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Battle for Cobalt by James England
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Battle of Cobalt Part one
Date: 17 April 2005, 9:38 PM
The helmet was different. His helmet was black, sleek, and rock hard. He knew that when his platoon wore them, they looked like the horrific professionals they were. But their helmets, those helmets were something different. The sage coloured headgear was more than just terrifying... it was inspiring. His did nothing to gather the morale of his men, nor did it do anything to prevail in a campaign against the Covenant. His visor had no power to make both enemy and allied forces quake in fear, like the reflecting gold world of the Spartan visors did. His was just a plain black helmet with "Corporal S. Wilshire" on the back. It could stop plasma from burning through his skull, so it was fine by him.
He had only actually seen the Spartans twice though each time was significant enough to change his life.
The first time was on some jungle-covered cesspool of a planet whose name he had long ago forgot. The planet was only considered a colony to the UNSC because of a single Titanium-A mine. When the covenant invaded the space command decided against evacuating the small single town. He didn't know why the UNSC had sent his men to die there, whether they thought a "possible" win would be good for morale, or if they just couldn't give up a battleship's hull worth of armour.
Either way he found himself pinned down with three quarters of his platoon dead, 8 injured, a right femur broken in twelve places, and only a clip and a half of ammo left for his MA5B assault rifle. The drop from orbit had been brutal, killing a record number of his squad mates. The forests had made it hard to gather together, and made it easy or the Covenant to ambush. Their objective had been a covenant stronghold 2 kilometers away, instead they were defending themselves against an onslaught of Elites, Grunts, and Jackals.
But the ODST were the best, and even though they had suffered high casualties, they had taken out even more covenant. The Covenant, however, they had the advantage of not caring if one of them died, they just kept coming. A plasma grenade had attached to his Warrant Officer's back and taken out their last commanding officer, which had more severe results than any other death.
The ODST had the reputation of keeping up the assault no matter what and always thirsted to kill, especially if it meant their death. He and his squad were no different. When the sergeant had died half of the dozen black-clad warriors charged from behind their cover. They ran shooting straight into the scalding plasma fire and both alien and human screeches were heard while purple, blue, and red blood splattered across the trunks of the war-torn trees.
He had been just as crazy back then, but when he turned and limped into the fray, he had been thrown back behind the safety of the burning wood. There were three of them, around seven feet tall, and entombed in their thick green armour.
He was given an order to stay there, but he could not. He managed to drag his body to the front lines, or rather, where the front lines had been. The three Spartans had done more in three minutes than his men had done in four and a half hours. The highest ranked Spartan, a Master Chief, turned to head back to the marines when the last bullets had been fired. There is where he saw it, the helmet, the visor was like a mirror and he could see the annihilated remains of his platoon from within its reflection. The purple splattered on the visor angered him. It said what the marines knew but would not accept, it said that the Spartans were better.
He had always hated the covenant, for everyone they had killed, every innocent they had murdered, and for their disregard of humanity. But the rage that swelled in him now was greater than all of that. By saving his life, the Spartan had insulted him. The ODST were the best of humanity, an all-volunteer section of the military that had more victories, more kills, and more respect than any other marine force. When the Spartan II program was declassified, and their existence became public knowledge, they had taken away all honour from the ODST. And they were freaks, unnaturally altered to beyond the definition of a human being. They were nothing but humanoid equipment utilized by the UNSC, like a rifle or spaceship.
He was given a sedative and some biofoam, then loaded onto a troop carrying 'Hog. When he arrived at the HQ, he wasn't rushed to the medical building, instead loaded directly onto a pelican and airlifted through covenant antiaircraft turret fire to a destroyer class ship orbiting the planet.
After twenty minutes he had been quickly patched up and sent off for the more serious cases to come in. He walked with a slight limp to the barracks, and there he met the Spartan for a second time.
He climbed into his bed and began to look over the list of casualties in his platoon when the Spartan he only knew as Master Chief walked in. He only recognized the Spartan because of the insignia and his massive frame.
The Chief put his helmet on his bed, and then began to make minor repairs to it. This is where the Spartan had saved his life the most, when he made him rational. The hate he felt before was gone, with no trace left. Without his armour Wilshire had seen him for what he was, a person, like him, trying to save the lives of everyone he knew. Wilshire now knew what he must do. He would never divide himself against another human. He would stay alive, and keep his men alive, so that they could do anything to stop the Covenant.
