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Reveille, A Halo Fanthology -- Part II
Posted By: Reveille<hboff.anthology@gmail.com>
Date: 17 April 2009, 8:52 am
Read/Post Comments
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"Lambs to the Slaughter"
J. D. Ford
10 April 2009
PART TWO
0535 hours, 24 October 2552 (Military Calendar)
Widowmaker Lodge (Est. 2527),
Near the village of Ottokh,
Sakha region, Siberia, Earth
Vlad set the Hornet down a little roughly, throwing his passengers against their harnesses. Bailey heard Walker grunt a curse as he slid off the bench into slush from the aircraft's jet wash. He motioned for her to follow him inside while Vlad started shutting down the Hornet's systems. Bailey grabbed her pack and trudged up the front steps as an automatic light above the door snapped on.
"Come on in," Walker said as he slapped a hand against the access plate, popping the lock on the front doors. The interior lights faded on slowly, casting an inviting glow through the doorway.
The room was pleasantly warm. Bailey worked her shoulders as she stepped inside, letting her survival pack slide to the floorboards. She followed him into the open kitchen and collapsed in a nearby chair with a wince. Walker unsuccessfully hid a smile as he dropped his huge pack to the tiled floor and leaned his sniper rifle against the worn granite counter top. Bailey noticed that he kept the SMG slung over his shoulder.
Paranoid and well-trained, she thought to herself—not for the first time.
She watched as Walker went about brewing a pot of coffee and a kettle of tea simultaneously without asking her which she preferred. He looked to be in his mid-fifties or early sixties at most. Still ruggedly handsome, in his own way. Contrary to all the self-deprecating humor.
He pulled a health pack from a nearby cabinet.
"I guess you've done this before?" she asked, eyeing the medkit warily. Her left arm throbbed now that she had some feeling back in it. The warm lodge was thawing her out.
"Yeah," Walker replied with a chuckle, opening the health kit. "Once or twice." He took a pair of scissors to her flightsuit, deftly cutting away the sleeve above and below the ugly plasma burn, which had fused some of the durable, multi-layered material to the wound. Walker sprayed it with fluid from a gray bottle, almost magically dissolving the charred flightsuit and revealing the extent of the damage beneath.
Bailey gritted her teeth. "Any chance I can get a topical? That shit burns worse than the stuff that grazed me."
Walker said nothing as he expertly applied biofoam to the wound and wrapped an all-weather, self-sealing battle dressing around her upper arm. Bailey sighed in relief as the pain ebbed. Walker pointed at the scrape on her cheek.
"Anything besides that I should take a look at?" He gently pressed a small bandage against the cut.
"Uh, yeah," she muttered as she unsealed her flightsuit, pulling it down around her waist. She twisted sideways in the chair, offering him her back. "Some needler rounds exploded pretty close. I think I might've taken some microshrapnel." She felt him probe at a few spots that stung at even his incredibly light touch.
"You took a few slivers," he confirmed. "Take your shirt off." He said it tonelessly, without any trace of emotion. No lust. No hint of desire. Bailey hid a wry smile and obliged, gingerly stripping off the thin, sweat-soaked garment.
"Smooth move," she said teasingly. "Taking advantage of a medical emergency."
He laughed, rummaging around in the health pack. "I wish I'd thought of it years ago. Medical emergencies aren't that hard to fake." She felt the cold touch of tweezers and tiny flares of pain as he started pulling crystalline splinters out of her back. "Well," he continued as he worked. "You're gonna want to have a navy doctor take a look at this as soon as possible. There's probably more here than I can see with the naked eye." He stumbled a little on the word 'naked.'
Bailey smiled, opening her mouth to call him on it when the front door banged against the wall. Vlad shuffled through, a cold gust of wind at his back. He froze when he saw them, eyes lingering on what little he could see of her bare profile. She gave him a deliberately blank look. It wasn't the first time someone had ogled her, and it wouldn't be the last—there was very little privacy in the military.
"Go check the COM unit," Walker said over his shoulder, a bit gruffly. Bailey studied him in her peripheral vision. Was that a trace of disgust in his voice?
"Uh…yeah, boss. I just…"
"You just shut down the Hornet. Now you're going to contact the villagers." There was a distinct ring of command in Walker's tone this time, and that same nonexistent margin for debate that she had heard in the forest. Vlad's mouth snapped shut like a bear trap. He reluctantly tore his eyes away from her and stalked into the other room, slamming the door angrily.
Walker shook his head. "You'll have to excuse my...associate…Commander," he said softly. "He's not exactly what I would call a gentleman." He looked up into her eyes for the first time since bandaging her arm.
She smiled. "It'll take more than a horny Siberian hunting guide to offend me, Mr. Walker. Trust me on that." She turned slightly toward him, watching his eyes the whole time.
They didn't budge. Not even a downward flicker.
"Call me Bill, Commander," he muttered. After a long moment he averted his eyes and set the tweezers in the open health kit on the counter. Bailey smiled. A lesser man would have taken advantage of the not-so subtle invitation, and proven himself so.
Not this guy.
"It's Rachel…Bill," she said to his back, pulling her tank-top back on. "I'm not on duty."
Walker turned around, holding a huge steaming mug in each hand. "In that case… tea or coffee?" he asked with a grin. She opened her mouth to answer as the mug in his left hand exploded in a flash of green, splattering hot tea all over. Walker dropped to the floor, losing the other mug in the process. Tar-black coffee sloshed across the worn tiles.
Bailey rolled off the chair, ignoring the tiny lances of agony the motion produced in her back and shoulders. She belly-crawled over to Walker, who had propped himself against the bar. She immediately noticed a splotch of blood mingling with the spilled coffee.
"You're hit!" she yelled as more enemy fire raked the kitchen—it was punching right through the walls. Walker looked down at his side and sneered.
"Piece of the mug nicked me...that alien ray gun packs a fuckin' wallop." He ducked as another green bolt smacked into the cabinets across from them, splintering the wood. Walker swore, handing her his SMG as he crawled over to his sniper rifle.
