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Ryan Caen: Ch. 2: Command Deck
Posted By: Myth
Date: 12 December 2008, 12:20 am
Read/Post Comments
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August 2552:
SAN PABLO, TYRUS II: ERANADI XII
405th ODST Pathfinders
CS: Bravo
ATTACHED: ONI Special Operations Unit (SOE)
"Cover!" Jones warned. The three humans dropped to the ground immediately as a pair of Banshees screeched overhead. The flier's noses were illuminated with beams of light, which danced across the streets searching for targets.
They had encountered two teams of Jackal patrols, both of which had met a withering blast of gunfire that left them bleeding husks on the pavement as the trio advanced.
The Banshees' wails faded into the familiar roar of the Tyran Storm. Caen stood and pressed his body against the nearest wall and edged along the surface until he reached the corner of the next street. The ONI operative reached to his chest plate and unclipped the D-DACT and held it around to corner.
The device fed streaming video to his HUD of what lay at the end of the adjacent street. A section of his visor filled with an artificial canyon, made up of high buildings looming over a street littered with wreckage from the Covenant's first strike on San Pablo three month's prior. A hundred yards down the rubble-strewn boulevard, a D77H-TCI Pelican lay propped on it side, its engines alight with tiny fires.
The Marines looked at him expectantly. "Shit that must be Alpha's bird." He rasped, and turned the corner with his M7S-SMG at his shoulder.
Mackenzie caught his arm and pulled him down. "Hold up there, son. Jones, check the windows."
The second helmeted Marine turned the corner and disappeared from Caen's view. Video from Zero-Six's HUD streamed into Caen's as he sighted down Jones's rifle and watched as the crosshairs snapped onto a Jackal Marksman. The rifle's report resounded through his helmet's speakers and the video depicted the sabot round breaking open the bird-like alien's skull. The window that framed the Jackal was suddenly turned opaque with violet ichor.
Caen watched as Jones swept the sights over the openings above the street once more before muttering: "Clear."
Caen followed Mackenzie into the downpour and towards the fallen warbird. The fires on the craft's surface still smoldered, fed by the fuel leaking from the engines. Shell casings blanketed the roadway, in addition to depleted human weaponry. Plasma scoring was evident as well. Alpha had met heavy resistance on entry, and by the look of it, lost most of their team.
Ten meters from the crash site in the center of the intersection Jones found the first body. It was an ODST squad sergeant, already stiffened from death into a seated position in the middle of the street, his helmet was removed, blood dripping in a steady stream into a crimson pool beneath him. Caen glanced over to regard the deceased commando. At first glance he thought he was still alive, simply sitting on the ground waiting for something.
"Shit, it's Bradley. He's got a baby girl back home…" Jones knelt in front of the ODST and looked into his clouded eyes for a moment. The sniper reached into his armor around the neck and felt for the man's tags. "Tags are gone, Hartley and Raines were in Alpha, they could have—"
"I found Raines. He's dead. Tags are gone too." Mackenzie reported after emerging from the troopbay of the Pelican. Caen looked into the crumpled dropship. The ODST named Raines lay against a burned out shell of a vehicle, his chest torn apart by spiker rounds.
"Pilots are too…looks like an AA round tore right through the cockpit. I can't believe they made it this far…" Mackenzie continued, checking the corpses for ammunition. "Hartley and your man are out there somewhere, anything from Command yet?"
"Still dark. But Alpha would have known to move to the Covenant point of interest in the area…possibly the base of Mount Aires at the North edge of the city…" Caen commented, still checking the D-DACT for instruction from command. "Where the hell is the Valhalla ?"
ORBIT ABOVE TYRUS II, ERANADI XII
UNSCN Valhalla
-Seven Hours Earlier-
Lieutenant Jeremy Dawes at the Operations Console of the Valhalla 's command deck watched the helmet-cam of E7-01, Gunnery Sergeant Lincoln Mackenzie, he remembered offhandedly.
Mackenzie leapt off the ramp of Hammer 3-9 to ground beneath the Pelican; water sprinkled the lens when his boots splashed into the pools of rainwater. Dawes lifted his head from the display and turned to the ONI Colonel standing in the 'Pit', a sunken center on the command deck that housed the Tactical stations and consoles.
