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Legion of Honor - part 2: Essence of Camaraderie /Chapter 1
Posted By: Brocktree<LordBrocktree_2@hotmail.com>
Date: 16 December 2003, 11:42 PM
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Part 2: Essence of Camaraderie
When Captain Evanson stepped into the clearing he saw what happens to human cities that come under occupation under the Covenant: devastation. Very few blocks on the main road were left with most its buildings standing. Smoke rose up in columns from off in the distant, small dots indicating banshees were also visible to the East. He stepped forward, letting making footfall slow and deliberate on a metal traffic sign on the deserted road, which was torn up in several places from grenades and mortar rounds. He spied around for the town center. It would be a good place to set up company HQ for this operation; that is, after the Covenant leave the town.
Evanson signaled his men to hold their fire; they needed to recon the area before engaging in firefights. He called over Private First Class William Harkins, the company's best sniper with the best vision. He pointed to a six-story office building, I'm going to need you to get to the top floor of that building. Do not get on the roof in case those banshee patrols swing by this way, understood?"
"Sir, yes, Sir!" Harkins replied as he slinked into the shadows of the buildings on his way to the lookout. A private from the first platoon suddenly crumpled to the ground; a hollowed out hole clear through the sides of his head.
"Snipers!" Another man yelled. The entire block erupted with micro plasma bolts. Instantly five other men fell to the ground. Evanson started yelling, "Move! Move! Get to that alley!" He grabbed soldiers and started throwing them into the alley behind the toy store.
Everyone quickly pulled themselves together and awaited the imminent Covenant force, but none came. Evanson started to get anxious. Surely there should have been some infantry attack, He thought, the Covenant are not renown for letting their enemies walk away.
He decided to take initiative against the snipers in the buildings. He called forward two squads, one assault and the other mortar team. They were quickly briefed on the location of the sniper nests that Evanson took note of in the quick retreat.
The first nest was in the blown out second story of the local doctor's office, another on the roof of the "PetCare" store across the street from the first emplacement and the final nest was located five stores down in the blown out lobby window.
PFC Ronald Taylor moved up to the edge of the building's wall. The man behind him hunkered down on one knee and lobbed a grenade from hi M22 rifle's attachment canister. The grenade sailed high into the air and detonated seconds later.
At the detonation, taking full effect of the surprise of the grenade, Taylor ran into the street toting his SPNKR launcher and unleashed a rocket at nest number one. The two Elites had precious few seconds of life left, then the rocket exploded on the ceiling of the level beneath them. The floor exploded sending heat, flame and bits of wood tearing through both bodies. Taylor rolled back behind the building dodging two sniper shots, which penetrated deep into the concrete road.
Two mortar tubes were calibrated to knock out the remaining nests. Mortar teams have access to the GPS system, which was available to all planets with orbiting UNSC vessels. Trajectory algorithms automatically adjusted attitude, velocity and distance to help zero in on the targets.
Three smoke grenades were tossed to create a screen for the mortar teams to hide behind while in the middle of the road. The men ran out, set down their mortars tubes and dropped the rounds in. Two synchronous thumps rocked the area and both mortars were ejected from their tubes. After the smoke passed, two large craters replaced the sniper nests.
The company moved out slowly, guns at the ready, all fingers on their trigger. Evanson gave out orders, "Alright, company, listen up. I need Martin, Dean and Coffman to secure those sniper spots. Bring me the salvageable weapons and any other equipment you find.
"Yes, Sir!" They replied, each picking two men to accompany them.
A voice crackled on Evanson's radio, "...Sir, I'm in position. The town looks pretty deserted, I see only three patrols, twelve grunts each, led by an Elite." Momentary Silence followed then, "Wait, Sir, you have incoming! A full patrol is inbound to your position, be advised."
* * *
A blue Elite casually marched down the ruined street, twelve exhausted grunts in his wake. They were of the lucky ones, the warriors not to be burned or maimed by the humans. They had hit them with a terrible, devastating but necessary weapon. Most warriors in this region had been burned alive by the thousands.
Not me, Thought the Elite, I didn't die like those other fools. He turned a corner and standing in the street was a lone human soldier looking around nervously, his gun by his side. The elite drew back around the corner, knocking over a few grunts as he did so. They started to yelp in anger when the elite hit one over the head with his rifle. They all went silent as the elite growled with obvious pleasure, "Fresh meat."
The elite jumped back around the corner and onto the street while growling like a maniac. The grunts behind him followed suit. The soldier jumped back in surprise and ran into the alley, the elite right behind him.
Suddenly, bullets began pinging off his shields until eventually it broke. The elite stared in a state of shock, not expecting to run into twenty humans. He felt a bullet penetrate through each knee and leave large exit wounds as the bullets tore through. Before he could act two more bullets completely blew away both elbows. The elite crumpled to the ground as twelve grunts, screaming like children, came charging in to attack suddenly stopped.
Evanson stepped carefully forward, his gun pointed directly in the lead grunt's face, the grunt's legs shaking uncontrollably. "Drop your weapons." He ordered. It took a second before the grunt's translator software kicked in. They were confused; surrender had never really been an option to them before. The head grunt let his weapon clatter to the ground then he himself dropped. In a matter of seconds every grunt mimicked the first, all of them quivering on the cool cement.
