cruisers and Carriers above. "This is Admiral Stevenson," the admiral said. "We regret to inform you that only two Pelicans made it safely to the safety of the battlegroup. The LOFs are all but destroyed and we cannot expect help from another UNSC ship for quite some time."
"How long, sir?" came Lieutenant Parsons' voice over the COM channel.
There was a long pause until Stevenson at last replied, "Probably a couple of weeks."
Davis closed outgoing audio from the channel and then held his head in his hands and let out a soft sob. Captain Douglas, who was standing unseen a couple meters away, looked away in disgust.
"Good luck, gentlemen. Stevenson out."
Davis continued sobbing, tears escaping through his clasped hands and landing gently on the floor beneath. Douglas did not try and be tactful by pretending he was not there. "Your orders, sir?" he asked in a tone that did not hide his contempt.
Davis looked away and rubbed his face with his hand. "Maintain position," was all he could say through his heaving intakes of air.
Douglas ran his fingers over his holstered pistol. "Sir, that is madness! We're being murdered out there!"
"That is my order, Captain," he said angrily.
Douglas stood there for a moment, saliva frothing on his lips. He gripped his pistol tightly, but finally said, "Yes, sir."

"By God, it's cold in here," Jacobs said.
"Aye," Harrison agreed readily.
Parsons' looked at the two thoughtfully and began pacing uselessly once more along the tunnel. There was not a lot else he could do. He couldn't leave the bunker. That didn't even register as an option in his mind. By now the Abakum army had no doubt secured the devastated courtyard above, effectively trapping them in here. They also probably had access to the security doors, and could most likely open the intact second gate. Luckily the battlegroup in orbit could see the courtyard and could inform them when there were any troop movements. So far, Stevenson had informed them of nothing, and so all of the severely depressed men were at ease.
Suddenly Parsons heard a gunshot go off behind him. All the men turned around as one, alarmed by the unexpected noise. They all looked at an equally surprising scene. Private Jones, a new recruit, was standing on a crate on one foot, holding a smoking pistol in his left hand. Everyone looked at each other with confused expressions on their faces, but they reluctantly put their weapons down. Parsons walked over to the man, a furious expression on his face.
"Told you I could do it," he said to another man sitting down next to him. They both had smoldering cigarettes in their mouths. Parsons came up to the private and grabbed him by the collar. "Steady on their, lieutenant," he said, laughing.
The fact that Jones had addressed him by his rank and not by sir made Parsons only angrier. "What the fuck are you doing private?" he asked.
"I made a bet with Mr. Pellow there that I could hit a rock at the end of the tunnel standing on one foot on..."
"What would possess you?" Parsons asked furiously. Then he squinted his eyes under his night vision visor. "What the fuck..." he grabbed the cigarette out of his mouth. "Smoking?" he spat. He smelled the smoke for a moment. "Marijuana?" he asked even more angrily. He threw it to the ground and stepped on it, extinguishing it.
"Hey, steady on there!" Jones said, enraged. He lifted the pistol in his hand and fired at Parsons.
The bullet entered the lieutenant's neck, punching a hole in his trachea and skimming his jugular. Because of the earlier gunshot not everybody turned around immediately. Harrison was the first to notice the horrible incident. "Jesus Christ, he shot Parsons!" he exclaimed. Harrison lifted his own gun and pointed it at Jones. "Drop your weapon, private!"
Everyone now had lifted their weapon now and were screaming at Jones. The private, however, wasn't paying attention to anyone. Instead he looked down at the man he had just shot. The awful sight of the bloody lieutenant writhing around on the ground was enough to sober him up from his delusional state. "What have I done?" he asked himself. With that, he brought his pistol up against his head and blew his brains across the tunnel.
Harrison ignored the nearly headless corpse of Jones and ran over to Parsons' side, followed by two medics. Parsons was barely moving now. His trachea was completely severed and his larynx destroyed. There was anything the medics could do now to save his life. Harrison grasped the lieutenant's hand and said the first thing that came to his mind. "Don't worry, sir," he said soothingly, "you won't be lonely for long." Parsons looked up at Harrison for a moment, confused, but suddenly a look of understanding fluttered across his pain-stricken face and his eyes closed slowly and deliberately, as if he was suddenly at peace. Parsons died.
Harrison sighed and put his face in his hands. "Parsons is dead," he announced to everyone in the tunnel.
Harrison didn't have long to mourn the death of the lieutenant. A wave of fuzz crackled over the COM channel of the dead lieutenant's helmet. "Lieutenant Parsons?" came Stevenson's voice. His alarming tone caught Harrison's attention. "Parsons, respond!"
"This is Private Harrison, sir," he said respectfully. "Parsons is dead, admiral."
Stevenson was obviously in a rush to say whatever he was going to say, and he didn't bother to ask how he died when there was no enemy in the tunnel. "Well, private, there are hostile forces converging on your position."
"Roger that, sir," he said. He ran up the tunnel towards the gate. "Lieutenant Jacobs, sir! Parsons is dead, you're in command. And the enemy is coming here right now!"
Jacobs immediately understood. "McCarthy, bring me the detonator!" The demolitions man scrambled to his feet and brought the small device to Jacobs. Jacobs gripped the detonator tightly in his clammy hands. "Fire in the hole!"
The Marine had not been totally idle in the tunnel. About a minute after the OFB had been dropped, Parsons had ordered the demolitions team to set up mines and explosives in the tunnel to destroy any incoming forces. 1 ton of C-12 and 750 kilos of other assorted explosives and mines decimated the first tunnel and everyone in it. Nearly two and a half thousand enemy soldiers were blown apart in the tunnel, and the survivors and those who had not yet entered the tunnel ran away in a mass panic.
"What the fuck happened down there?" Stevenson asked, shocked at the massive blast.
"We set up mines in the tunnel, admiral," Jacobs informed him, talking through the COM channel on Parsons' helmet that Harrison had handed him.
" Excellent work, Marines!" Stevenson said emphatically. "We'll keep you informed of any further movement down there. Stevenson out."