Bailey craned her neck and reached over the top of the counter, sliding the health kit off the edge. She pulled her arm down just in time as more bolts of energy blew chunks out of the granite, kicked the medkit over to Walker. He was quickly checking his rifle over for damage, oblivious to the flesh wound.
Vlad punted open the door to the COM room, a battle rifle in his hands. He fired it wildly through the doorway then lobbed a frag grenade after the inaccurate fusillade. Oddly enough, his throwing arm was far more accurate. She heard the inarticulate cries of a few Grunts as the grenade exploded with a muffled whump that shook the lodge to its foundations. The incoming fire slackened.
"Knock it off, Vlad!" Walker yelled through the kitchen doorway. "You wanna bring the building down?" He toed open a low cabinet, pulled out an ancient, sawed-off double barrel shotgun with a pistol grip. Walker cracked it open to make sure it was loaded, snapped it shut. He looked over at her with a half-crazed grin on his face as more bolts of green flashed overhead. "What kind of weapon are they using? It's going right through the light armor inserts I installed in the outer walls!" He tore his shirt open and picked a tiny shard of the mug out of his side.
"Covenant carbine!" Bailey yelled back over the din. "Your inserts were probably designed to stop AR fire, not energy weapons!" A near miss cut through the cabinet next to her head. "We've got to get out of here!"
Walker nodded. "Right. Vlad!"
"What?!" Vlad's muffled voice carried from the COM room. He sounded a little spooked and really pissed off—not the best combination under the circumstances.
"Toss two more grenades!" Walker yelled. "Smoke and frag!" He slapped a battle dressing on his wound.
"But you said…"
"Just DO IT!" Walker bellowed. Bailey heard Vlad muttering protests, but a smoke grenade sailed out of the COM room nonetheless. It went off with a hissing thump. Another frag followed it.
Walker was already up and moving. He slung his sniper rifle over his shoulder and caught up his pack without slowing. Bailey scrambled after him, M7S up and ready.
She fired a burst in the general direction of the front door as Walker rounded the corner. She skidded after him, pounding up a narrow staircase as the Covenant fired blindly through the smoke screen, chewing up the bottom steps. She followed Walker down a hall and into a bedroom. He jumped up on the mattress, aiming out the window on the far side of the room.
Walker let out a breath and squeezed the trigger. The report slapped Bailey in the chest. The weapon's suppressor took an edge off, but only to certain extent. It was a big damn gun.
"What do you want me to do?" she asked loudly.
"Cover the stairs," he replied, jumping off the bed. He raced across the hall and shouldered open a door on the other side. Jumped up on the bed in that room. Bailey slid along the wall and trained her SMG on the staircase. She stepped around the wraparound railing to sight down the steps, heard Vlad yelling in Russian somewhere below.
Saw a pulsing blue plasma grenade land on the floor in the foyer.
"Grenade!" she shouted in Walker's direction, then pushed through the door behind her and dove on the bed. She heard his rifle fire again, then the plasma 'nade went off. Cracks appeared in the walls and dust shook free of the ceiling, raining down on her. A fire roared downstairs. She got up, coughed on a lungful of dust, and stumbled out into the hall. Heat waves shimmered above the open stairwell. Thin tendrils of smoke curled up between the floorboards at the other end of the hall.
Walker crashed out of the front room with his pack and rifle slung over his shoulders, antique shotgun at the ready. "Let's go!" he shouted, running past.
"Where?" she yelled at his back. "The place is on fire!" She hesitated as he plunged down the steps into the hot air rising from the lobby, then followed with a vicious curse. Vlad limped out of the COM room, wearing a combat harness and pack. His face was smudged with soot and he looked like he was having a really bad day. They all did.
Walker stepped over to a huge armoire in the common room, as though oblivious to the blaze raging behind him. More Covenant fire lanced through the smoke. Bailey returned the favor with her SMG. Vlad sprayed an' prayed. A familiar hoot sounded behind them. Bailey whirled and put a burst through the skull of a Grunt that had snuck through a shattered rear window. Blue blood spattered across the back wall.
"Come on, Bill!" she yelled, getting angry. "We don't have time to…" her words died as the armoire's false front swung away, revealing a well-stocked weapons locker.
Let's just say I used to be connected, he'd said.
"No shit," Bailey breathed as the man pulled another battle rifle from a rack and tossed a loaded combat pack at her feet. She shouldered the pack and traded the SMG for the BR-55 he offered her. Her eyes widened as he yanked an M19 rocket launcher from the locker.
The heat from the fire was getting uncomfortably hot. Vlad shot a second Grunt in the back of the common room, nearly cutting the alien in half.
"Ok," Walker said with an evil grin. "Let's go." He nodded to Vlad, who opened a door on the opposite side of the room. Darkness lay beyond, and Walker motioned her through, his eyes flitting back and forth to cover both ends of the building. She followed Vlad inside as overhead lights snapped on to reveal a well-equipped garage. A civilian ground car sat next to a snow-camouflaged Hog. A civilian version of the Warthog LRV.
She was both relieved and disappointed to see the vehicle. While sturdy, and undeniably maneuverable in this terrain, having a LAAG mounted on a rear turret would have been heavenly under the circumstances.
"Move!" Walker shouted, backing through the door. Bailey slid across the hood of the ground car, beating Vlad to the driver's seat. He grimaced but didn't object, instead jumping up to sit on the rear bench. Walker threw his oversized pack on top of the man and leapt into the passenger seat, almost knocking her in the head with the rocket launcher.
She took a moment to familiarize herself with the controls as another plasma grenade exploded in the common room, sending a shudder through the garage.
"What're you waiting for?" Walker demanded. "There's enough ordnance in that locker to crack a frigate!"
