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From the Halo Diaries (Chapter 8)
Posted By: aussie_spartan<aussie_spartan@hotmail.com>
Date: 8 July 2007, 12:58 pm
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Halo Inspired Fan Fiction
0720 hours, August 30 2552 (Military Calendar) / Epsilon Eridani System, Longhorn Valley, planet Reach
Every cut, every bruise and everything the Covenant had put Lieutenant Damien Carter through during his imprisonment had come down to one thing: information. Information was what they wanted and information was what he refused to give them, his torture had been for information and he struggled not to give them information. Carter had fought their attempts for information with every bone in his body and then some, what they did to him in that room on the Covenant vessel was disgusting. Even if Carter managed to ever get back to the frontline, he now had only one eye. His depth perception was ruined; he could never fire a gun again. Sure it was possible to get a desk job but that didn't suit how Carter liked to live his life, he was a firm believer in that he should be willing to not only go wherever he sent his soldiers but also be the first onto the battlefield. Carter reviewed what had transpired during his stay in captivity but when he came to the soldiers he lost the same Lieutenant Carter who hadn't shed one tear while having his left eye torn out gave a sob. What was wrong with him? Had his stay in the hands of the Covenant soften him up? Carter had witnessed countless marines lose it in the battlefield, some flew into a blind rage and killed without discrimination of friend or foe, others snapped and refused to kill anything. Taking a deep breath Carter reassessed his situation, forcing himself to calm down when he noticed that his hands were shaking. He thought back to what his instructor had taught him: "If you have the chance, calm yourself. That's important. Next review how deep you're in, remind yourself what you know and don't know then make the best decision you can from that. Never let your subordinates know you're scared. It scares them."
Carter had none of his soldiers left with him so he could cross one thing off his checklist, then he went about figuring out what he did and didn't know. Firstly he knew the Covenant had taken him here for a reason, remember back to the surprise of being forced out of his cell and marched to the grav-lift, from there he was taken to the surface of what he knew to be Reach, after all he had trained here for years. The reason he had been taken here Carter discovered as soon as he hit ground, that golden Elite showed him a star map with their current location and asked bluntly: "Is this the Human homeworld?"
After receiving no reply they had taken him to a temporary holding bay on Reach's surface. The bay was hastily constructed and not nearly as good a cell as what he had previously experienced but it didn't matter, Carter had no energy left to attempt an escape especially in the middle of a Covenant camp. Scratching under his left eye Carter wasn't surprised when his hand came back with blood, after what they did to him he had no way of covering his eye and so was forced to just shut that eyelid. Carter crawled from the middle of his enclosure to the doors of his cell where two Jackals sat guard; they were playing some sort of alien card game. It was obvious which one was winning from the angry squawking of the other one. "Hey, you two." Carter said to get their attention.
The two Jackals curiously turned to face him and Carter replied in a hushed tone "Did you know…" Carter looked from the left then to the right which gave him the Jackals full attention "THAT YOU'RE BOTH UGLY SHIT!" Carter yelled the last part at the top of his lungs startling the two guards and sending one toppling off its chair.
Carter laughed and sat back down but didn't get much time to as the Jackal he toppled made an attempt to get its fallen pride back by ramming an electric cattle prod-like device into his chest through the bars. Screaming in pain Carter jumped to his feet and hit his head on the bars of the ceiling which made him fall back to the ground nearly knocking him out. Getting up Carter could see stars swimming in front of his face and he could hear the Jackals laughing at him, he had paid dearly for his attack at them. Lights flashed in front of Carters eyes and for a moment Carter thought that the hit on the head was more damaging that he originally guessed but then he heard the thundering roar, the screaming of dying Covenant but what really gave it away was the body parts raining down from above. Searching for the source of these miniature suns raining down onto the Covenant positions Carter expected to see at the very least an entire division of battle hardened marines complete with a squad of longswords and scorpion tanks. So it was quite a surprise when all he saw was two wraith tanks charging through the Covenant encampment. Carter wondered who would be stupid enough to make a frontal assault on the Covenant forces with just two tanks and even considered the option that Covenant forces had gone rogue. "Hey, what's going on?" He asked his two guards.