"Clever," O'Keefe said to Stevenson, still watching the black smoke billow from the tunnel's entrance and the thousands of soldiers milling about not quite knowing what to do.
Stevenson grunted. Despite this victory, the army in Iskorosten had plenty more reinforcements and the Marines had now probably run out of mines and other such explosives. No one would survive down there now. "It's been an hour," the admiral said abruptly.
"Sir?" O'Keefe asked, confused.
"It's been an hour," Stevenson repeated. "We should have a response any moment now."
"Ah, yes, sir," O'Keefe agreed.
Indeed, only four minutes later a response came on Stevenson's personal computer. It read:
A rescue operation on the scale you're talking of takes time, admiral. I estimate it will be at least a week and a half to get permission and mobilize a battlegroup. To get there it will take even more time. It will probably be about six weeks before we can get to the Abakum colony.
Stevenson cursed foully. "Jesus Christ! Six Goddamn weeks, O'Keefe!"
The Major paled. "What are you going to do, admiral?" he asked.
Stevenson knew what O'Keefe meant. "I don't see why they should know, major. It will serve only too dishearten them."
"Maybe they'll hold out, that long," O'Keefe suggested. Then realizing just how impossible that seemed, he said, "Perhaps the Nuclear force at least."
Stevenson scoffed. "No, O'Keefe. They can't survive down there that long, and those bastards at FLEETCOM know that. A mobilization on this scale, especially on such short notice, would cost trillions. They aren't coming, major. They've been left to die down there."

"A nearby battlegroup returning from Ionius is nearby," Stevenson lied over the COM channel. "We can expect a relief force in just under a week."
Colonel Davis raised his head hopefully from the desk and looked at Captain Douglas. "Did you hear that, captain? We have only to hold out for less than a week!"
Douglas shook his head and rubbed his right temple gingerly. "It's a Goddamned lie, sir! Don't you remember the SUN broadcast? They're dealing with Abakum first and then Ionius - one at a time. There is no battlegroup returning from Ionius. A relief force won't be here for months... if it comes at all."
Davis listened to Douglas morosely, and then looked hopelessly up at the ceiling drenched in red light from the emergency lighting systems. That made sense to the colonel. "Well, we'll have to stay where we are, I guess."
"Sir!" Douglas cried with exasperation. "It is a hopeless situation just sitting here. We have to take care of those snipers with more than just a handful of men. Give command of Fire Teams Bradley through Lincoln. I'll kill all those snipers and at least end the threat to the perimeter for the time being."
Davis shook his head. He was adamant. "I will not risk the safety of half of my men, captain. Do you understand me?"
"No, sir," Douglas said simply, then, with a quickness that took Davis completely by surprise, the captain took his M4D pistol from its holster and emptied its entire 15 round clip into the unsuspecting body of the hapless colonel. "Murderer!" he screamed at the dead colonel. "Murderer!" He turned around on his heel and stalked furiously out the door. It wasn't until Douglas left the silo and stepped into the warm summer night that he wondered who he had been addressing in his outburst.