She scowled at him, yanked the Hog into reverse, and backed through the garage door. Vlad howled as thin metal curled up and over the Hog's roll cage. Even Walker seemed shaken by their hasty exit. She smiled at him sweetly, threw the Hog into first gear, and tore off through the snow.
Covenant needler and carbine rounds flashed past them and Walker responded by sending a rocket into the tree line. A plume of fire and smoke rose up, showering alien body parts across the frozen landscape. Bailey gunned the Hog's powerful engine and tore off down a road carved three feet deep in the snow, the vehicle's high-beams lighting the way.
"I thought heavy munitions weren't your thing!" she shouted with a grin.
"I lied," Walker retorted, cradling the rocket launcher in one arm while stowing the sniper rifle next to his seat with the other. "Stay on this road. It'll take us down to the village."
Bailey grimaced. "You think they got hit, too?"
Walker exchanged a glance with Vlad, who was hunkered down in the back seat. "Yeah, probably. If they bothered to come all the way up here for us…" he trailed off.
"Right," she agreed. "Do you think anyone down there had a chance to get away?"
Vlad laughed weirdly. "She don't know these people."
"He's right," Walker said with a chuckle. "Siberians don't run." He looked up as snowflakes poured through the open top of the vehicle. Bailey turned on the wipers, which didn't seem to help much. "Especially in this weather," Walker finished. He opened the glove compartment and removed two pair of compact night optics, handing her one. She put the glasses on and activated them before switching off the Hog's headlights.
"Ok," Bailey ventured. "Any chance they can hold the Covenant off?"
Walker looked at her over the tube of the rocket launcher. Grinned.
"Right," Bailey muttered. "Siberians."
0546 hours, 24 October 2552 (Military Calendar)
Village of Ottokh,
Sakha Region, Siberia, Earth,
61° 10' 32N, 121° 53' 57E,
Alt. 317m, Pop. 13+1
Fitz heard them arguing in hushed tones. Knew by the sound of the man's voice that he wanted to leave. Raisa ordered him to stay at first, and that seemed to work for a while. Then she pleaded with him. That seemed to work for a while, too. In the end, the idiot pushed his way past her and snuck out the door.
"Raisa," he said softly. "He's gonna get us all killed."
"I know!" she shot back angrily. "I couldn't stop him without shooting him, and I've known the old fool my whole life. He used to…"
CRACK.
The common room fell deathly silent. Raisa sucked in a pained breath. They all knew what that alien sound meant. Fitz hadn't seen it—couldn't see it—but she had explained what happened to the man who tried to reach the COM shack.
A relatively quick death, at least, Fitz thought morbidly. "You have a weapon in here?" he whispered.
"Yes. Two shotguns and an assault rifle."
"Where'd you get that?" Fitz asked incredulously.
"A man named Walker issued one rifle to every home in the village a long time ago. He taught me your language when I was a little girl, too."
Fitz chewed on his bottom lip as he digested the information. "Ok. Set the shotguns up by the doors. Whoever's the best shot should cover the windows with the AR." He thought about what would happen when the Covenant realized where they were. "And find a shovel if you can. They might start lobbing grenades in here. The only thing we can do is try to scoop them up and throw them out the window. Not much, but it might keep us alive a little longer."
"Right," Raisa whispered hoarsely. She started issuing hushed orders in Russian.
"How many people are in here with us?" Fitz asked.
She hesitated. "Seven. Now." He heard the sadness in her voice. In such a small village, everyone had to be like family. "They came to listen for news of the invasion."
"And where are the others?" Fitz pressed.
"In their homes, I should think. One family lives at this end of the village. Three people. There are two others…both live alone."
Fitz grimaced. "And that's not including this Walker guy?"
"No," Raisa replied. "He and my ex-husband—I mean, his assistant—live at a hunting lodge he runs for foreign corporate assholes."
Fitz chuckled. "Sounds like you've formed a solid opinion of visitors."
She laughed softly under her breath. "You are not an asshole, Lieutenant…obviously." He felt her hand grasp his reassuringly. "We are grateful you came to warn us."
Fitz almost opened his mouth to protest that it was an accident, then thought better of it. He had warned them, after all. "I don't mean to pry," he said, feeling a little guilty. "But you said your ex-husband works with this Walker guy?"
Silence. "Yes," she said at last. "We divorced after Vitaly was born."
Fitz thought back to the meat locker. "Vitaly is your son? He's the one who found me?"
"Yes."
"He is in here with us?" Fitz asked softly.
She hesitated again. "Yes." Her voice trembled ever so slightly. The first real sign of fear he'd been able to detect.
"Don't worry," Fitz reassured her. "The UNSC doesn't just abandon downed pilots. I'm sure they'll send a rescue party."
Raisa chuckled. "Don't count on it. The Covenant are invading the whole planet at once. I doubt they will bother to send soldiers out here to find one man." She turned away from him, as if looking out the window again. "I'm counting on someone a lot closer to home."
Fitz frowned. "Who?"
She turned back, warm breath caressing his cheek. "An old friend."
Fourth Cycle, 181 units (Covenant Battle Calendar)
Unidentified human habitat, northern hemisphere,
Planet Earth (Human Designation)
Xir shot the second human through the chest, but only because its head was obscured at the opportune moment. The results were just as effective, just as deadly.
"Excellent shot, sir," Vig whispered at his elbow.
"Not so excellent that you should break sound discipline to compliment me on it," Xir muttered, his tone deadly. Vig flinched, though only a little—the young warrior was learning. Had he budged another fraction of a unit, Xir would have considered replacing him with a more competent subordinate, and Vig would not have survived such a regrettable process.
Xir watched the building from which the aged human had emerged. Larger than the rest, it seemed to be some sort of common house—dilapidated, as were all the human structures in this region. No wonder the San 'Shyuum thought so little of the species.
"Jeg," Xir whispered into his COM unit.
"Sir?" his second-in-command responded instantly.
"You know which structure that human exited?"
"Yes, sir. I have already placed a squad near the building, ready to move in if necessary. They will also prevent anyone from escaping."