Neither responded so Carter continued to watch the chaos unfolding in the camp, one of the wraiths turned around and lobed plasma in his direction, at first Carter thought that the plasma orb was going to crush him, he had seen time and again what that stuff did to anything unfortunate enough to be beneath it when it exploded. It massive orb of plasma arched high in the sky moving with an agonizing slowness as if whatever target it was heading for would hang around to see it fall. When it finally did fall downwards Carter realized that it was not aimed at him but rather at the Elite's personal tents and the fixed gun emplacements guarding them. One of the Jackals got up and said something to the other one in their irritating language and ran to the wraiths apparently in an attempt to stop them. Seeing the chaos around him Carter's adrenaline started pumping into his veins as he realized that no one was paying attention to the prisoner who had stopped struggling long ago. Whoever was in those wraiths Carter thanked from the bottom of his heart, they had bought him the chance he needed "Hey, you." Carter spoke to the Jackal.
"I feel sick; can you let me out for a walk?"
With everything happening around the Jackal it took a full three seconds for what he was saying to register with the Jackal. Bringing itself up the full height it turned to him bringing his face within an inch from the bars and said in badly translated human "You think I stupid?"
Carter smiled with genuine pleasure, quick as lightning he grabbed the Jackal through the bars and said "Actually, I know you are."
Then he pulled the Jackal as close to him as possible but the Jackal never made it to Carter instead hitting the bars of the cage. Carter rammed the Jackal repeatedly against the cage seeing flashes of images in front of his eye, the faces of all his soldiers, all those dead men and women whom were killed by his kin. Finally Carter stopped and let go panting hard, he had never felt so much anger in his life, the Jackals blood was everywhere, it coated the bars and specks of it were flicked all across Carter where the mingled with his own blood also covering him. It took Carter a full minute to process what had transpired and where it left him, when he did Carter braced himself and kicked at the door to his cage with everything he could muster. The flimsy cage broke under his pressure and for the first time in what seemed like years, Carter was a free man.
2201 hours, July 14, 2557 (Military Calendar) / Aboard the MAC platform Cairo, in orbit around Earth
Once G Deck was under human control as well Sergeant Major Brown was just about to order his marines to take a short break when he heard a message over the E Band. A scared marine broadcast his message right into Brown's earpiece "This is Lance Corporal Sheen, all UNSC soldiers report to the bridge immediately and prepare to repel borders, I repeat all UNSC soldier personnel report to the bridge to defend borders."
Brown winced, if someone was desperate enough to broadcast on the E Band then they were either really desperate or really stupid, this marine sounded like the former. Also to call all the soldiers back to the bridge meant that the fight for that prime piece of real-estate wasn't going in their favor. Brown turned to PFC Green and barked an order "Green! You haul ass to the weapons lockers and get whatever ammunition and weapons you can, I have a feeling we're going to need it soon enough."
Green started to protest but Brown cut him off "Take three guys with you, I don't care who just move it marine!"
It once again looked like Green was going to make an outburst but he bit it back and yelled "Naude, Keir and Fryer with me! The rest of you can follow Brown to hell and back for all I care!"
He then turned around and with the three marines in tow disappeared down an access hallway. Brown waited a minute to make sure they hadn't met any immediate danger but after that got what was left of his squad rounded up and moved off with them. After making their way to the designate position Brown asked for the marine who had broadcasted the signal, a marine who knew where he was led them through what was five minutes ago a massive battlefield. There were smoking craters everywhere, it was amazement that the hull hadn't been breached but as Brown looked at the many sealed doors he realized that maybe it wasn't such a miracle after all. Stray plasma rounds had turned much of the corridors molten and they were forced to switch routes twice as some of the doors they were passing though were melted beyond use. The blood was just as thick here as it was anywhere else on the ship, maybe even more testifying to the Covenants knowledge of how important the bridge was to keeping this station online. Brown was just about to ask if they were anywhere near the Lance Corporal when they came to a stop and the marine leading them pointed to a group of other marines concealed behind a cargo box. "Which one of you is Lance Corporal Sheen?"
One of them turned around and replied "That'd be me," he checked for Brown's ranking but seeing he wasn't wearing it he went to a fallback response "sir."
"Where's your NCO?" Brown asked perplexed at what kind of officer wouldn't make a distress call himself.
The Lance Corporal looked genuinely puzzled "Didn't I say that over the broadcast?"
At this Brown became very agitated, it was bad enough the Lance Corporal used an unprotected channel now he wasn't even sure what he said over it? "No I don't believe you did. If he's dead then just say so now, otherwise direct me to him."
