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TYRUS II, ERANADI XII
UNSCN Valhalla
Fourth Guard's Air Corps
CS: Hammer 3-9
ATTACHED: 504th ODST Pathfinders
The engines of the D77H-TCI blared into his ears, denying him any level of concentration. He could have sworn he detected a faint smile on the lips of one of the 504th boys sitting on the opposite side of the Pelican. Turbulence battered the craft as she spiraled down towards the surface of Tyrus II, now the ODST was smiling broadly.
"You all right over there, son?" His helmet was pushed back, revealing a face dominated by a forest of whiskers and a set of intense blue eyes. Red squad leader paint was stenciled onto his shoulder plates against the ebony armor.
"Fine, Sergeant." Ryan Caen replied, running his gloved hand over his head, scratching around the back of his neck. His friends would have identified the gesture as nervousness, but the Marine shrugged and dismissed it, reaching into one of the pouches on his vest for a cigarette, which soon left a film of smoke hovering in the troop bay.
There were two other Marines sitting near their comrade, quietly discussing the curves of the female naval officers aboard the Valhalla orbiting overhead, laughing every now and then, completely at peace with the intense flight conditions.
Caen leaned his head back and exhaled, blowing away some of the smoke filling the cabin. From the untrained eye, someone could have mistaken him for a fourth shock trooper in his black armor, but the Marines knew better. Every UNSC Marine knew an ONI Op when they saw one. Caen was a telltale sign that something was up. A Covenant Expeditionary Unit on the ground but no cruisers to be found in orbit was a strange coincidence at best, and when outsiders are suddenly assigned to your unit having 'spook' written all over them, you knew something was up.
Caen revealed a smile of his own and checked his kit. An M6B Magnum was strapped to his hip, its muzzle threaded with a silencer, paired with a compact M7S-SMG. Command had issued him a new generation D-DACT as well, a Dismounted Data Automated Communications Terminal that would feed him his operational guidelines and objectives. He had been issued a MK-IV helmet as well, the same variant the shock troopers wore, but he doubted he would use it after they had landed.
The city below raced up to meet them as the pilot pulled the dropship out of its dive and raced over the rooftops at dizzying speeds. The atmosphere doors slid away and the ramp dropped for a hot drop. The ODSTs slapped their helmets on and slid back the actions on their weapons. Caen lowered the bulky MK over his own head and waited a moment for the HUD to spring to life and identify his Marine companions seated across the way. The visor labeled them as Zero-Six, Three-Three and Zero-One.
"Look live, Helljumpers!" The Sergeant barked, standing and grabbing hold of one of the ceiling tethers. The others did so as well and Caen followed suit. The excitement inside him seemed to rise from his stomach to the top of his throat as he was deafened by the crackle of Covenant antiaircraft guns on the surface.
The Pelican raced over the weapon installations, spraying them with gunfire from overhead, cutting the gun crews to pieces. The pilot's voice filled Caen's earpiece a second later. "Aright boys it's going to be a little warm up here, prep for hot drop…el-zee coming up in ten!"
The dropship had slowed down alarmingly fast and banked into the gutted superstructure of what had once been a shopping mall of Tyrus's capital city of San Pablo. Caen was thoroughly impressed with the pilot for the maneuver, the ceiling of the structure couldn't have given him more than feet of clearance in any direction, though he sped through at top speeds.
Caen stiffened as he glanced through the cockpit canopy to see a massive glass wall impeding their progress, though the pilot just continued, firing a long burst from the nose cannon and crashing through the obstacle, circling their new landing zone once and then banking around to dispatch his troops.
"Hoo-rah!" The ODST Corporal growled. "Feet first, baby! Go!" Caen leapt from the ramp the five feet to the ground and tucked his body behind a fallen statue for cover.
The 504th boys landed a few yards behind him before Hammer Three-Nine raced back towards the clouds and disappeared into the stars. A heavy rain showered San Pablo, keeping down the dust from the cities near destruction, but making for poor visibility on the now darkened streets.