Xir nodded in satisfaction. "Excellent. It looks like some kind of primitive food storage or distribution facility. We do not wish to destroy it. As distasteful as I imagine human food to be, we cannot know how long it will take our forces to subdue the planetary defenses. Resupply is uncertain."
"Understood," Jeg replied. "They will refrain from demolishing the structure."
A strangely familiar sound echoed through the winter stillness. Xir suppressed the urge to cant his slender head in the direction of the approaching noise, instead relying on his understanding of acoustics to pinpoint it.
"Do you hear that, Jeg?" he asked softly.
"Hear, sir? I…wait. Yes, I hear it. A human ground vehicle?"
Xir clucked affirmatively. "Approaching from the south. Shift your warriors to cover it. And Jeg?"
"Sir?"
"Any word from the squad you dispatched to take out the human aircraft?" Silence answered him. "I see," Xir continued, displeasure seeping into his tone. "How many of our own people did you send with the Unggoy?"
"Two, sir. We must assume they failed."
"See that you don't follow their example," Xir said coldly.
"Understood. Out."
Xir shifted his posture with almost painfully slow movements of his arms and legs, situating himself to cover the southern approach to the habitat. If a human decided to drive its vehicle up main street, he would stop it in its tracks.
"Vig?" he called to his spotter.
"Sir?"
"Give me that fresh rifle. I may need it."
0551 hours, 24 October 2552 (Military Calendar)
Approaching the village of Ottokh,
Sakha Region, Siberia, Earth
"You raised them on the COM, right?" Walker asked, gritting his teeth as they hit a particularly bad rut. Bailey gripped the steering wheel tightly. The poor excuse for a road was pushing her driving skills to the limit.
Vlad cursed as he was thrown hard against his six-point harness. "Who, the Army? I used the emergency channel but got no response. Then I tried that special encryption you told me never to use."
"And?" Walker demanded.
"They sounded pissed."
Walker sighed. "Great. Twenty-five years of early retirement wasted. Are they coming?"
Bailey threw him a questioning look that he failed to notice.
Vlad grunted. "Would you?"
"Probably not." Walker chuckled darkly. "I guess I'm pretty low on the priority list at the moment."
"Would you mind running that by me again?" Bailey asked over the roar of the engine. Walker looked over at her with an uncomfortable expression on his face.
"I tendered my resignation back in '26. They weren't too happy about it, especially when I took a few liberties with my severance pay."
Bailey smirked. "I thought spooks didn't get severance pay."
"Exactly."
She looked sideways at him. "You mean you stole it?"
Walker squirmed visibly in his seat. "Not 'stole,' exactly. I prefer to think of it as a quasi-legal reallocation of government resources. As you can see, it's come in mighty handy today." He patted the rocket launcher affectionately.
"I guess I can't argue with that," Bailey said with a chuckle. "I can't believe I've been flirting with a criminal this whole time." Walker squirmed again, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
Vlad looked at her incredulously. "What…during the firefight?"
"Shut up," Walker snapped. "The Commander was only joking." He shot her a comically suspicious look. "Right?"
Bailey laughed again, enjoying his discomfort. "Of course, Bill," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "How could a woman like me ever find an old piece of shit-stained boot leather attractive?" They hit another pothole, hard. Bailey fell silent—she'd almost bitten her own tongue off.
"You know what, Boss?" Vlad said after a moment of deep contemplation. "I don't think she was kidding before. Maybe now, but not—"
A hail of carbine, plasma, and needler fire filled the air, drowning out any response Walker might have issued. He fired his last rocket at a trio of Grunts ahead. It skimmed low over their heads, blasting them forward into the road without killing them. Not that the oversized tires of the Hog had much trouble finishing the job. More carbine fire punched holes in the vehicle's frame and canopy.
Vlad leaned over the side and opened up with his battle rifle. It kept the enemy on their toes, if nothing else. Bailey wished the man could just kill something for a change. She swung the vehicle off the road, around a grove of trees, trying to put some cover between them and the shooters. Another Grunt leapt out of the brush in front of them.
Walker held out the spent rocket launcher tube like a teenager with a baseball bat, smashing the squat alien's skull like an empty mailbox. He dropped the launcher and took up his SMG, double-tapping a second Grunt that wandered out of the tree line. Bailey whistled low as she barreled on through the snow.
"Nice shooting," she said without looking at him.
Walker glanced over at her sharply. "What? Oh. I don't think now's the best time to be—"
"We might die today," Bailey snapped, cutting him off. "No…we probably will die today. I don't plan on leaving anything unsaid." She jerked the wheel to the right, avoiding a fallen tree.
Vlad laughed. "She got a point, Walker."
"Vlad…" Walker growled menacingly, his voice trailing off into silence. Then a half-smile creased his rugged features. "Maybe you're right, ah…Rachel."
Bailey grunted as they rammed through a stand of saplings. "'Bout time somebody admitted it." She swung the Hog back onto the road. "How far to the village?"
Walker squinted, scanning the darkness ahead through his night vision glasses. "Eighteen-hundred meters or so. Stop here."
"What?" Vlad demanded as Bailey stomped on the brake. "Why stop? We can just ride through and—"
"And get our balls shot off," Walker finished for him. "Well, except for her," he jerked his head at Bailey. "Sorry, pal. We're doing this my way." Walker reached over the back seat and pulled an extra ghillie suit out of his pack, handing it to Bailey. She gave him a grateful nod and shrugged into the suit, sealing the front clasps with shaking hands—adrenaline was a bitch when you didn't need it.
"This is insane, even for you," Vlad said with a moan. "How many of them are out there? You don't know!"
"Exactly," Walker growled. "If this thing were up-armored and packing a LAAG I might feel differently." He cast a pointed glance in the other man's direction while filling a drag bag with extra magazines from his pack. "You want to get yourself killed? Be my guest…take the keys." He slid out of the passenger seat. Bailey followed without a word, clearing the action of her battle rifle.