Sheen took a gulp; soldiers often did that around Brown as he was more than intimidating. Even superior officers sometimes cowered under his words and that was the way Brown liked it, it wasn't nice but it did establish some authority over the enlisted men and women. "I'm not sure where he is sir, he went for supplied at the weapons lockers but we haven't heard from him since."
"Shit." Brown muttered.
He turned to Lance Corporal Evans "Get Green on the radio now."
Sensing the danger of Greens current situation Evans hurried to get Green on the phone.
PFC Green was taking cover and taking fire, it happened almost instantly after entering the weapons lockers; he had seen the bodies of some fellow marines on the ground and ordered the soldiers with him to duck and get behind cover quickly. It was lucky he acted when he did because though he was unable to save Private Keir's life he did save everyone else's. "Shit, why do you alien assholes hate us so much?"
Green yelled to Fryer and Naude "Return in kind! Show them why Brown loves us so much!"
This was enough to warrant grim smiles amongst the three marines but not enough to give them the advantage. None of the marines could see exactly who was firing on them, the plasma fire seemed to come out of nowhere, then Green realized what it was. "Camo Elite's! Fryer lay down some suppression fire! Shoot anything that looks suspicious and Naude I want you to take your time and look for any waving in the air. As Fryer and Naude went to work Green crawled out from his hiding spot and looked for a way to flank these threats. That was when he heard Fryer give a cry of pain and fall to the ground, Green moved to him and inspected the damage, he had been hit in the head and though his helmet had taken the brunt of the damage he was still bleeding profusely from his forehead. Remembering that the head was the most vulnerable spot to lose massive amounts of blood Green cursed his and Fryers luck. "Just hold your hands there buddy, I can't help you now but I promise that I will soon."
Fryer obeyed Greens command but they both knew it was useless, Fryer was going to die of blood loose and there wasn't a damn thing either of them could do about it. Yet still Fryer looked into Greens eyes pleading Green to save his life, there was nothing he could do but stop himself and Naude dying as well. Turning to Naude who was crouched behind a column giving covering fire he said "I'll take Fryer's place, you just find those Elite's and fast!"
Naude turned to him and said "Evans is on the radio, she says we might be in trouble and to watch out for Covenant."
Green noted the sarcasm in Naude's voice and played on it, hoping to bolster his confidence "Really? Tell her thanks for the warning."
Green then turned back to the enemy and switched to his SMG blasting the general area with a hale of bullets, one of those pinged off an Elite so Green concentrated his fire at that location and was rewarded when he heard the Elite howl in pain and drop to the ground. That wasn't then end though as they continued to take fire from at least one other Elite, it was hard to tell but Green thought he knew where it was and had an idea. A stupid, risky idea that was bound to get them killed but an idea nonetheless. "Naude, you see the locker marked 'Grenades'?"
Getting the idea Naude concentrated his fire at the locker and it exploded in a shower of metal shards and phosphorus explosions when the grenades stored within went off. After the smoke had cleared Green looked form out of his cover and found three Elite corpses on the floor, he turned to Naude and they both shared a moment of relief. There was no way they could salvage any weapons from here but at least they had come away with their lives. Less could be said for Fryer who died in the explosion.
0005 hours, July 15, 2557 (Military Calendar)/ New Mombassa, Earth
Lance Corporal Silvia Russell had to admit that PFC Powell's idea had good merit. Instead of putting a tracker on the large behemoths in the middle of the convoy, they could much more easily stick the slower infantry which would find it hard to spot them coming. It was Powell with the most stealth training that got the dangerous job of attaching a tracker to the passing Grunts but he pulled it off without a hitch. While the Grunts were inspecting a local café for any human presence he hid in the rafters and swung down as the came beneath him then hanging from his feet cautiously placed a tracker the size of a fingernail on the Grunts methane tank. The tiny device sent a signal through SATCOM which placed a marker over the Grunt allowing anyone who knew the code instant knowledge of the Grunts location. It even had a small recording device put in so they could hear whatever the device heard giving them some advantage of whether the tanks were moving with the Grunt or not. Silva was really amazed at Powell's prowess at what he did and had to stop Flores from clapping when he got back to them. "That was brilliant!" Flores said in a hushed tone.
Powell just shrugged and replied "I trained under Carter's group."
They made their way back to their temporary base with little incident, they only had to stop twice but on both occasions the Covenant that they thought they saw was in fact only the street light playing tricks with their mind. When they explained what the saw Captain Murphy addressed them personally "Good work. You're a credit to the unit and when we get back to HQ you can expect promotions all round… provided what you're giving me isn't just a goose chase."
