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Down in Flames by NevinNiven
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Down in Flames
Date: 16 August 2001, 11:14 PM
A Covenant Banshee sailed high overhead. The Marines crouched in a cave winced as the shrill noise reached their ears. They had taken cover here after having struck at a Covenant forward search group, their Jeep had taken a direct blast from a Covenant tank. Melting the front half and bursting the tires. Johnson had been badly burned, but they had hauled him off. Now, the Covenant were searching for them, for retribution.
Jagr looked over at Milstein, and searched his face for any emotion. None, none whatsoever, same as him. What was this war doing to them? He didn't know, not really, just a cold detachment that came over them whem they went and fought. They could not allow themselves to slow for one second when a comrade died. Not one lousy second. And now they were in a cave, he wasn't sure how he had gotten here. Some time of grand scheme it seemed.
A flash of movement outside caught Milstein's attention. Then another, through the foilage. A dropship had landed. And Marines poured out of it. He grabbed his rifle, and secured it to his back, Jagr did the same and they picked Johnson up. They ran through the dense forest, and burst into a hellish scene. Bright fire erupted from so many human weapons as ice cold plasma bursts screamed back at them. Dirt and dust was flying all over the place, bullets ricocheted off of rocks and into anything they could bury themselves into. A plasma burst caught a Marine in the shoulder, spinning him about in a lazy pirhouette. He collapsed and his position was filled in by another Marine.
The Marines were simpy spraying their fire in an attempt to hold the Covenant back. And then a silver flash arced across the battlefield. It impacted with a Marine's head, bursting it and passing into the forest, where it blew several trees apart. The Marines concentrated their fire in that locale. A grenade thumped out of its launcher and landed behind the outcropping of rocks. Blowing four Elites sky high, one of which had a long silvery rifle.
Milstein and Jagr ran behind the line of Marines, watching bodies fall, burnt and mangled, to the ground. The Marines now placed their shots carefully. Covenant bodies wrenched themselves this way and that as the high velocity bullets punctured their body and shredded their innards.
The Covenant charged, their ranks surging forwards, at least one hundred of them, with shields, against forty Marines. The Covenant did not fire as they advanced. And the first wave was cut down quickly, fifteen dead. The second wave, this time Jackals, did fire as they approached. The shots weren't well aimed and only four Marines fell dead. The Grenadiers in the Marines ranks were given the order and fired. The regular Marines threw their grenades into the ranks.
And like firecrackers, a chain reaction was set off. The first grenade exploded, sending bodies hurtling high into the air, as the other grenades touched off bodies lost limbs from the force, blood and bits of innards rained down upon the Marines.
The Marines thundered forward. Dropping down into the freshly made trenches. Cutting the legs out from under the third wave. The Grunts turned and ran, being cut down where they stood. Milstein and Jagr reached the dropship and left Johnson with the medics. They unstrapped their rifles and ran to the battle. They were inssued orders to lay down cover fire.
Half of the Marines laid down cover fire as the other half bolted straight for the Covenant position. They slammed against the outcropping of rock that the other side of the Covenant position. Then the Marines who had laid down cover fire charged as the other half breached the line. And they found nothing, nothing but a soft blue glowing monitor. Attached to a magnetic containment chamber.
"Get out! It's a bomb! Move move move!" The Sergeant yelled.
The Marines turned around and ran as fast as possible towards the dropship. A third of the Marines made it in when the bomb exploded. It immediately shattered the rock, sending that into the rear of the Marine forces, killing several instantly and leaving others sprawled on the ground. The shock wave threw a good portion of the Marines into the air, throwing them against the side of the Dropship, and sending them tumbling down, unconcious.
Half of the Marines were inside the dropship when the actual ball of flame hit, lighting anything outside on fire. And blackening the hull of the dropship. The door swung up and locked closed. The dropship roared upwards on ion flames. And then several balls of plasma leapt out of the forest and at the dropship, impacting all over the hull, the dropship lost power and control, then the pilot compartment burst into flames, the dropship hit the canopy and then crashed into the ground, throwing Marines into the forward compartment. The rear panel tore open and was thrown clear. The Marines shook their heads and crawled out of the dropship, and ran into the forest as quickly as possible, with Milstein and Jagr carrying Johnson with them, deep into the forest. And then, the dropship exploded, tearing out trees and shaking the ground, knockin over several Marines. Who were now stuck in the middle of a forest, being hunted by the beast known as the Covenant.