Vlad stood staring at them, mouth agape. He started cursing under his breath in Russian. Bailey watched Walker slink into the forest like a wraith. He never looked back. She spared the spotter a quick, almost sympathetic glance over her shoulder. He was leaning against the Hog, eyes on the ground. Unmoving.
"Don't worry about him," Walker whispered as he stepped around the scaly trunk of a towering larch. "He's got more to be afraid of in town than the Covenant."
Bailey frowned. It seemed out of character for the man to be holding a conversation under the circumstances. "What?"
Walker grinned. "Not 'what'…'who.' And that 'who' would be his ex-wife. Raisa." A worried look crossed his features as he gently pushed a low hanging branch to one side without breaking it. "Step in my footprints," he told her in a whisper.
Bailey nodded, responding in kind. "I don't understand—"
"Shhh," Walker cut her off, freezing in place. "Sound discipline from now on. Stay with me and try to leave as little sign as possible. Clear?" He waited until she nodded. "Let's go."
Bailey followed him through the trees, scanning the darkness with her optics. She half expected a Grunt to pop out from behind every rock, an Elite to be hiding in every deep shadow. Walker halted, settling down on his haunches. He reached into his drag bag and handed her a metal cylinder—a sound suppressor for the BR-55. She nodded, fitting the attachment to the threaded business end of her rifle as quietly as possible. The moment she was finished, Walker continued toward the village. He had already swapped his SMG for the sniper rifle.
The sound of the Hog's engine rose behind them, snarling past on their left. Walker shook his head slowly. Bailey couldn't see his face, but she imagined it was etched with regret. Half a minute later a strange, whining CRACK echoed in the winter stillness. They froze, listening to the report roll through the cold air.
Walker slowly turned to face her. He mouthed 'sniper' and slowly canted his head in the direction they were headed. Bailey nodded and they continued on. It was slow going, but they had avoided being spotted thus far. Walker seemed intent on keeping it that way.
After what seemed like hours, Walker slowly got down on his belly. Bailey followed suit, and they crawled the last hundred meters to the tree line, staying well back from the edge. Walker scanned the buildings on the near side of the village and the single road running through the middle of it. The rough track angled sharply away to the right.
The Snow Hog was in sight, having crashed into the front of a house at the end of the row. Smoke wafted out of its engine compartment. She eyed the cab through her 2x scope; there was no sign of Vlad. She glanced at Walker. The man hadn't moved more than an inch since they took up their position.
Bailey set her attention on the town again, keeping her ears perked for aliens sneaking up behind them. Walker seemed to be playing a waiting game for now. The only thing she could do was play along.
0626 hours, 24 October 2552 (Military Calendar)
Village of Ottokh,
Sakha Region, Siberia, Earth,
61° 10' 32N, 121° 53' 57E,
Alt. 317m, Pop. 12+1
"Thank God that stove runs on pellets," Fitz muttered under his blanket.
"Don't get used to it," Raisa answered. "We're almost out." The Covenant had cut the power an hour before, shutting down the building's electric heaters.
"One of these days I'll learn to keep my mouth shut," Fitz growled. Someone whispered something in Russian—a warning. He heard Raisa shift, heard the click of an assault rifle's safety being disengaged. "What's going on?"
"They're out there," Raisa said in hushed tones.
Fitz sucked in a breath. "Where? Near that smashed vehicle?"
"No…behind us. They're just watching."
Fitz swore. "They know we're in here…probably waiting us out, though I can't imagine why." A shotgun boomed in the confined space. Raisa shouted something profane at the nervous culprit. Fitz cursed under his breath as broken glass tinkled to the floor. An angry, fearful male voice shouted back at her in Russian.
Fitz clenched his jaw. "Tell that idiot to hold his fire!"
Raisa muttered something in her own language. "I did—"
Plasma bolts stitched across the wall, showering splinters down on them. The Grunts were returning fire.
"Get down!" Fitz bellowed. An acrid smell filled his nostrils. The faint hint of smoke from a structure fire.
"Do you smell that? Are we burning?"
Raisa sobbed. "No. But I can see flames across the street."
A needler hummed in the distance and small explosions shook the building's frame. Raisa fell against Fitz, wrapping her other arm around Vitaly as he cried out. Fitz suddenly found himself whispering reassurances to both of them, despite his own growing terror.
0630 hours, 24 October 2552 (Military Calendar)
Village of Ottokh,
Sakha Region, Siberia, Earth,
61° 10' 32N, 121° 53' 57E,
Alt. 317m, Pop. 12+1
"Damn," Walker whispered.
Bailey cocked her head, listening. "Who're they shooting at?"
Walker pursed his lips. "People I know." His cold, merciless eyes scanned the village again. Analyzing. "We need to split up."
"What?" Bailey asked, startled.
"We're outnumbered. If either of us starts shooting at this position we'll attract attention, get surrounded, and die. If we split up, they'll also have to divide their remaining forces." He sighed. "Besides, we can't just sit here and wait for them to exterminate the survivors."
Bailey frowned. "Assuming there are any."
Walker arched an eyebrow. "You didn't hear that shotgun?"
"Bill…" she began.
"Trust me, Rachel." He fixed her with a brief, reassuring look.
She took in a shaky breath, gauged the emotions running rampant in his eyes. "Okay," she said at last. "What do you want me to do?"
"Stay well inside the tree line. Flank the village to the north and get around to the other side if you can."
"Is that all?" she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Walker spared her a quick smile. "Not quite. Stay out of sight until I bag that sniper." Silence fell between them. Bailey resisted the urge to reach out to him. Instead, she slowly crawled backwards into the woods, trying to make as little sound as possible. She looked back one last time.
Walker was gone, leaving only a depression in the snow as evidence he'd ever been there at all.
"God, this sucks," she muttered darkly.