The Spartan left the barracks, and Wilshire got up to follow. The Spartan was faster, and his limp didn't help at all. He gave up when something else caught his eye. He looked out the window, and saw the planet burning. The covenant war ships shifted around in a crisscross manner, setting fire to the world below. He looked at the list of KIA, MIA, and WIA clutched in his hand, and then turned back to the planet.
The ship lurched forward, and the glassed planet disappeared as they entered slipspace...
"Wilshire! Wilshire! Hey Seth!"
Seth turned back from his memories and looked to his lieutenant. It had been a few years since he had seen the Spartan, and Seth had begun to loose his reputation as a true Orbital Drop Shock Troop, something that suited him fine. He had been able to keep himself alive, by falling back. However with no control over his platoon, most of them fit the classic ODST statistic of living for 17 minutes after they dropped.
"We drop in fifteen minutes, get you shit together and let's go!" ordered Lieutenant Harold. Wilshire put his helmet on.
He paced slowly to the weapons locker and studied the arsenal. He took two MD6 pistols, and six grenades. He looked over the rifle selection, they were going in hot so the sniper rifle wasn't of any use to him. Which left the MA5B Assault rifle, or the BR55 battle rifle. He slung the battle rifle over his shoulder, he wasn't going to be facing waves of grunts or jackals, and therefore the full auto MA5B wasn't needed.
He managed to cram a rocket launcher into his Human Entry Vehicle, HEV for short and then strapped himself in. With one hell of a ride ahead of him, he sat and waited for the Helljumper pre-hell speech, and jolted his helmet's speakers with classic flip music.
Amber continued to paint the Pelican when her commanding officer gave the new orders. She was to take two rides to transport troops and warthogs to the surface. The only thing she thought of, adding more touch-up paint to the battle scarred vehicle, was how long would it be before she would airlift the troops out of there when the covenant glassed the planet.
"Now the Helljumpers are going to clear a drop zone for you, but to get there, you'll be going through some deep shit," Commander Spade informed over the intercom.
"What kind of shit?" Captain Andreas inquired with a playful tone, while she continued to repaint the writing on her bird.
"Nothing I couldn't handle, but you might need a prayer", Amber laughed, and she took a few steps back to admire Sistine chapel of plain black lettering.
She went through the preflight checklists, thinking if it's the oil pressure that will kill them. The green uniforms of the thirty or so men in the back were inspiring, how they were going to fight to the death, and yet all uniforms were neatly worn without any imperfections.
Their CPO was last to enter, but he took notice of her work. " 'Bird of Asskicking' well we shall see won't we?" he said with a smile, she returned the gesture.
With the art connoisseur in the back, Amber felt free to fly, and blow the hell out of the bastard alien invaders. As the engines hummed to life, she checked the weapons systems again. If she were to get into a dogfight with some banshees, she wanted to be prepared.
They were clear of the destroyer and on their way to Cobalt, a mostly ocean covered world, with over three hundred and fifty million inhabitants in the mountain region overlooking the vast deserts. It was only 7 light-years from Reach, and always thought to be a safe place for families to live in peace.
But there is no peace with the Covenant.
Amber put the throttle to full and headed towards the LZ, she could start to see the flashes of molten plasma coming towards them.
"We've got fire back here!" Yelled a marine, but Amber could only hear the screams of the marines strapped in next to the plasma hit. She continued evasive maneuvers, but her co-pilot had spotted a trio of banshees heading their way. The whining engines of the purple craft became clearer through the screams the closer the banshees got. The co-pilot managed to shoot one down and clip the "wing" of another.
The third fighter craft had evaded the turret and swooped above them. The fire in the back had spread and it began to burn her neck. A flash of orange reflected off the cockpit window, a grenade had blown in their cargo hold. Amber needed more speed and jettisoned the warthog, and then she commenced a ridiculously steep dive. A green explosion hit to the right of her.
Her head nearly split open with the force of the fuel rod hit, she looked over for her co-pilot, but saw nothing but a gaping hole, and a jagged horizon. She noticed her bird had begun to barrel roll with the right wing gone, she tried to compensate but it was no use. She looked for a good place to set it down, but the pain in her head was deteriorating her consciousness. She would not let the Covenant win and aimed for a clearing, even with her growing tunnel vision making it difficult. Amber felt her strength slip from her and she lowered her head. The peace she felt now as she slipped from consciousness could not over come the feeling that she had just let three-dozen soldiers die.
"The Jiralhanae had always remained an independent force...until now,"
"We are better because of the Covenant, Traysrektan, we are stronger than ever before"
"Do you call this strength? If you do than you are dumber than I remember Gretneklab, this Covenant will sap our strength," Traysrektan growled at his old friend while they walked down the narrow hallway.