Well, Evanson thought, this ought to be interesting. I've got twelve grunt POW's here and one incapacitated elite lying on the ground. He walked over to the elite and gave it a small nudge with his foot. It let out a deep growl.
"Well, buddy, looks like you won't ever be walking again, will you? Even if you could heal enough to hobble, your human hunting days are over." Evanson taunted. The elite just let out a low mumble.
"Okay, men, let's get this trash into that doctor's building over there, or what's left of it. We can get some local information from these guys and some answers from my good friend here." He grabbed the elites limp arm and began pulling the entire creature with him as it screamed in agonizing pain. The grunts were quietly marched into the building. All of them watching their captain getting dragged by his useless arm like eager children, hiding smiles deep within themselves.
* * *
Evanson leaned over into the elite's face. It was bound to a chair in one of the observation rooms the town doctors used to use. Two other soldiers stood fast by the door in case any trouble erupted from their captor
(Note that all conversations between elite, grunt and human are done through built in translators)
"All right, now. If you cooperate I can hand you over to my superiors with minimal harm done to you, otherwise we are going to have a little 'fun'. The kind of fun where we beat the answers out of you with anything that comes to hand, got that?" Evanson said with a heavy voice. The elite laughed and looked him in the eye, "Listen, human, do what you feel is necessary but I will never betray the Prophets or our Order." It then spat in Evanson's face.
He drew a pistol from his belt and pressed it hard against the elite's bare head. Its shield had been deactivated minutes before, "I want you to tell me why your kind has waged this most unholy of wars and I want to know who these "Forerunner" are." The elite whipped its head to the side and slammed the pistol against the seat. It then clamped its four mandibles down on Evanson's hand that held the weapon; blood spewed out from his the hand as he pulled it free. The other two soldiers leveled their weapons and shot the elite three times through the back of the chair. Purple blood splattered on the far wall.
Evanson gripped his bleeding hand and swiftly paced around the room while blood spilled all over the floor. "Someone get me some bandages." He said in a calm voice. One of the soldier's took out a swab bandage and helped Evanson stop the bleeding.
He walked out of the room, careful not two hit his hand on anything, and left the two privates to pick up the elite's corpse and dispose of it. He hated elites. Hated them more than any other species of covenant. They were merciless and found no guilt in killing millions of civilians in firing lines. Time to go interrogate the grunts, He thought to himself with a sigh, this ought to be fun.
When he walked into the slightly larger room where the twelve grunts walked around aimlessly, he couldn't help but manage a slight grin. They were like kids, the smallest and least intelligent species of the Covenant. They had almost seemed too willing to surrender when the humans took them in.
Evanson addressed the lead grunt, "Do I need to call more support in here or will you guys cooperate with me on this?" The grunt stared at him for a moment, then responded, "We are more than happy to do whatever you say. You are not of the elite people. You will not harm us for speaking aloud when not told to do so. For this, I am thank you for saving my squad from that elite pestilence."
Evanson could hardly believe a word he was hearing. He always believed that all Covenant were bad and fighting together for a common cause they all believe in; not that the elites were enslaving any species they met and forced them to fight.
He decided to ask a question, "Do your kind believe that the extermination of my race is just?" The grunt lowered his eyes and spoke in a quiet voice, as if afraid someone would here him, "We do not like the will of the prophets. We think they are evil beings just like the elites and the Royal Guardians. We do not live to fight, but we live to share peace with our fellow species on our own home world. We are not fit to travel to different planets. But the elites do not care; they have us dead for talking about the home world. This is how they scare us into fighting, killing us, making examples."
A roll of thunder shook the floor. Outside the sky had darkened to a near black. Heavy rain began pounding throughout the city. Evanson stood up and began to leave the room, "Stay here, we will be right outside this door. Don't dare try to escape or you will be shot on the spot."
The grunt replied in a high spirit, "Do not worry, we will stay right here."
* * *
Evanson walked outside and addressed PFC Taylor who guarded the entrance with private Donnager, "Anything to report, Private?"
"No, Sir. Everything is just fine, although this pouring rain is making it difficult to see anything more than two blocks away." The Captain looked him over then turned to watch the torrential downpour, "keep up the good work."
Suddenly, Evanson caught the site of tan battle fatigues, then out of the rain came eleven more. These were the men Evanson had sent out to retrieve salvageable equipment from the wrecked sniper's nests. Martin led the way up the stairs, "we're back, Sir. We got some goodies that I will show you inside." Evanson led the way back into one of the waiting rooms.
"First, we recovered three Covenant sniper rifles. These truly are amazing weapons. It has a 100x zoom lens and can be configured to allow auto-aim by the computer inside the gun. It shoots balls of plasma the size of a fingernail and is loaded with small cartridges with thirty shots each into the side of the boot of the gun." Martin held up the weapon and loaded a cartridge in the side. The actual weapon was a luminous purple and boasted a short stock and long thin barrel. A horizontal blast guard protected the zoom and on-gun HUD.
"We also found a dozen plasma grenades, three fully charged rifles and a plasma bomb with enough power to make a keg of C4 look like a fire cracker." He handed each item over to Evanson who inspected every piece. He then grabbed a Covenant sniper rifle and loaded four cartridges into it, "Now, we need to take back this town."
* * *
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