"Equip your NOD men," Douglas said to his thousand Marines who had gathered outside the perimeter of the Nuclear Facility. The Marines had arrived on the surface of Abakum at 3:13pm Iskorosten time (Abakum had 32-hour days). It was now 12:56. The 5,000 Marines had now dwindled down to 2,435. In his counterattack force Douglas had 953 men. It was a lot, but Douglas was confident his Marines could hold the perimeter while they were gone. Besides, no one had seen any major troop gathering within a five-mile radius. That would probably give them enough time to for the offensive Marines to get back to the facility.
There were several gurgled screams of his men as the Marines fanned out in search of the sniper skirmishers. Douglas heard rapid gunfire from some of his own Marines followed by the death cries of men, which he determined must be the enemy. Douglas himself came across a group of two snipers, stalking about stealthily below the tall grass. He raised his weapon and sprayed them with a withering fire from his M97 sub-machinegun. Douglas searched the grass with his thermal vision, but he could see only the dark corpses of his own and enemy men. "Does anybody see anymore hostile forces?"
"Negative, sir," came numerous messages, all flooding through his COM device on his helmet. "All the snipers have either retreated or are dead."
Douglas was impressed. In just eighteen minutes all the enemy forces in the vicinity had been eliminated. "Okay, men, let's get back to..."
"Captain Douglas, sir!" a man yelled to Douglas over the COM channel. "Sir, we're being overrun! The enemy has penetrated to perimeter and..." from there the transmission was cut off in a burst of fuzz.
Douglas's heart turned to ice and his hands became cold and clammy. If the perimeter was penetrated the mobile AA vehicles would be compromised and they would all be killed by aerial strikes. "Get back to the Facility!" he screamed through his COM device.
The now diminished Marine force of 929 ran pell-mell back to the complex. They arrived at a scene of chaos. Grenade explosions and gunfire was erupting all over the large facility. Screams of the dying seemed incessant. However, because of their fortified position, the UNSC defenders were largely successful in repulsing the surprise attack. The seven AA turrets mounted on large trucks situated in an open area near the center of the complex were all intact and operational. Douglas sighed in relief. They were not too late. And because the UNSC and Abakum force were of equal strength in this fight, the arrival of 929 more UNSC Marines turned the tide of the struggle and forced the hostile soldiers to retreat. The enemy ran into the grass fields and dove into surface caves beneath the sedge, escaping through the man-made tunnels that formed a complex network all over the area.
"So that's where they came from," Douglas murmured to himself.
"Thank God you got here on time, sir," Lieutenant Benice said earnestly.
"Wait a minute," Sergeant Young said, sitting a couple meters away, looking at his mobile sensor station. "Captain Douglas, I think you'd better take a look at this, sir."
Douglas walked over to Young and knelt down next to him scanning the screen but not understanding what he was seeing. "Well, what the hell am I supposed to be seeing here?" he asked impatiently, still shaken by the murder of Colonel Davis.
"Sir, look," the veteran soldier said with equal impatience. "These signatures here," he pointed to two red dots at one far end on the screen, "are some sort of enemy aircraft, and as you can see from the projected line," he traced a yellow line on the screen, "the aircraft are headed directly to our position."
Confirmation of this came a moment later from Stevenson. "Colonel Davis, you have five enemy aircraft converging on your position!" the admiral yelled with panic clear in his voice.
Douglas did not even bother thinking up a lie for Davis' death. He, too, was panicking and he couldn't figure out why they had chosen now to make an aerial strike...
Almost the exact moment the captain understood the Abakums' reasons, the seven AA turrets behind him exploded in seven tremendous balls of flame and black smoke. The quick strike enemy force that had been so easily repelled had just attached remote controlled charges to the troublesome AA vehicles. The facility was now ripe for aerial bombing.
"Get out!" Douglas screamed uselessly. For the situation was hopeless. The five bombers, which had been fifteen miles away just moments before, had already loosed their payload, one for each of the four corners of the perimeter and one for the center. The bombs were FAEs, or fuel air explosives. They were an ingenious bomb; they carried an enormous amount of air in a very small volume of space. When the casing was blown apart, the sheer force of pressure of this highly condensed air being released was easily able to crush the human brain inside the skull. Thus every one of the 2,221 Marines were brutally killed but none of the nuclear warheads detonated. Once the enormous pressure in the area stabilized, the enemy force in the tunnels underneath and around the complex emerged and ran towards the facility with the intent to bring it back online.
And destroy the ships in orbit.