"The Prophets have given us weapons, armor, and assault vehicles the likes of which were beyond our imagination. They have united all clans into one, one race to crush the enemies of the Great Journey," replied the brute as he thrust a quartet of Kig-yar into the wall, painting it with the disgusting violet blood of the bird like creatures.
"Bowing down to the Prophets is a weakness, you know this, you must! No Jiralhanae has ever kneeled to a foreign ruler, and to these "Prophets". They are not rulers, they are weak, and they only use our warriors for their needs."
"What you are saying is heresy I should report you to be torn limb form limb," Gretneklab threatened as he checked his appearance. If he were to meet Tartarus he would make damn sure that he would be promoted.
"Listen to yourself, 'heresy' these words are not our own, they were embedded in our minds like poison. Regret, Mercy, Truth, these creatures have corrupted our chieftains. And if you cannot see that, you will soon become like the Sangheili. Blind and insane, throwing away your lives for the 'Great Journey'..." the Brute felt his helmet crack against the deep purple metal walls. Gretneklab had the blade of his brute shot against Traysrektan's own sinewy throat.
"We are not the Sangheili, we shall be the ones to bring about the Great Journey, not them," he pressed the blade deeper in until the correct shade of honourable purple Jiralhanae blood dripped onto the metal alloy, "you are the one who is blind!"
"If you continue to question the will of the Prophets, and the will of Tartarus..."
Traysrektan grabbed his old friends' arm, and twisted it to a crack. The massive brute yelled in pain, and his eyes focused on Traysrektan's with a rage and thirst for death. It was their species greatest asset, it had been dubbed their "berserk" mode by the Covenant, a name that did not do justice to the massive power it possessed. They wrestled for a while, but Traysrektan found his foe's head in his grasp, and while he silently struggled...the neck snapped in two.
Traysrektan continued his march towards the chieftain's room, wiping the purple-black blood off his armor. The door gave as hiss as it opened, Traysrektan could see his people guarding the true "heretic". The only chieftain to surrender, the chieftain responsible for the end of the Jiralhanae freedom, the chieftain he had sworn allegiance to.
The white-haired brute turned his head to greet him, Traysrektan bowed down and lowered his head. "Welcome Traysrektan... where is the other summoned?"
"When I found him, he was fighting a pack of Kig-yar, one managed to place a grenade on his back...I executed the heretics immediately. He may be alive, but in bad condition."
"Have him killed immediately," Tartarus ordered one of his guards, "his defeat from the Kig-yar is not the first time his failure has made him a heretic, nor is it the first time he has embarrassed our race. As for you, your fate it as yet undetermined." Traysrektan saw saliva hit the floor as the Chieftain spoke these words through his teeth.
Traysrektan raised his head slightly, "I have heard reports of you making remarks towards the Prophets and their wisdom..." Tartarus waved his hand and the guards locked the exit. "The reports have no real evidence to support them. Normally that wouldn't save you life, but you have always been loyal to me, and the Prophets favour your strength."
Traysrektan thought about how he had killed for Tartarus, long ago fighting for him to be chieftain...how wrong he had been. He had often thought that the death of the entire Jiralhanae race was better than being slaves to these weak leaders of madness.
"There is an artifact of the Great Ones on a human invested planet, you shall be sent to the front lines. If the Forerunner want you to live, you will come back. But remember, this is Mercy's will, I would have killed you no matter your history." More spit had landed on the back of Traysrektan's neck.
One of the guards returned to the chieftain's quarters, "If I were you, Traysrektan," Tartarus was yelling wrathfully now, "I would reach down my throat and rip off my tongue. We all know what happens to heretics..." the Guard placed the head of Gretneklab on the table, Traysrektan looked up to see the glazed over eyes stare eternally at him.
Traysrektan stood up and pivoted towards the door, he smelt burning flesh when one of the guards branded him, he made himself continue walking making sure not to show signs of pain or fear. The mark of the Heretic forever on his right shoulder. To him, it was a mark of sanity.
Battle for Cobalt part 2
Date: 17 April 2005, 9:39 PM
Matt moved his heavy boots across the cold metal of the Pelican and then felt them sink down as he stood on the sands of New Sahara. This vast desert covered a third of the planet, but they were on the fringes. They had landed only 40 kilometers from the hot zone in the mountains.