"Colonel Luechenko, Bravo is dirt side." Dawes informed him as the spook materialized at his shoulder. "They're awaiting orders."
"We are still waiting for Alpha to report in. Don't send anything yet." Luechenko said tiredly and returned to the Pit.
Dawes swiveled in his chair and regarded the man's back with contempt. Dawes had worked Ops for his entire career in the UNSC Navy, he was used to conducting and coordinating ground operations from orbit, feeding Marines on the ground the information they needed to survive. Luechenko looked as if the Marines in San Pablo should be able to sit tight for an inordinate amount of time until he deemed necessary to direct them further. There are Covenant Forces on the ground, asshole!
Despite his mental berating of the officer, the man simply stood there, his hands clasped behind his back, perfectly at ease with the situation.
Thirteen minutes passed by before the Colonel returned to speak with the Ops Officer. "No word from Alpha?" He asked in slightly accented English.
"No, sir. Bravo needs instruction, they've been in the same place for a long time."
"Fine. Alpha's overwatch bird should be orbiting the city…have them report to Alpha's last position. Once they get there I'll relay the next objective." The Colonel answered coolly.
"You assigned a Pelican to orbit a fortified Covenant position that's covered in antiaircraft guns?" Dawes asked before he had even realized he was talking to a superior officer.
He felt a vice-like grip on his shoulder as Luechenko spun Dawes around to face him. Luechenko bent down and stared directly into his eyes. Dawes expected to be screamed at. "I would like you to understand that I do know what I am doing, Lieutenant. And that I will make the decisions as to how I use the men and assets assigned to me the way I see fit to accomplish the task set before me."
"Of course, sir." Dawes said, still looking into Luechenko's gray eyes.
"Yes…I think you do. Now would you please inform Bravo to move to 36, 49." The Colonel ordered and stood straight.
"Aye, Colonel." The command went out, and received an immediate acknowledgement from Luechenko's agent planet side.
Several minutes passed as Dawes followed the progress of the four Special Operations Operators moving like ghosts through the rain. The lieutenant toggled through the helmet cams of Bravo Team as they moved closer to the objective marker.
Then movement appeared on E4-06's HUD. Brutes. The Colonel returned to watch the following skirmish from the Marines' point of view. Corporal Jones cut the Brute line to ribbons with carefully delivered 14.5mm rounds. But things only went well for seconds longer.
Dawes watched from behind Hayes's visor as a barrage of plasma fire splashed across his chest. Hayes looked down at his mutilated abdomen and collapsed to the ground. Dawes toggled back to Caen, and watched as he dealt the six deathblows to the top of the Brute's skull.
Dawes cast a glance at Luechenko, who had already turned away from the screen. "Make certain they do not run into any more ambushes, Lieutenant." As if it were his fault that Corporal Hayes was lying dead on a nameless street corner.
"Yes, sir, I will." Dawes's response was cut short by a medley of alarm klaxons and shouting as something big surprised the Navigation Officers.
Captain Anthony Deanda was the only voice that was coherent. "Report, now!" He barked over the panic. "Ingles what do we have?"
Lieutenant Ingles from navigation replied immediately. "Covenant CCS-class cruiser contacts! Two of them, sir!"
"Battle stations, Lieutenant Jacobs, charge the MACs, Lieutenant Li, arm ARCHER pods A-F and give me a targeting solution." Deanda ordered crisply. The old captain clasped his hands at the small of his back and gazed out the frontal view port of the Valhalla 's Command Deck.
"Aye, aye, Captain!" The weapons officers replied.
"Additional contact coming out of slipspace at two-zero-zero-nine!" Ingles reported.
"Classify that contact, Lieutenant." The Captain snapped, turning to look at Ingles.
"…Assault Carrier, Sir."
"Charge on the MACs?" Deanda replied.
"Seventy-three percent on both guns, sir. Forty seconds to a full charge." Jacobs answered.
"ARCHERs are armed, targeting solution is set for the closest contact." Li reported.
The Covenant task force was moving closer to Tyrus II, floating deceptively peacefully just outside the Tyran orbit. The first Cruiser sighted the UNSC Destroyer and began to rotate to prepare a broadside salvo of plasma torpedoes.