Fourth Cycle, 216 units (Covenant Battle Calendar)
Unidentified human habitat, northern hemisphere,
Planet Earth (Human Designation)
Xir listened to his Unggoy open fire on the building, heard more of their kind doing the same to other structures across the street. Saw flames leap up into the dark sky.
He swore under his breath. His line of sight was almost entirely blocked by the row of buildings, but he could imagine what the fusillade was doing to the structure. Xir idly considered ordering them to cease fire. It wouldn't help, if they were in a full blown panic. And it certainly sounded like it.
His spotter shifted uncomfortably.
"Vig," Xir said in the faintest of whispers. "You will reveal our position."
His spotter cursed, shivering. "I apologize, Excellency. My body is not reacting well to this climate."
Xir scanned the forest beyond the habitat. What little he could see of it, at least. "That is no excuse. Control yourself."
Vig shifted ever so slightly. "Sir, I—"
THWACK!
Xir rolled sideways instinctively, behind a pile of cut wood. He wiped Vig's blood and brains from his face as the crack of the shot echoed in the darkness.
A human sniper! How could I have been so careless? The thought lashed at him like an energy whip.
The shot had come without warning, and the report was so muffled that the overlapping sound of impact made it hard to tell from which direction the shooter had fired. Xir felt a knot of fear form in his gut. He was exposed.
"Jeg?" he whispered into his signal unit. No answer. Move, his instincts screamed. Xir obeyed, scuttling to a new position, deeper in the village. He kept to the shadows as much as possible, though daylight was quickly approaching. Soon the sun would make unobserved movement all but impossible. Where was that human sharpshooter?
Xir checked his weapon for damage, then switched its optics over to a thermal setting. Humans put out a lot more body heat than his own people. The sniper should stand out distinctly against the snow.
Xir readied himself for another mad dash to better cover. Something tore through the corner of the wall above his head. He swore silently, hunching down where the snow piled against the foundation of the building. The projectile had passed through the structure. Wasn't the human bastard concerned with hitting its own kind?
Xir took a deep breath and considered his options. The human knew where he was, approximately. Depending on the sniper's position, Xir was as good as trapped.
Unless…
A smile crept over his features. He pulled his plasma pistol from his belt and set it to overload. The weapon hummed, growing warm in his hand. Green light started pulsing at the muzzle. Without looking, Xir lobbed it around the corner…toward Vig's body. The weapon's power cell reached its limit, burning through the casing with a glare.
The overload cooked off Vig's bandolier of grenades in a cascade of brilliant azure fire. The noise was deafening. Xir lunged into motion again, activating his signal unit.
"Jeg…respond."
0632 hours, 24 October 2552 (Military Calendar)
Village of Ottokh,
Sakha Region, Siberia, Earth,
61° 10' 32N, 121° 53' 57E,
Alt. 317m, Pop. 12+1
A distant explosion rattled the common house and everyone in it…even more so than the sporadic plasma and needler fire. Fitz clenched his jaw. He swore viciously.
"I'm sorry, Raisa. I led them here."
She was silent for several moments before replying. "You don't know that. They probably would have found us anyway…and if you had not warned us, more would have died."
Fitz shook his head sadly. "I always thought I would buy it in space…vaporized or flash-frozen. I should have died in space."
"Enough," Raisa insisted. "We're not finished yet."
Fitz managed a small smile. "You're a very brave woman."
She snorted. "This is Siberia. Bravery has nothing to do with it."
0632 hours, 24 October 2552 (Military Calendar)
Village of Ottokh,
Sakha Region, Siberia, Earth,
61° 10' 32N, 121° 53' 57E,
Alt. 317m, Pop. 12+1
Walker winced at the glare as the grenades went off. The sudden blast bathed the darkened village in silver light, demolishing the nearby communications hut. Walker frantically scanned for movement, blinking to clear the black spots swimming in his vision.
No sign of the Covenant sniper. A Jackal, if his eyes hadn't been deceiving him. He had lifted some interesting files on the Covenant over the years, trying to stay informed—old habits died hard. The dossier on the birdlike species hadn't been exactly thorough, but Walker didn't recall it being very flattering of their intelligence.
Not that this particular specimen seemed stupid. Anything but, after that neat little trick.
Walker slowly shifted, gathering his legs beneath him. He slunk toward the buildings on the opposite side of town as the burning remains of the COM hut cast weird, dancing shadows across the landscape.
A distant sound, like a cough, caught his attention. Suppressed battle rifle fire.
Rachel.
0632 hours, 24 October 2552 (Military Calendar)
Village of Ottokh,
Sakha Region, Siberia, Earth,
61° 10' 32N, 121° 53' 57E,
Alt. 317m, Pop. 12+1
Bailey shot the first Grunt in the torso. It shrieked, flopping to the snow, spraying luminous blood everywhere. A foul, septic stench filled the air. Covenant carbine fire stitched a line across the ground beside her and Bailey dove for cover behind a fallen tree. More green blasts lanced into the top of the rotting bole, showering her with smoldering wood chips.
"Hell," she growled, reloading. The Covie bastard was a good shot.
She fired two bursts over the top of the log without aiming, and the enemy fire tapered off for a moment. A hoot to her left caught her attention and she braced the battle rifle across her chest and squeezed the trigger. Another Grunt died, this one's methane tank exploding spectacularly and catapulting it into the air.
Bailey steeled herself, then lunged sideways into a run. Green fire flashed past her head, singing her hair. She returned the favor, snapping several rounds at the Jackal that ducked behind a tree stump.
She almost overshot her destination—a particularly thick tree that offered momentary protection from the other two Grunts on the Jackal's flanks. She leaned out and fired another burst, then pulled back without looking to see if her rounds hit the target. Judging by the high-pitched yowl, they had.
She leaned away from the tree on the opposite side.
A carbine round burned through her ghillie suit, clipping her hip like a white-hot poker. Bailey shrieked as she fell to the snow. Her free hand clawed at the wound as she fired wildly at the Covenant with the battle rifle.