Caen ejected the magazine of his M7S and confirmed that there was a round in place, and replaced it. He hunkered down next to the trio of Marines and unclipped his D-DACT from his chest plate.
"What's the deal, Lieutenant?" The Sergeant asked, sweeping the streets with his HUD, searching for Covenant Forces converging on the drop site.
"Wait one." Caen replied.
"Hayes, move north and wait for us at that corner building." The Sergeant said quietly, indicating a blown out structure a few dozen yards away. "Jones, go with him and set up overwatch on the roof." Jones slung his M7 across his chest and shouldered his SRS99D Sniper's Rifle.
"You bet, Sarge. We're on it." The two black-clad shock troopers stalked out into the rain, soon disappearing into the gloom.
"Talk to me, Caen. What are we doing here?" The Sergeant's demeanor had changed slightly; he was no longer the aloof Marine that laughed at his lack of combat experience, but he was all business, and clearly eager to have an objective to direct his progress.
Caen had not answered the Marine yet, but continued to wipe away the raindrops dotting his helmet's visor. He swore and removed the MK, setting it on the concrete slab next to them and tapped the screen of the D-DACT for instructions from Command.
A few seconds past, punctuated by rumbling thunder and flashes of lightning.
"Zero-Six in position." Jones reported over the SQUADCOM.
"Three-Three is sittin' tight." Hayes replied as well.
"Got something." Caen wiped the screen of the D-DACT as a stream of text scrolled across the pad.
RENDEVOUS WITH ALPHA AT 36, 49
Caen frowned and forwarded the objective to the three ODSTs and replaced his helmet.
"Alright, El-tee, let's move." Sergeant Mackenzie took charge once his goal was in place. The Marine slid out from behind cover and jogged out into the street, dodging in and out between abandoned vehicles for cover.
Caen waited a few seconds and then followed, ducking through the rain and moving quickly towards the ruins where the other Marines were holed up.
"Freeze." Zero-Six, Jones breathed over the COM. "Covenant patrol, Sarge…Brutes. Can you get to us?"
Caen had dropped the second Jones spoke, and was now peering down the street towards Mackenzie, who crouched behind a car with his right hand to his earpiece. "Caen's too far back…strength?"
Jones swore and reduced the magnification of the scope so he could see the entire patrol. There were six of the bastards, armed to the teeth with their 'Spiker' rifles and other deadly assortment of Covenant weaponry.
"They're headin' your way, Sarge…six of them turning the corner in a few seconds, what do you want me to do?" Jones asked, threading the silencer onto the muzzle of the SRS99D.
Static. "Take it." Mackenzie replied after a second's thought.
Jones rested the rifle on the lip of the building's edge and rested the targeting sight on the head of the Brute in the rear of the column. He exhaled to steady the rifle and squeezed. 14.5x114mm Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding-Sabot round did not make any more sound than a muted pop as it left the barrel of the S2.
Immediately the sabot round slammed into the head plate of the Brute. The round punched straight through the metal plate and burst out at the base of his skull, spraying his brains across the wall in the bullet's path. The creature's head then rolled free of its body and fell to the ground with the corpse following suit.
The Brute was far enough behind his comrades that they would not have heard anything, but the smell of fresh blood immediately riled them into frenzy. The pack leader roared with rage and leapt for shelter, and a second APFSDS round perforated the chest piece of another of his pack mates.
Jones watched as the second Brute slumped to the ground, gripping the substantial hole in its chest that hadn't been there a moment before. They still didn't know where he was. One of them lifted its head to try and catch his scent. Jones snapped onto the target and squeezed. The shot went low, breaking apart a piece of the concrete barrier the beast hid behind.
The pack leader had seen the contrail of the last shot and barked an order to open fire. Jones ducked and rolled away as the rooftop exploded in a flurry of superheated tungsten core projectiles. The Brutes advanced now that he was pinned down, right towards Hayes position downstairs.