Down in Flames: Part 2
Date: 17 August 2001, 3:05 AM
The thick plantlife was cut apart in a hiss. A Red Elite held his sword at the ready as he waited for the steam to clear. When it did, he sniffed the air, searching for the human scent that he had picked up. It had begun vary faint, and now he was rapidly closing. A large column of smoke certainly helped, the humans had been stupid enough to light a fire. He leapt onto the nearest tree and scrambled up it like an overgrown insect. He jumped to the next tree, grabbing a branch and releasing, landing on another.
The humans lay motionless, with blood spattered on them. The fire burning nearby, smoke climbing into the sky in a hopless attempt to reach other humans. Several of them were high in the trees, freshly cleaned in a river. And looking about nervously.
The Red leaped down from a tree thirteen yards away, and approached the human encampment cautiosly. He sniffed at the blood, fairly fresh, maybe six hours old. He stepped over one of them, and peered into the gray flesh. The eyes stared upwards, glazed over. And then they blinked. And the other bodies moved quickly as the one below him kicked him in the stomach. Shocking him, then a sharp crack sounded as an AR's butt slammed into the base of his skull, knocking him cold. But four seconds later he leaped to his feet and backhanded the nearest human, sending him flying. Another human slammed into him from behind, sending him sprawling onto the ground, he quickly righted himself and pulled his blade out. It hissed and crackled in the moist air.
The human pulled out a machete. The blade glinting in the light, with purple stains at the front. The human narrowed his eyes, it was the one he had observed carrying the broken man away. Jagr fixated his eyes on the blade now. It moved and he reflexively dodged the attack. It then sideswiped and he met the blade with his own. The Red swung its left arm around, in an attempt to knock the human over. The human began falling to the right, the blow glanced off of his head. The momentum transferred allowed him to roll in the air over the hissing blue blade.
The Red couldn't believe what he saw, it had actually blocked two of his attacks, and then used one to get him into a better position. Now the human brought its right arm up in an attempt to cut his chest, the Red pulled his blade close and blocked it. The human's left leg shot out, catching the Red on the right knee. It crunched as the immense force was transferred into it. He wavered for a moment and then rolled to his right, switching his blade to his left hand as he brought it up in a slashing attack. The human leapt up and threw itself forward, somersaulting the attack and landing on a shoulder, rolling back to its feet. A most frustrating opponent.
Jagr looked as the Covenant seemed to favor his right leg. He knew which side to attack now. He ran forwards and as the Red stabbed out with his blade he dropped into a baseball style slide, going under the Red as he swung at the left shin, the blade bit deep, into the bone, and dug in, the Covenant was torn off of its feet, landing on its belly. Jagr tugged and the blade popped out, blood sprayed out of the wound. He scrambled to his feet, and watched as the Red got back up, shakily. He let the Red attack, he feinted from a chop and let out with an attack of his own. It caught the Red in the neck, and passed free, after cutting several major arteries and the vocal cords. Blood burbled out as the Red attempted to breathe. It wheezed and bubbled. The Red clutched a hand over its throat. And fell dead.
"Good job on taking out that scout. We've caught footage of them before, to swift for much visual ID, just a blur on the screen, which is what you'll look like on the video." MacInnis said.
"Thanks sir, but I've fought others who weild the same type of blade, how did you think I got these stains on my machete?" Jagr replied.
"I thought maybe you were using their heads as hood ornaments." MacInnis sarcasticly stated.
"Right, we had better get a move on, the Covies can't be far behind. And they'll certainly know where we are after they discover a scout is missing. Who'd have thought we'd still be alive after two days out here? Just us thirty two guys and not much ammunition." Jagr said.
"Agreed. MEN FORM UP AND MOVE OUT!"
Four minutes later they were hiking towards the nearest human encampment. Another forty-five miles away. They couldn't run, they might dehydrate, they didn't know where the next river they would encounter would be. So they trudged on another six miles that day.
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?! A BLADEMASTER DEAD! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?" The First Overlord yelled at his General.
"According to what we obtained from the optical storage chip in his brain, an exceptionally fast human slay him." The General replied, with a lowered head.
"EXCEPTIONALLY FAST? MY PERSONAL BLADEMASTER! HE WOULD NEVER HAD FALLEN TO A HUMAN! HE IS SECOND ONLY TO ME! I SUGGEST YOU GO AND FIND THIS HUMAN! KILL HIM!" The Overlord shouted.
"Aye sire, it will be done." He deeply bowed and exited.
The General walked out of the mobile HQ and boarded a dropship, ordering the pilot to head to the last known coordinates of the humans. When they arrived, the General ordered the pilot to turn on the FLIR. Abour thirty bright dots appeared on the HUD.
"There- Go there, NOW!" The General ordered.