The other Grunt waddled into the hail of bullets and was flung backward in a gout of its own blood. The Jackal was nowhere to be seen. Bailey's eyes flicked left and right, searching. Her breathing came in ragged gasps as the shock of the wound sent her system into overdrive. She tried to crawl back behind the tree, but the incredible agony in her hip and thigh made it impossible to move more than a few inches. She choked down a scream.
The Jackal appeared above her. She lifted the battle rifle weakly. It slapped the weapon's barrel aside with contempt and rested the muzzle of its carbine between her breasts. Bailey spat at the alien, defiantly. It cocked its head, unfazed—claw tightening on the carbine's grip as a strange alien language squawked from a disc on its harness. The Jackal hesitated.
A hail of bullets chopped off the top of its head. Bailey frantically pushed the carbine's barrel away from her chest as the alien's claw twitched, discharging the weapon into the snow. The Jackal's lifeless, thrashing body fell atop her. She panicked as its hot blood flowed down her right shoulder and splashed against her neck. The corpse was suddenly flung away and Vlad's face hovered over her.
He smiled wickedly. "Nice to see you on your back, crazy lady."
"Fuck…you," Bailey retorted through a clenched jaw. He leaned her up against a nearby tree.
"Maybe later," Vlad said with a chuckle as he pulled out a med kit. Bailey was too tired to protest as he tore away the ghillie suit around her hips. Too tired to smack away his cold hands as they affixed a self-sealing bandage to the wound and lingered a moment too long. "Where is Walker?" Vlad asked harshly.
Bailey shook her head. "I don't know. He split us up…sent me this way to flank the Covenant. Said something about taking out their sniper, then he just disappeared."
Vlad nodded. "He does that sometimes. Can you stand?"
Bailey grimaced. "I think so." She rose with Vlad's help and tested her weight. Much of the flesh had been burned away from her right hip, but the joint seemed to be functioning properly. "Yeah."
"Good. We go help him."
She arched an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't want any part of this."
He flinched visibly. "Never said that. You want to stand here…argue about it all night, or go save his ass? I know you want it for yourself."
Bailey grinned. "Shut up." She started limping in the direction of the town. The direction of the explosion she'd heard only minutes before. Vlad followed her, his weapon at the ready.
Bailey paused a moment to reload her battle rifle, looked the Russian in the eye. "Thanks," she said softly. To her surprise, the man actually blushed.
"No problem," Vlad mumbled, muttering something else in his native tongue. They trudged on into the darkness.
0636 hours, 24 October 2552 (Military Calendar)
Village of Ottokh,
Sakha Region, Siberia, Earth,
61° 10' 32N, 121° 53' 57E,
Alt. 317m, Pop. 12+1
A grenade sailed through the shattered window, just as Fitz had feared. He heard it hissing on the carpet nearby. The others started screaming and someone tried to scoop it up with tongs from the stove.
Fitz heard a curse, a crash, and the sound of breaking glass. A bloodcurdling scream fell away from them. The grenade exploded somewhere in front of the building, but not near enough to destroy it.
"Oh, God!" Rachel cried. "He picked it up! Oh, God!"
"Raisa?!" Fitz yelled over the sound of discharging shotguns and incoming plasma fire. "Are you okay? Answer me!" Vitaly started crying nearby. Relief spread through Fitz almost immediately. He had thought she was talking about her son at first. "Raisa?" he called again.
She was crying. He could hear her crying. An alien hooted, very close. They were coming for them at last. Raisa screamed in rage and opened fire with the assault rifle. The sound was deafening in the confined space. She spent the whole magazine.
"Raisa!" Fitz yelled when the weapon clicked empty. "Reload!" He held a fresh mag out in her general direction, waiting for her to reach out and take it. After several heart-stopping moments, she did.
"Thank you," she whispered right in his ear. Another Grunt started jabbering behind the building, opening fire. One of the shotguns was silenced as a body fell to the floor. Something warm spattered Fitz's legs. He grimaced.
"You've got to get Vitaly out of here!" he yelled over the din.
"We'll never make it!" Raisa screamed back, firing again. "We'll die!"
"You'll die if you stay!" Fitz retorted, passing her the last extra magazine.
She cursed in Russian. "You're coming with us!" There was something hard and unyielding in her voice, and it warmed Fitz to his core. He shook his head sadly.
"I'd slow you down. Take Vitaly and the others and get the hell out of here. I'll hold them off."
She laughed, her voice almost frantic. "You can't see, you idiot!"
Fitz smiled. "Thanks for reminding me. Now point me toward the back door!" He crawled over to the corpse and found the shotgun where he'd heard it land. Raisa's gentle hands turned him toward the rear of the building. Suddenly, he felt her lips meet his own in a fiery, passionate kiss that seemed to last an eternity. When they parted he gasped for air.
"I'll never forget," she said hoarsely.
"Neither will I," he replied, voice cracking. Plasma fire erupted ahead of him, and he pushed her away, aiming the shotgun at the back door. Raisa's voice called out in Russian, and the survivors spilled out of the building after her. Fitz prayed there were no Covenant waiting for them in the street.
A Grunt hooted crazily on the other side of the rear entrance. Fitz could hear the alien's strange respirator pumping methane into its facemask. He imagined he could hear its knees knocking. The Covenant soldier shrieked a battle cry and crashed through the door. Fitz pulled the trigger.
The shotgun clicked…empty.
Fitz lurched to his feet, brandishing the weapon like a club as he charged the Grunt. The alien tackled him around the midsection, driving them both to the floor.
"Come on, you son-of-a-bitch!" he roared, struggling. "I'll tear your fucking heart out!"
An all too human hand slapped his cheek, hard.
"Is that any way to talk to a superior, Lieutenant?" Rachel's shaky voice asked from somewhere above him.
"Rachel?" Fitz asked, incredulously. "You're alive?"
"Dumb question. We're talking, aren't we? Why won't you look…oh, Fitz."
He grimaced. "Yeah, I know. Next time, remind me not to stare straight into the sun, okay?"