The area had been the sight of a battle only a few days ago. Its only strategic importance was that it was the closest area to the mountains with enough cover to hide some artillery emplacements in the desert. He raised his hand to cover his bare eyes and squinted past the elongated shadow of the drop ship. There was a twenty-meter ridge of sand and rock ahead, with the scars of battle making it look dead and gutted. The obvious corpses had long been dragged away and burned, but those buried by the sand blown in through hurricane force winds had marked the place with the stench of decaying flesh. The ground was disturbed from the usual wave formation, by the blackened craters filled with jagged shrapnel. The coagulated rainbow of blood had swirled together and streamed down the slope of the ridge.
The only beauty in the landing zone shocked the Gunnery Sergeant. The boiled ground from plasma hits had turned into shimmering glass that reflected the blazing sunlight. The divine effect created formed a morbid beauty out of the gruesome landscape.
Matt turned on heel and walked over to meet his tank brothers. "Where do we go from here?" he asked "Or are we staying in this frying pan?"
"No we head into the fire, there's the 22nd division form the Phoenix destroyer in the forests surrounding the mountains. They were last reported to be holding off the covenant trying to create a landing zone for some drop ships."
"And once more these mortals have found themselves in shit and require an explosive solution," Matt replied as a half smirk materialized on his face.
"Well Sarge the others are taking seven Scorpions to alleviate the pressure and clear a path through the trees for further support. We however..."
The Gunnery Sergeant turned around and saw a Pelican kick up a tornado of sand blinding him from its payload. A dampened thump echoed through the LZ.
"It's a ..." His tank brother Brent managed to whisper even though both him and Matt were quite detached from the reality around them.
Matt walked over to the experimental bigger brother of the Scorpion. The standard paint job was not deserved for the complete perfection underneath, he had always imagined it covered in gold and platinum. The tank was 36% larger in width and length and 20% taller in height. The armour was pure Titanium A, and three times as thick as the Scorpion. The turret was an unheard 120 mm and extremely high velocity. It featured two 10mm coaxial guns with armour piercing tracing rounds. But the real beauty was underneath the vast exterior, as most beauty is with weapons of unmitigated destruction. The engine was powerful enough to compensate for the added bulk, and its speed exceeded that of the Scorpion. The most impressive feature of this massive machine was the stolen Covenant technology originally used by humans for the Spartan II armour, the ability to create a barrier of energy around the chassis.
Matt ran his fingers over the raised writing on the right side and mouthed the letters quietly to himself, "O, L, M, P, I, A, N... it's completely," he turned to Brent whose open eyes met his, "pimped out".
They broke out into laughter and later turned to help load the ammunition. Matt caught three hours of restless sleep until he finally was able to step into the Olympian tank. "Fits like a glove," the Gunnery Sergeant remarked getting into the leather seats. Brent found his way into his seat for the turret controls.
Matt changed to the comm. and asked the other tanks to report, when all Scorpions were accounted for, he started his version of their briefing. "What fools these mortals be, dropping in from space and thinking that they'll survive without us? So we are going to save their asses by using our big tough tanks to blow the Covenant's ass through its nostrils... in other words we are going to make them less revolting to look at."
He put the throttle full and raced over the sand dunes, he chose not to activate the shields to conserve power. Matt was quite agitated since usually the logical part of his brain was quieter than this. His anger caused his hand to move over the coaxial gun controls and fire aimlessly at the sands, picturing himself running over screaming elites and cowering jackals while the sounds of their bones crunching under the treads was overpowered by the unmatched roaring of the titanic engine.
Battle for The Surge Mountains
Seth's body slid further down the mountain, gently, as the current of viscous, fluorescent fluid caressed his body. He saw his own eye reflected in the tinted helmet less than an inch above his face. His eye was a faint brown clouded by the forever-night sky of his helmet.
The flickering green menu streaked across the visor blocking the view of the entrance to his soul. The battle kept on replaying in his mind, nothing that could be comprehended, just a flash of fire, plasma, screaming faces and streaks as molten metal had passed by his skull. There were also flashes of smells, grotesque smells of searing flesh, boiling blood, and burning vegetation.
The incessant blinking of the menu interrupted his recent memories, Wilshire started to read the options thrust at him by his helmet's computer. He blinked through the options and began to feel his body coming to a rest in the valley below the mountains, into the pool of Grunt blood collecting at the bottom.
He closed his eyes again while staring at the "Playback" option in his helmet, and when they opened the visor filled with complete blue and began to play the battle.
A white arrow appeared in the top right and he saw his arms carefully select the right weapons for the wrong situation. Wilshire fell deeper into the coagulating lake and felt his body gently grow warmer.
He stepped into his entry vehicle and dropped into the atmosphere, that radio chatter was being drowned out by the raging fury of flip music. He looked out the window and saw streams of plasma rushing past the blurred sky. He also saw a fellow Helljumper in his falling coffin wavering through the wind. The delicate currents of air tossing the frail, dropping, metal vehicle in an uncontrollable spin...