The dropship roared forward, scattering a herd of the local cattle. And sending birds into the air. He dropped out of the ship and into the trees. Catching a branch, which flexed under the force, and swinging himself to another tree, pulling out his blade, igniting it, and dropping to the ground, in one smooth motion. The dust cleared around his feet, the prominent back spikes flexing upward.
"Who killed the blademaster!" His deep voice boomed.
"The what?" MacInnis asked.
"He was red, about six foot nine, died of a wound to the neck." The General said as he rolled his eyes.
"I did, why do you ask." Jagr stated.
"You killed the Overlord's personal blademaster, second in swordmanship only to the overlord himself." The General replied.
"Okay, and I take it you're here to take my life or something along those lines."
"Yes, prepare to die."
The General charged forward, shield leading the way, partially blocking his view. In the meantime Jagr lit his blade and pulled out his pistol. He stroked the trigger twice, blowing the General's knee apart, and sending him tumbling to the ground. Jagr then moved in and whispered in the General's ear.
"No wonder you bastards can't win a guerilla war, you don't know how to not play by the rules do you? Now you play by the Marine rules. And we will take every single advantage of you. Right up to blowing the heads off of your leaders from a mile away. We know how you work, like the ancient British military. Cut the head off and don't play by the rules and we win, let's see what happens when your 3rd Army no longer has a General. And is suddenly swarmed by armor, of light, medium, and heavy tanks, supported by artillery and snipers. That's should be happening when they enter a valley about two hundred klicks from here. We still have burst radios you dimwit." Jagr growled.
"Our numbers will grind you down, and you will all die!" The General spat back.
A rocket launched from a tube in the trees, shattering the dropship's cockpit, sending it smoking into the trees.
"We suffer a few casualties when you lose hundreds. Welcome to real war, brutal war." And with that, Jagr put two bullets into the General's brain cavity, shattering the optical recorder.
Down in Flames: Part 3
Date: 19 August 2001, 4:31 pm
The next day they had found a large river and filled their canteens with water, there were also fruit-bearing trees there. They filled their hats and helmets with it. They continued to walk on, already having covered twenty miles since 1:00 AM. They sat down after another mile to rest, and half of them would sleep for the hour.
"So? What do you think the odds of us surviving this war are?" MacInnis asked Jagr.
"Truth be told? I don't want to think about it. So go away." Jagr replied.
"Okay then, goodbye and get some sleep." MacInnis stood up, yawning.
The Covenant hunter-seeker group moved slowly through the forest, ever alert of the noises made by the forest and those alien to it, but so far, no humans. Not even a chemical trail to follow them. They had headed out at 5:00 AM, this reason for this was because their dropship hadn't shown up, and that dropship had been the one to take the General out. The Overlord had yelled and ranted for the entire four hours of their briefing, talking about how stupid his General was, how he killed the Blademaster and now himself. Srh'T'K just hoped he didn't have to face the human who had slain the Blademaster in one-on-one combat. No, he wanted to live through this war.
One of his men stood ramrod straight, soon everyone else in Srh'T'K's command did. They could smell burnt plastics and metal. Like that found on a dropship. Srh'T'K hand signalled them to slowly moved forward. They did so, being careful not to crunch any leaves or snap a twig. When they came upon the wreckage carrion birds surrounded it. Picking away at a body.
"Get away from there!" Srh'T'K yelled at the birds while waving his arms madly and dashing forward.
He arrived at the broken cockpit and looked for the identification symbol. A member of theÝDeracs tribe. Those humans would pay dearly for the loss of a noble tribesman. And he would see to it that they did. He would clutch one in each hand and squeeze the life out of him, and then, he would behead them, and bury the heads in a desert, letting the birds and scorpions pick away at it. Yes, he would and-
"Sir, we have found the General." The voice snapped him out of his reverie.
"I have recieved your message and am coming your way." Shr'T'K replied.
He walked quickly, arriving in two minutes. He looked down at the General, with pieces of him spread on the ground, with blood, lots of blood around him. He had a gaping hole at one of his kneecaps, with mangled and torn flesh surrounding it, bit of white bone mixed in with the muscle. The head was off much worse, one quarter of the right side had been blown off, with two holes on the opposite side. The optical recorder did not show up on the scanners, and there was no scent of humans nearby. The General obviously didn't just pull out a rocket launcher and shoot down his dropship, then shoot out a knee and kill himself. The humans would have to be nearby.
Thirty miles away, "Good thing we jogged those last ten miles. Another jog like that and we'll be back at a base. Get's the blood flowing too." MacInnis wheezed out to Jagr.
Jagr, breathing slowly and wishing his two friends were still alive, replied, "Yeah, sure does get the blood flowing, and if we want to make it to base alive we'll be sprinting over the next hour."