Rachel helped him to his feet. "I'm so sorry."
Fitz waved her off. "Later. We have to get these people out of here." He thought he heard a weird crack outside as Rachel guided him toward the front door. They stumbled down the steps.
"Vlad's already on it," she said loudly.
"Who the hell is Vlad?"
A lance of purple fire burned into his ribcage. Oddly enough, he didn't feel much pain. Nice to be right for a change, he thought, almost peacefully.
Rachel screamed.
Fourth Cycle, 225 units (Covenant Battle Calendar)
Unidentified human habitat, northern hemisphere,
Planet Earth (Human Designation)
Xir watched as the panicked humans flooded out of the building. Only one of the scattering flock was armed—with a shotgun, as he'd predicted. He put a single shot through its terrified face. Down the street, another human was trying to get the crashed ground vehicle running. There were no Unggoy to be seen, and Jeg did not answer. Xir was alone.
He heard the vehicle's engine start with an unhealthy, primitive roar. Xir started shifting his aim to kill the driver when two human military officers stepped out of the food distribution building. He recognized their attire, took aim, and fired.
The first shot spun the fumbling young male around and dropped him to the snow. The female screamed.
Time slowed. His weapon recharged. Locked. Her screaming face was dead center in his glowing crosshairs. Xir felt his lips pull back in a feral smile as his finger tightened on the trigger. A white blur obstructed his vision as the particle rifle discharged.
Xir snarled as he watched his shot cut into the back of a lunging snow beast. The female fell to the ground beneath its weight, still screaming. Xir cursed, taking aim again. The snow beast shifted, Xir saw a glint of metal. A primitive weapon.
A booming shot rang out.
Something smashed into his slender abdomen—several somethings. Xir slid off the roof of the building he had scaled and fell into a shallow snow drift beside the street. He could not move his legs.
Xir cried out in agony and rage, claws raking at the snow, now darkening with his blood. He arched his neck, looking at the cursed human world upside-down. He saw the snow beast roll off the female, saw her lean over it, yell at it, pound at its chest. Saw the strange, stubby, double-barreled weapon lying beside it—the weapon that had cut him in half. And the long, unmistakable rifle it had dropped to the snow.
Xir's eyes widened. The snow beast was the human sniper.
An engine roared somewhere to his left. Xir cocked his head, just in time to see an oversized tire bearing down on him. In that brief moment, he thought back to that warm cycle he had left Eayn, his homeworld.
He felt the pleasant, salty breeze roll off the ocean and caress his face. Heard the voracious kula birds call his name.
Then Xir heard no more.
2130 hours, 28 October 2552 (Military Calendar)
UNSC Army 23rd MASH Unit,
Near the Mongolian Border, Asian Continent, Earth
Fitz opened his eyes slowly, feeling every single hammer blow of the worst headache in human history. He stared up at the green ceiling—
"Stared?!" he shouted, scaring a nurse half to death. He howled with glee, then coughed. Moaned. Fell back against his pillow. An angel's face appeared, smiling down at him. He grinned back.
"Raisa," he whispered.
"How did you know?" she asked.
He touched her cheek. "You're just as beautiful as I imagined." She reached up and caressed his hand as his thumb wiped a tear away.
"We were so worried about you," she said softly. "The surgeons…they weren't very optimistic. Commander Bailey and I had to straighten them out."
Fitz chuckled. "I bet you did." He frowned, suddenly restless, eyes searching the room. "Is Rachel okay? Vitaly?" He tried to sit up, but Raisa gently pushed him back down.
"They're fine," Raisa said softly. "Look." She indicated a chair in the corner where Rachel had fallen asleep. A young boy with a blanket wrapped around him sat in her lap, snoring. In the bed beside them lay a grizzled man, perhaps in his fifties or early sixties. Tubes ran from his mouth, under his thin hospital gown. Monitors around the bed clicked and whirred as they displayed his vital signs. Fitz noticed a ring of similar, albeit less busy, devices around his own bed.
"Is that Walker?" he asked Raisa, on a hunch.
She nodded. "Yes. The doctors say he may not wake up. Your friend is taking it very hard. I think…" she hesitated. "I think she loves him." Fitz studied Rachel's face. At one time, such a revelation would have bothered him.
But not now.
Fitz nodded, looking up at Raisa. "I know exactly how she feels." Raisa smiled, leaning down to kiss him. Time fled, and seemed unlikely to return, until a shadow fell over them. A thin, hawk-faced man stood at the foot of Fitz's bed, hands in his pockets. A guilty look danced in his eyes.
He said something quietly in Russian.
Raisa turned slowly to face him. Fitz watched as a whole spectrum of emotions played across her features in that moment. "Hello, Vladimir," she replied in English. Fitz heard no anger in her voice, unlike before.
"I just wanted to say…" Vlad muttered awkwardly. "I am sorry." He glanced at Vitaly, wincing. "I hope…you are happy. I hope that someday you can…" he trailed off, looking like he was going to melt into a puddle right there. Raisa stared down at the sheets covering Fitz's legs for a moment, then back up at her ex-husband. At last she nodded, wordlessly.
Vlad almost collapsed in relief. He stood there for several moments, then nodded politely at Fitz and slowly walked toward the door. There he paused, looking back over his shoulder at Walker. A mischievous smile.
"You crazy, Walker," Vlad said softly. Then he was gone.
Fitz glanced from the swaying plastic that served as a door to the face of the man called Walker, whose eyes were open.
Warm eyes. Humor-filled eyes. The crow's feet surrounding them crinkled as Walker smiled around a mouthful of breathing tubes. Fitz couldn't help but grin back.
"What's so funny?" Raisa asked.
Fitz shook his head. "Nothing."
She leaned closer, laughing softly to herself. "Then why are you grinning like an idiot?"
"It's just…" Fitz sighed contentedly, looking up at her. "I'm the luckiest son-of-a-bitch in the universe."
THE END
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