The tinted visor darkened as his fellow ODST vaporized in an explosion of bright sky-blue flame. Seth turned back to his own HEV and cut the music as the 'chute opened. He checked his battle rifle and MD6 pistols. He made sure the rocket launcher was secure and accessible so he could go in and start blasting the sons-of-bitches into drizzling purple, blue, and orange rain.
The head mounted camera blinked in and out of static as the Human Entry Vehicle hit the sheer side of the mountain and slid down the rock face. He saw his hands flail around trying to flip switches and yelling at the vehicle in vile disgust. The front door ejected and the view of a peaceful, serene horizon appeared, filled mostly with mountains and cliffs that hid the ceaseless desert.
He took his available weapons but the rocket launcher had jammed awkwardly inside the HEV, with no time left he jumped out of the sinking ship. The next few seconds of images were frantic scraping at the 70ยก, sheer, cliff wall.
His neck snapped down when his outstretch, gloved hand stopped the fall by clinging into a crack in the slick, sedimentary rock. He head jerked around to look in all directions, only resting when the three hundred foot drop filled his view, the sudden, drop-off, cliff edge was 2 feet from his boots. Below was a forest of trees barely eight feet tall, but nearly a metre and a half in diameter.
He watched as the Titanium-A vehicle cratered into the ground. The fat trees were further disturbed from their endless slumber when the stowed rocket launcher detonated its ammunition.
He turned to look up and saw the disturbed marking where the HEV had first made contact, a good five hundred feet about him. The landing zone had been on the other side of this mountain, where a clearing had been designated as a good spot for future Pelicans to land. Wilshire assessed his situation and found no way for him to make it up and down the mountain in time to secure the area. He looked at his right wrist and pressed the button to activate his locating beacon located there on his ODST suit.
He also looked at the rock face a metre above him and three metres to the left. There was a small cave, made of a gouge three quarters of a metre into the mountainside. He found some footing and began slowly to make his way inside. The shadow hid his black form perfectly, and he waited for air support that he hoped and dreaded coming...
He fears were well found Seth thought as he fast forwarded past the ten minutes of cramped sitting that awaited him, he could still feel the warmth that the blue lake had possessed as he reached the bottom of the oceanic pool of blood. When the normal pace resumed the ear-splitting whine of the banshee anti-gravity boosters sliced through the air. The helmet view followed the banshee as it circled around determined to find the signal source. Seth made sure all guns and grenades were secure and moved his body form a sitting position to a crouch one.
The banshee made lazy slow circles downward and passed the hiding spot where Seth was watching. The banshee dropped a little below him and that was when Wilshire materialized from his cover. The shining sun blinded Wilshire as he dropped through the air. He focused on the purple aircraft and ignored the vast stretches of hardwood forests that stood beneath him.
The violet craft turned abruptly to the right when the force of the falling black-clad Helljumper focused on the short "wing" where he now hung helpless. But he wasn't really helpless. The real Wilshire saw his recorded head shake around while the banshee tried to rid itself of the stowaway. Seth clambered around the vehicle and managed to open the small craft and find the pilot surprised as it screamed its battle cry that sounded to the marines like "Wort Wort Wort".
The creature began to kick at Seth in order to make him plunge to the ground 100 metres below. He quickly grabbed hold of the collar of the alien's armour and pulled it towards him. The aircraft became unbalanced and turned the world around so the ground was above Seth. The Elite had no hold of the banshee and fell screeching to the forest. Wilshire still had a grip on the purple exterior and closed the craft when he found himself safely inside.
He checked around him and noticed no enemies or allies on his motion tracker. He found the lever for the boost feature and accelerated forward with the added energy from the weapons used to propel him.
The recording showed the fear that he remembered, the fear of the dull humming of the banshee, the fear that he didn't know where his enemies were, and the fear that he was flying into his own death. These fears that he had always felt in battle, and caused the recording to frantically look between the banshee's radar and his own motion tracker.
The banshee reached the peak of the mountain, and he dropped the nose of the miniature aircraft. The Surge Mountains were burning. The once towering peaks that separated the vast ocean from the unforgiving desert had been marred by the invading forces. The rock faces struck by high ordnance had crumbled and spilled rubble into the surrounding valleys of thick, flaming forests. The River of Cole had been misshapen by the newly cratered ground, and was tainted by the blood of those fighting for control. He gauged the success of the forces by following the rainbow of the river. He followed the river north with his eyes, blue turned to violet, which turned to green. He pulled out his MD6 and looked through the scope of the pistol. The actual Wilshire closed his eyes to hide himself from the horrors that he remembered. The river flowed towards Cole City, but where the hydroelectric dam was located, the first sign of the city, he could make out a graveyard. Even eighty kilometers away the crimson river could not hide the defeat there.