"MAC charged!"
"Fire!"
The first Magnetic Accelerator Cannon coiled and fired, firing a kinetic shell straight at the CCS. The MAC round slammed into the nose of the Covenant warship, flaring the shields and crumpling its foredecks. The Cruiser slowed its rotation, as if reconsidering its early decision.
"Second MAC firing!" Jacobs reported as he triggered the mechanism. The second struck in the same area, dissipating the energy shields and punching through the nose of the ship, lodging itself somewhere deep inside the enemy CCS.
A conflagration of ice blue explosions crawled across the smooth hull of the ship as it 'sank' into the orbit of Tyrus II. The crew cheered as the Covenant Cruiser's engines succumbed to the inferno and erupted, engulfing the CCS in a blinding flash.
The second CCS swung around, its sides bristling with plasma energy and it fired. Twin lances of white-hot plasma splashed across the prow of the Valhalla , melting entire sections of the destroyer.
"Sir, decks eight through eleven are gone! And we're losing atmosphere in four and five!" Ensign Kerr cried from Engineering.
"Plasma 'torps incoming!" Ingles cried as he fought to evade the deadly projectiles.
"Two more from the carrier!" They had only seconds before the torpedoes would cripple their destroyer, or worse.
"The MAC is charged, sir!" Jacobs warned.
"Firing solution for the CCS, Li?" Deanda asked quickly.
"Set, sir!"
"Fire both rounds, Jacobs. Li fire off our ARCHER s."
What was likely to be their last, the Valhalla fired off its salvo of conventional weapons. The two rounds struck the CCS simultaneously, obliterating its shields and ripping apart crucial compartments within the ship. The ARCHER missiles slammed into the hull of the cruiser from bow to stern, peeling away the vulnerable plating and exploding inside the craft. The gutted warship joined the wreckage of its sister ship in orbit.
The crew of the human destroyer never witnessed the miracle they had accomplished. Seconds after the ARCHER pods fired their ordnance; a lethal barrage of four plasma torpedoes tore through the hull of the Valhalla .
Dawes's vision swam before him. Blood trickled into his eyes and was smeared across his station's monitor. He felt his forehead and discovered a deep gash delivered by the bulkhead above him. He struggled out of his chair and collapsed to the deck, looking in horror at the Bridge around him.
The port side of the deck was crumpled inward, venting atmosphere. There was little left of Li and Jacobs, the Weapons Consoles had been on the port side. Deanda was lying still on the deck near the forward NAV computer, his uniform smeared with crimson. Ingles had been showered with shrapnel, his guts splattered across the NAV station monitors.
The TAC crew looked to be okay, the Pit had been sheltered somewhat from the secondary explosions. Colonel Luechenko, however, had been speared through the chest by a falling conduit pipe, and lay still in an expanding pool of dark blood.
Deanda stirred. "Who's alive?" He rasped, spitting blood onto the deck.
Kerr and the two TAC officers murmured affirmative, and Dawes followed suit.
"Damn it." Deanda stood and staggered over to Ingles station, pulling the corpse away from the controls and wiping away some of the ichors sprayed across the displays. The Captain fired the thrusters of the Valhalla , propelling into the planet's orbit, carrying it away from the threat of Covenant boarding crews that would finish the job the torpedoes had began. "If they're alive, get two squads of Marines planet side on the Pelicans, I want our men out of San Pablo, they've got a Covenant carrier-full of hostiles coming down on their heads!"
Dawes agreed, connecting to Lieutenant Commander Cunningham's HUD in the launch bays aft of the bridge. Cunningham was alive, as were most of the ODSTs, seeing that they had been stationed on the starboard launch bays, which had been faced away form the torpedo strikes. Cunningham put together two small recovery teams and sent the Pelicans on their way.
Dawes assessed his station's systems quickly; realizing his link to the late Luechenko's ONI agent on the ground had been lost. They had roughly thirty hours before the Covenant Carrier would be able to reengage them, if they even thought it necessary. Dawes wiped a fresh trickle of blood away and went to work reestablishing the link to the, now stranded team wondering the streets of San Pablo.
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