Hayes watched as they fired into the upper stories of the building and rushed towards his foxhole. Two of them. Hayes fired blindly over the crest of the crater he hid in and was rewarded with surprised howls as a few of the rounds hit home. He stood and fired a sustained burst into the chest of the closest Brute. The jacketed rounds tore open the beast's chest; their entry points the foundation of plumes of dark blood as the alien crashed to the street with a splash.
The second creature roared and raised its weapon and fired, showering him with plasma. Hayes went down without a scream, disappearing into his foxhole as the Brute stalked forward.
Caen and Mackenzie had arrived, using combined fields of fire to bring down the encroaching alien. Caen rolled behind cover as a fresh sheet of plasma sizzled the air above his head as the surviving Covenant soldiers opened fire. Mackenzie was in the foxhole with Hayes. Caen advanced from car to car quietly while the Brutes strafed the Marines' position and stealthily emerged on their flank.
Both of them were facing away from him; the rain must have dosed his scent. He continued to move forward. The minor Brute popped up to take a snap shot and a sabot round removed his head. Blood showered the pack leader's armor as he roared in frustration, just now turning to notice Caen. His Spiker was out of ammunition, and he tossed it away and charged. Caen knelt and squeezed, hitting the Brute with a long burst in the gut, cutting him open.
But the creature continued. Caen tried to leap out of his path, but he reached out and clouted him in the head. He vision swam and he tasted blood, rain pounded his face and he saw his helmet lying a few feet away. The Brute had slowed, but was charging again. Caen's M7 had skittered along the pavement some few yards away. He drew his sidearm and pulled the trigger back as quickly as he could. The pistol bucked six times, the Magnum rounds thudding into the pack leader's lowered skull, scrambling his brains and dropping him to the rain soaked street.
It wasn't the first time Caen had killed, or even faced Covenant. But this was so real; for one thing it had never been Brutes. He stared at the armored body for a second. Blood pooled in his mouth and he spit, leaning down to recover his helmet and his M7.
He moved carefully back through the darkened streets and found Jones and Mackenzie crouched over Hayes's foxhole.
"Hayes is gone, man." Jones said quietly. resting his rifle on his shoulder. "Fuckin' gone."
Caen looked down at the fallen Marine. His chest was melted from a near point blank energy blast, the visor hid his face, but Caen knew that it would be contorted with pain. He had seen men die to plasma wounds before, usually stretched out over a long period of time. It wasn't pretty. Unfortunately, Hayes would not be the last.
Mackenzie tagged the body with a small NAV marker and removed his dog tags. "We'll come back for him." He said, as much to himself as to the others. "Let's move. Covenant loses a gun crew and a patrol, they aren't going to be sitting around for much longer." Caen looked for a second longer at Hayes's figure and followed the other Marines into the downpour towards the objective.
ONI Ops had seen casualties before, just like everyone else. But the feeling of losing Hayes crushed him even though he hardly knew the man. These men were completely reliant on him. They did not know what they were here for, but one of them had already died for it. He began to understand why UNSC regulars despised ONI and its operatives. The lack of control on the ground in the middle of an op cost lives, and Caen was sure that Command didn't give a fuck about that. If he and Mackenzie had been in position when the patrol arrived, maybe everything would have been different.
"Hey. Caen, wake up man. We got a problem." Jones slowed and pointed into the sky. A pair of Pelicans soared down to the surface, hotly pursued by Banshee fliers.
The dropships burst into flames seconds later and fell to the surface, no doubt killing everyone aboard. Why did Command...? Jones was still pointing skyward as the nose of a Covenant Carrier dominated the horizon, spewing entire squadrons of Banshee fliers and Phantom dropships to comb the city.
Caen reached for his D-DACT, finding it devoid of instruction.
"...a big problem."
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