Battle for Cobalt part 3
Date: 17 April 2005, 9:40 PM
Cole city had been taken, the fires had spouted smoke into the atmosphere. The blackened sky was encroaching its way towards the Surge Mountains, and as the recording followed the skyline the radio crackled on.
"Unknown -nshee re-ond! Repeat Un-o-n Banshee Bearing 2-7-5 r-spond!" The radio signal had been full of static and he guessed the emerald forest had been blocking the transmission.
"This is Corporal Wilshire of the NSWG2-ODST piloting Banshee to the west, requesting HQ co-ordinates."
"Corporal, coordinates are uploaded to you HUD and we are tracking your position. We nearly shot you down if it wasn't for your FOF indicator."
"Just make sure some overeager private with his hands on a turret doesn't fire on my ass"
"Don't worry we need an ODST with some guts to help us out here. We have some reports of heavy enemy forces in the area, you might want to watch out."
Wilshire checked the Banshee radar and saw nothing on its screen. He still had a feeling that it was wrong and shook his head in so many directions, frantically trying to locate any turrets or even a grunt with a pistol, that the Seth that watched himself thought that his actions, then justified and rational, were a glimpse into an underlying insanity and fear that he had hoped never would be apart of himself.
He watched himself flash between the arrow indicating the temporary HQ, the forested valley below him, and the odd barely noticeable glimpses to Cole City, he began to think about the Spartans. Whether or not they acted like this (most likely not), whether or not he could sign up, and forsake his humanity for the sake of humanity, and whether or not they were here on this planet, or if they would even bother.
He had remembered when he joined the army, he had enlisted as soon as he graduated from high school, only waiting because of his mothers wishes. The thought of his mother brought up images of her private funeral, and the lavish ceremonies for his glassed homeworld.
He had grown up listening to the war on television and holorecords, the stories of humanity overpowering the alien invaders through their heroics, able to defeat a technologically and numerically superior foe through their sole ability to outsmart and outmaneuver the enemy. As a child he had only been able to stay up long enough to hear about their victories, the list of glassed planets had been on to late for his naive ears to hear.
He remembered going through boot camp eager to prove himself a good enough soldier to put bullets in an alien's cranium. He later learned that if he could walk and pull a trigger, he would have made it past their rigorous screening process. After a few isolated incidents in which he proved himself apt to handle himself with a rifle, he was pointed towards the office of the ODST and their he began the bloody campaign which led to where he was now, the best the humans could offer, lying helpless and feeble in a pond of glowing blue blood.
He snapped out of his reflection when his screen spun around inside his helmets faceplate. The recording had shown where a heavy plasma turret grazed a wing of the purple craft and he executed a barrel roll to the left. The continuous stream of blue liquid fire tried to follow him as he rotated on all axis to create a target that would be hardest to hit. The blue was befriended by thick glowing pink projectiles the size of his forearm that moved slow and homed in on his erratic position.
The armour of the banshee began to melt away as plasma hits boiled through the alien alloy, leaving behind a window into the inner workings of the craft, framed by a glowing red ring. He dove into a steep dive in attempt to gain speed but the never-ending stream of plasma followed and the football sized needles detonated in the hull of his stolen craft. Seth remembered that it was around this point he changed the reasoning for the dive. The craft now devoid of both stubby "wings" was pluming spouts of excess plasma, the engines reaction to over-heating due to the incoming fire. The smoke like blue plasma began to blind his recording and the craft's trademark whine was beginning to fade.
He could see the thick carpet of foliage as he descended down the mountainside towards the deepest center of the valley. The thick squat trees on the other side of the mountain where the former pilot of this craft now lay motionless and somewhat flattened were not adapt to living on this side. This valley consisted mainly of relatively thin trees ranging from five to twenty metres. Underneath the trees there grew various shrubs and mosses, he hoped they would be a good enough cushion as he lowered the craft to skim the trees. The plasma fire now could not match his lowered angle and gave up, but their crippling damage had been enough to kill the frenzied ODST, if he was not careful.
He aligned perfectly with a break in the canopy and descended below the tree line. The craft immediately began to connect and disturb another peaceful section of the valley as tree branches scraped against the weakened frame of the banshee. He tried to lower it down gently but when a sudden squeeze in the tree trench tore off more of the now unrecognizable craft, it dropped. He tried to maneuver but all control was lost. He tried to unlock the hatch, but it had jammed.