"Admiral!" Lieutenant Dawson cried from the communications station. "Sir, we've lost contact with the strike force from the Nuclear Facility."
"Confirmed, sir," Kean reported, examining a telescopic picture of the surface. "The bombers we saw dropped something on the complex... all the men down there suddenly dropped dead. I would deduce a FAE."
Stevenson chewed on his tongue nervously. He, too, was now watching the Nuclear Complex on the main viewer, and he wiped sweat from his brow as thousands of the enemy converged on the abandoned silos. Their intent was obvious to everyone on the bridge. "Mr. Hawk, get us out of here. Mr. Dawson send a message to the rest of the battlegroup to get out of orbit and head out of the system and open a COM channel with the Marines in Halu's House and transmit it to my station."
"Aye, sir," they both said.
Admiral Stevenson sat down in his captain's chair and strapped himself in and braced himself for the inevitable lurching they would experience when the Constellation turned around and sped up. "Lieutenant Par... Lieutenant Jacobs, I regret to inform you that the Nuclear Facility has fallen and is now back in the hands of the enemy. This action has forced the retreat of the battlegroup in orbit. These nukes have a system-wide range... we're going to have to leave all together. All messages sent and received will be done via text."
"Roger that, sir," Jacobs said, his severely depressed voice now even more disheartened.
With that all five ships in the battlegroup turned around and spec outside of the planet's nuclear range, completely abandoning the unfortunate Marines on the surface.

"I trust everyone heard that?" Jacobs asked the congregated Marines. Almost everyone nodded, and there was a few whispered conversations as some men told those who hadn't heard what had happened. "The Nuclear Facility has been taken," Jacobs said anyway. "Presumably everyone there is dead. The ships are all leaving."
This discouraging news brought about more sadness to an already depressing occasion. A small charge was used to blow a hole in the tunnel and Lieutenant Parsons' body was now inside. All the Marines is the tunnel were all standing around with their heads bowed, paying their respects silently to their brave and likeable commander. Without the ships to tell them when the enemy was coming, the Marines now had to pay more attention to the living than the dead.
"You two, bury Parsons," Jacobs said to two nearby men. "Everyone else, I want you to find cover in all these potholes," he gestured to the giant hole in the ground made by the mine, "and be on constant alert. We have no idea when the enemy will come."
Everyone scrambled to find cover in every available space and they all waited patiently for their hated enemy to break through. Most knew that they would never see daylight again, but for the majority of those who knew that, it didn't serve to dishearten them too much. In fact, it made them even angrier, even more determined to slaughter their killers.
"By God, if only we had that howitzer cannon," Jacobs said to Harrison with disappointment. "We'd slaughter those bastards."
"Yes, sir," Harrison said blankly. The young man did not want to die. He was not ready to die like some of the men.
Jacobs discerned this from Harrison's sorrowful look. "Marine, you don't have to worry about death. We're all going to die someday, and if that time should come sooner than we'd like, then there is nothing we can do about it. All we can do in our life is live it out the best we can, and if you've lived a good life, there is little you need to fear. And raise your head with pride, for you are a Marine, and dead or alive we'll still be the best damned fighting force this galaxy has ever seen and ever will see."
Harrison looked at Jacobs with a newfound respect. The lieutenant had sounded eerily like Parsons just there, and had he lost his pride altogether, he would have broken down and cried on the spot. "Yes, sir," he said instead. "We'll give em' hell."
Jacobs smiled. "That's the spirit, Marine."
About an hour has passed when suddenly a noise filled the tunnel. The sound was recognizable to all. It was the sound of the magnetic locks disengaging on the gate. "Here they come!" Jacobs announced. The two doors parted, and the gap between the two doors widened, revealing a seemingly empty tunnel. Jacobs peered just above the ridge of the pothole he was hiding in to survey the area. "Don't be fooled, men. The tunnel is probably teeming with..." suddenly a shot rang from down the tunnel and Jacobs's head was blown wide open. The horrific corpse slid down the bank of the hole and came to rest next to Harrison's foot. He shuddered at the sight.
Sergeant-Major Clarence was now in command. "All right Marines," he called gruffly. "On the count of three, I want everyone to stand and put some fire on anything you see move. Okay... one, two, three!"
Everyone stood and began firing blindly. Reports came from down the tunnel as well aimed shots punctured bodies, wounding and killing many of the UNSC Marines. However most of the enemy fire was completely random, for most of the bullets were flying crazily around the men, hitting nothing. It was almost as if they were covering for something...
"Howitzer cannons!" Clarence cried, just before he, too, was killed by a sniper. No one else stood up to take command - it did not matter now. These next few moments were to be their last. Most of the sporadic hostile firing had stopped, and the screaming Marines waited in horrible anticipation for the large artillery weapons to fire that one shell that would end all their lives.
The deafening blast from three howitzer cannons did eventually come, but Harrison was the only UNSC man to really appreciate it, for he was the only one to survive the exploding shells. "Hello?" he called out around him, desperate for someone to answer him. It didn't even matter if they did, however - Harrison was so deafened by the explosion that he couldn't even hear his own voice. Besides, he was bleeding so badly from the numerous wounds on his body from the shrapnel and ball bearings that he had only moments of life left in him anyway. He did not want his miraculous survival to be in vain, so with his ebbing strength, he reached over and picked up a rocket launcher than had been blown next to him from the force of the blast. He picked it up, lifted his bleeding body from the tunnel floor, and aimed at one of the howitzer cannons. He pulled the trigger.
Harrison sank back down into the pothole and waited for the explosion. Although he could not hear it, the combined blast of three cannons exploding sent a vibration through the very earth and rocked Harrison contentedly into the afterlife.