Lieutenant Amanda Barbara surveyed the ambush point with her binoculars, the six or so Covenant wraiths lumbered through the city streets. On the left and right of the tanks were clusters of Jackals and Grunts, there were four Hunters there as well, two at the front and two at the back. Strange that there were no Elite's though, this bothered Amanda very much because with all these important Covenant weapons there should have been someone there to guide them. The lieutenant was Murphy's executive officer and for good reason, she had been in more engagements than the rest of Murphy's officers combined and was something of a master with a sniper. Lifting her radio to her mouth Amanda contacted the rest of the platoon on a secured channel "Everyone, on position now. Wait for my go code and do not as much as spit before I give it."
From her vantage point she could see the teams of snipers and rocket jockeys aim their weapons at the Covenant convoy. She could also see the ten fixed machine gunners take aim, coordinated with the assault teams at ground level. The soldiers at ground level or at least one in every ten was armed with a flamethrower, Amanda had asked for them because the street that the Covenant was currently over actually covered a gas line which Amanda hoped to open up. "Ok, listen up. Rockets, your job is to take down those wraiths, if you don't then we risk their counter-attack. Snipers, your job is to take down those hunters, aim for the bright orange patches. Machine gunners and ground troops, your job is to take down anything else. Flamethrowers, you are all to wait until the tech team tells us that the gas pipes have been breached. And… go, go, go!"
It all happened very quickly, first the sniper shells found their marks and three of the hunters were killed instantly, the last one managed to orientate itself but never got a shot off as it fell into a pool of it's own blood. Then the rockets were able to reach out and touch the wraiths and because they were caught unawares every rocket met its designated target and four of the wraiths blew up into tiny fragments. Another suffered massive damages and started coving in slow circles, the last one simply shrugged off all damage. "Damn." Amanda muttered, that would come back to bite her.
The machine gunners and ground troops opened up on the Grunts and Jackals, the ground troops stayed in the buildings on either side stopping them from getting in the way of those above. That was when the Covenant finally started shooting back at their attackers but it was useless, the humans had them completely covered. It was as easy as shooting fish in a battle "Rocket jockeys! Take out those remaining wraiths, now!" Amanda bellowed unto her mike.
It was too late however for the ODST's posted above the Starbucks café who were turned into atoms when one of the wraiths opened fire at them. Neither did it help the three others who were crushed when the damaged wraith crashed into the one of the buildings. The driver of this particular wraith apparently had a death wish as he fired his main cannon while inside the building collapsing it completely killing himself and the ten who were there as well. That was when Amanda's com link to the tech boys and girls under the street crackled to life and the lead tech's voice came over the radio "Everything's set up, there's a massive amount of gas leaking out of the gutter drains, tell your soldiers to set them alight."
Amanda opened a link to those groups with flamethrowers "It's time! Aim for the drains and lets see these bastards burn!"
It was as if the entire street had been turned into a miniature sun as flames licked high into the sky burning all Covenant troops. Just before Amanda's view of the street was obscured by the massive amounts of black smoke she witnessed the last wraith tank catch fire and finally fall under the assault of her ground troops. Amanda hit her com button and yelled over the com "All teams! Status! Can anyone overhead see what's happening?"
All teams except the one destroyed by the suicidal tank reported in, there were minimal losses and no one seemed to have any idea of what was going on in the street even the ground troops. Amanda cursed, how the hell were they to know that the Covenant were defeated if they couldn't see them? "Everyone hold your fire. I repeat, all teams hold your fire. No one shoots without my permission."
Amanda had lost too many troops in this engagement to lose even more to friendly fire so by telling everyone to stop she hoped to stop those above from killing those below. Amanda waited for a full ten minutes, each second agony on her; she couldn't bear the pain f not knowing. Had she of been aware of how much smoke was going to billow up she would have drastically reconsidered either her approach or her vantage point. It was too late for that now and all Amanda could do was wait for the smoke to die down and reveal what was left. When it finally did she saw that all was left of the Covenant were some smoldering corpses and black, twisted hunks of metal which had once been the wraiths. Amanda smiled, it was over. The results weren't what she was hoping for and she would have to explain why so many of her troops had died on such a simple mission but the Covenant advance of heavy weapons had been stopped at least here. They had saved many more lives somewhere else down the road which gave her some comfort for losing her troops.
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