He froze and all thoughts passed out of his former racing mind. He wouldn't get out. He couldn't get out. The banshee would crash and the power used for the engines, plasma cannons, and the titanic force behind the fuel rod cannon, would evaporate his skin and bones in a morbid flash of green mixed with a bright blue.
The tranquility the realization of his impending death had brought was replaced with an adrenaline rush and the primal urge for his own survival. He pounded ferociously on the "door" release thinking that if he hit it hard enough it would take him seriously. He felt the banshee hit into more trees that tossed the craft around. He continued to will the door to open (or rather unfold the top section from the bottom) by utilizing the force of his fist.
The force of Newton's cursed gravity reared its ugly head when the banshee succumb to its incapabilities. There was shuddering force of the banshee flipping violently end-over-end crunching the frail flora beneath him. He felt almost safe encapsulated within the structure and while the recording continued to show the world spinning around, Seth Wilshire remembered distinctly how he had closed his eyes. Not out of fear or wishing it to end, but rather feeling at peace because for once, the situation was out of his control and the control on any sentient being, human or otherwise, it was all luck now.
The craft began to slow down and stopped when a tree managed to resist the banshee's inertia. He opened his eyes and felt his body writhe with the feeling that he was still moving. He began to squirm in the form-fitting cockpit, the craft still would not open. The purple alloy had twisted and crumpled, pinning him down and slicing through the suit and flesh covering his arms and legs. He tried to force the banshee open but the alien hydraulics kept it closed. He laid there churning over the recent events. He looked at the banshees control interface, the data screen had cracked open and shown the inner workings of the intricate device.
Seth studied the mechanics of the banshee through that hole. He watched it for enough of a time that the real, current Wilshire fast-forwarded through the unmoving stare. He followed a particular black tube of some unknown material. It had been connected to the right place...and it looked like the correct part.
He thought he could reach the tube and pull it out, but the most his left arm could move was an inch or two in any direction. He remembered the holstered MD6 pistol on his left side and tried to grab it. His fingers touched the holster and managed to unfasten it. But with only the dexterity of his index and middle fingers, getting the heavy pistol was a task all its own. He clamped the grip with a finger on either side and contracted his fingers. The gun moved a centimeter out of the holster. He extended his fingers and clamped the MD6 once more, after repeating this method a few more times, the gun lay on the metal where his full palm could grasp it.
The jagged metal pinning his arm down cut further into his left bicep when Wilshire positioned himself for the shot. The pistol was twenty centimeters from his left shoulder, and the target was over half a foot in front of his head. He tried to line up the shot with the pistol he could not see, a phantom pistol heavy in his now sweat-slicked palms. He focused in on the target still visible through the demolished information screen, it had not made an attempt to escape its fate.
His own head however had no such blind courage for imminent possible death. The MD6 was accurate, if one could see down the sights. With only the feel for it in his hand, Seth could not be sure if the explosive rounds would decapitate him, let alone even hit the target now growing smaller in his eyes.
Seth Wilshire tightened his grip on the gun and lined up what he hoped would be a direct hit. His neck cracked as he strained it to the right, trying to put as much distance between him, and the 12.7 mm armour-piercing, high-explosive round loaded into the side-arm's chamber. It was now he closed his eyes out of fear, he faced death all to frequently as an ODST, but never before at his own hands.
Blind with eyes either open or closed, he let the calming darkness of his eyelids relax his rigid body. It would not work, since the rhythmic rapping of the human metallic pistol against the covenant purple alloy interrupted any attempts for tranquility. He began to focus on steadying his enclosed, black-gloved fist.
When he felt the sweat stream gently across his face leaving a salty taste in his lips, he felt that this was enough. He would not be able to bear the fear of this shot any longer, and staying encased in a purple tomb was not something an ODST would let happen.
With that thought, he swallowed any remaining doubt, opened his brown eyes and strained his vision on the targeted black tube until his eyes started to water. Seth's left hand squeezed a total of three rounds, the sound reverberated inside the banshee and nearly deafened Wilshire inside his protective black helmet.
Without looking at the hydraulic tube he spent the better part of the last twenty minutes of his life staring at knowing it would decide his fate, he lifted the top canopy of banshee up. He tried to look at his surroundings but had to wipe away the reddish-orange liquid that sprayed on his visor from the black tube he just shot.