"Sir, they still aren't responding," Dawson said one hour after Harrison died.
The UNSC battlegroup had been in slipspace for about half an hour and they were now floating in the emptiness of space nearly three billion kilometers from Abakum. At this range the message would only take mere seconds, so time delay could not explain this away. Stevenson bowed his head. "They are dead, then. All of them."
No one answered. Everyone just stopped what they were doing for a moment and took in the fact that out of the 13,000 men who went to the surface, not one came back. A mission that would have been called largely unsuccessful with over 1,000 casualties had become a total disaster that would go down in history as a calamitous failure. "Heavenly Father, give them everlasting life and bring them to salvation. Glory be to God in the highest, amen."
Although Stevenson was the only devout Christian on the bridge, everyone dutifully repeated, "Amen."
It was small consolation to the 13,000 bloody corpses fifteen billion kilometers away.


Aftermath

The "Abakum Disaster", as the press later dubbed it, went down as the UNSC's largest military blunder in history. An army 13,000 strong had never even been assembled for orbit to surface transportation in all of history, let alone 13,000 dead. Angry mobs demanded Admiral John Stevenson's immediate resignation, and four months after the disaster, the people got their wish: the admiral resigned in disgrace and died five years later on Reach, a broken man. It never came out that Stevenson was forced into that position.
Ironically the negotiations for Latsek Slavonosh and Vysheslav Volokov were unsuccessful and their executions did little than to stir the already enraged people of Abakum into a complete frenzy and create friction with the UNSC's own people. It was the final humiliation in an already catastrophic defeat.
However the loss of 13,000 men also spurred the UNSC into action. Combined with their previous determination to dislodge the troublesome governments of the planets from power, a new and devastating campaign on Abakum commenced in July of 2403. 16 ships entered the Abakum system carrying nearly 90,000 men and women were to be used to finally defeat the planet. Bombing runs similar to those conducted in Stevenson's Abakum mission disabled the planet's defenses and a Marine army of 50,000 touched down on the surface of the planet and laid siege to Iskorosten.
When negotiations failed, two other cities, New Moscow (239,000 people) and Kekholm (159,000 people) were leveled in a series of nuclear strikes. When the government still refused to give in, the Marine army bombarded Iskorosten with incessant precision artillery barrages for three days until the colony finally surrendered unconditionally. The planet was devastated. Along with 63,000 people killed in the artillery bombardment of Iskorosten, the total amount of casualties was 461,000 people. Iskorosten lay in ruins and the two central cities of New Moscow and Kekholm were obliterated. The Marines on the surfaced suffered 647 dead and 2,027 wounded.
A campaign on Ionius was never undertaken. After they saw what the UNSC was able and willing to do, they capitulated after several peace-talks in January of 2404. Ionius was renamed Sorento III and Abakum was renamed Sigma Octanus IV. Many years later, both colonies had a planet-wide revolt (it was squashed in 2449 after a year) and both planets continued to have trouble for years after that. The two planets had the largest garrisons in the entire empire (190,000 for Abakum and 125,000 for Ionius).
But it all started in 2399 when an ill-fated raid turned into a catastrophe that senselessly claimed 13,000 lives.

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