"Right, that's funny, we can't sprint, we've been up to long. I've decided that we are going to walk the rest of the way." MacInnis said.
"No, you and everyone else are going to haul it back to base, believe me, you don't want to get ambushed out here by the Covenant." Jagr snapped back.
MacInnis paled a little and turned away walking. Jagr tracked the man with his stare. How stupid could the man be? Didn't he know that they would send a large scouting force after the destruction of the 3rd Army and their General! He wondered why he had even agreed to this two hour break.
Shr'T'K and his men had spread over a ten mile search area, moving in a parallel line. They crossed a rather large river, and caught scent of the humans. Shr'T'K had his command encircle the place. Then they charged in. Finding a desolate clearing with a single candy bar wrapper twisting in the wind.
"Do not worry warriors, you have not been tricked, scent the wind and you will realize that the humans have merely moved on." Shr'T'K quickly said, his cheeks flushing a deeper purple.
He gathered his men and moved on. He rather enjoyed it when he was stalking the humans. Nothing quite like the thrill of the hunt, especially with such a devious and clever enemy. He would someday write a book about his experiences in the Human-Covenant War. He would likely not sell many copies as other books written by Generals and certainly the Overlord would do much better.
"Sergeant MacInnis, get up and get a move on." Corporal Jagr yelled in MacInnis' ear.
MacInnis bolted upright, almost smashing his head against Jagr's. He looked around to see that he had been the only one still sleeping. He had to get going, no time to lose with Jagr on his case.
Five minutes later they were sprinting through the lush grassfields of Halo, the grass towered over them by at least six inches. Jagr lead the pack, making sure they didn't get lost. Another half hour at this pace and they would be back at the base. He kept running, hoping he would make it back, he had already used his burst radio to communicate that they could use a dropship. The reply had been that they were still using them to shuttle wounded Marines out of the battlefield for the clash with the 3rd Army, which had been totally destroyed with only sixty four casualties, the artillery shells had destroyed most of the armor, severely lessoning the effectiveness of the Army. He had to wait until a dropship could be re-allocated to his position. He had sent the message five hours ago.
Shr'T'K had the scent of the humans strong in his nostrils and he ran after the invisible thing. It certainly reeked, nothing like that of the Covenant. The sweat he could almost taste in his mouth. Salty, not much else. He almost tripped on a fallen log but hurdled it at the last moment, he had always been something of a day-dreamer. He guessed that the humans would be at their base in approximately a half hour. He would catch up with them in fifteen.
"Sir! They've-*crackling static*"
Jagr raised his hand and everyone stopped and about faced. They turned with rifles ready, watching for any movement amongst the sea of grass. Nothing, not even anything wavering. This had better not be some joke. And then movement from all sides plasma bursts erupting with a whine from their guns. Two Marines were felled in the crossfire, they hadn't ducked in time.
The retribution of the AR was swift, cutting into the grass and causing four dead Covenant to spill out from it. The plasma fire continued to pour in, most of it going high. The humans fired another burst at the place of origin, three thuds and their concurrent moans marked those Covenant as down. The plasma fire only came from three sources now, all in front of the humans.
Jagr spoke into his radio, "All Marines fall back the way we headed at an all out sprint, I just got word that we have a dropship en route to pick us up."
The Marines all perked at hearing this and got up laying down surpressive fire. They dashed out into the open, with a large grey dot approaching fast. The Pelican had arrived, but from the other direction two Covenant flyers screamed toward them. The Pelican touched the ground and the Marines filed in, sticking their rifles out the gun ports, two Marines took up the side mounted pea-shooters.
The flyers closed quickly, they came in range and the Marines sent fire flying out toward them. The traces burned themselves into the sky, some ricocheting off of the flyers, others biting deep into the metal. The Marines concentrated on the lead flyer, which blew into fragments and tore the pilot apart fifty yards away from the dropship. Pieces of the flyer slammed into the Pelican, the sound of impact echoing through the hollow.
The other flyer juked to avoid the shrapnel and flew past, the other half of the Marines opened fire, none hit. The flyer circled wide and came back in, head on into the fire, too bad they didn't believe in dodging fire, not honorable or something like that. They might've lived longer if not for that. The front end was turned into Swiss Cheese, erupting into bringht blue flames, the flyer spiralled down into the pack of three Covenant below, crushing them and then bouncing into the air, trailing pieces of debris. It landed in the grass fields and skidded another thirty yards, lighting the grass on fire.
In another five minutes the Marines were back at the base, glad that they didn't go down in flames, stupidly wasting their lives in some 'John Wayne heroics' as their Drill Sergeants had called them. They'd fight with their heads from now on. And they throughly enjoyed the MREs that were served for dinner.
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