With the hydraulic liquid cleaned from his visor he gathered his equipment, and noticed where a stray bullet had just scraped across the top left side of his ODST helmet. The trees leading up to the wreaked, stolen Banshee had been demolished into a burning path, as if cleared by an isolated forest fire.
Not dwelling on his miraculous survival from the fatally certain crash, Wilshire shook his head and looked to the west where the Nav pointer on his helmet's Heads Up Display directed. He had another two miles to move through the Covenant invested woods, with no back up to help him. He sighed and briefly thought about what would have happened if his HEV had landed on the correct side of the mountain.
The thick underbrush was going to inhibit his trek to the HQ, not only making it difficult to physically move across the pathless ground, but also his footsteps would have to be slowed down and methodical to avoid needless noise that would let the Covenant know his position...before he wanted them to. His boot crunched down the uncontrolled and chaotic underbrush on the first step and he began to calculate the time it would take to traverse the two miles moving slower than a snail on Earth.
A faint frown momentarily streaked across his face, the sad thing he felt, was that this wasn't the most tediously frightening thing he had done in a battle trying to regroup with the scattered ODST Human Entry Vehicles. He remembered once where he had been a three days journey from any human destination. He and a fellow Helljumper had to crawl day in and day out through thick viscous swampland. The entire swampy territory was Covenant controlled and they had to be careful of where they popped up for air. They had killed more of the reptilian life in the swamp than any of the covenant surrounding them. A slight twinge of regret passed through Seth, he had spent three days and nights surrounded by chances for imminent death at one wrong move, and he could not remember the name of the ODST he had spent that time with.
He trudged silently on through the cheery forest. The sunlight and peaceful surroundings would have given off a feeling of serenity, if it were not for the distant sounds of bullet fire and muffled, fierce explosions.
More than an hour from the Banshee and only five hundred metres through the woodland Wilshire's strained ears almost erupted when he heard a large disturbance in the bush. He looked fifty metres to the front of him frantically scanning the trees for what it was. The trees were more frequent now and he could not make out any moving form.
Splintering wood shot out with the force of a cannon, one of the trees had shattered its peaceful slumber. The 12-metre trunk was thrown through the forest crushing more vegetation in its path. Wilshire dropped down into the thick shrubbery and began to taste the blood in his mouth from where he had inadvertently sliced his tongue with his teeth.
Seth rested his BR55 Battle rifle on the ground and shouldered the butt of the gun. He peered in the scope attached to the top of the rifle and tried to find a hole in the shrubbery to see through. He needed to estimate their forces if he were to make contact with them.
The inspection through the crosshairs sent a shiver of fear that shot through his spine and then reverberated through his mind. Twin bulks of blue armour thundered their way around the underbrush. More than twice his height he had been surprised to see that they were relaxed. In battle they were massive 8-foot tall living tanks, but here with no enemies to focus on, their unarmoured glowing orange parts were fully extended. The long, thin, spaghetti-like necks were casually scanning the area, as their arms utilized the might of the fused alloy shield on their arm to knock down encumbering trees and widen their path.
He remembered so many times when two Hunters wiped out platoons of men without the marines landing a single hit through their armour. Seth remembered times where grown men fled tripping over themselves and other marines, from a shadow that reminded them of the massive creatures. He remembered the screams of the marines who were stabbed by the seemingly rigid spikes extending from the shoulders and backs. And screams from the crippled bodies of men thrown across a field of battle, when one of these Hunters thrust their left arm out, and the alloy shield infused into the entire arm, crushed all obstacles. He could still hear soft distant screams of those around him, when marines were vapourized in flashes of green from the over-lethal Fuel Rod Cannon bonded to the right arms of the beasts.
But he also remembered the heat, and deafening noise from a rocket launcher that connected and hollowed out a pair of Hunters. And Seth also remembered countless encounters where the squelching sound of a bullet passing through the organs encased in the vulnerable luminous orange body parts of the seemingly impervious bodies brought the immense creatures down.
As for now, he wished he still had the SPNKr rocket launcher that had been stowed in his entry vessel. With it he could come out form his concealed position and hit them both before they could react. He peered through his looking glass and half observed them again, he had thousands of battle simulations simultaneously racing through his head. They were still blissfully unaware with their heads maintaining their high and susceptible positions. The flat blue heads were rotating around while they were tossing more trees out of their way, he could just make out the minuscule green eyes that mere specks on the mammoth figures.
He checked all of his gear, he still had all of the extra ammo clips, both pistols, duct tape, six grenades, and his Battle Rifle was resting comfortable on the ground in line with his prone body. Wilshire had a method of attack, and the fact that he was still hidden would help him greatly.
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