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IONCLAD: Second Prelude
Posted By: Capo Rip<oscar.archer@adelaide.edu.au>
Date: 18 December 2003, 12:39 PM
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-Halo Ternion-
A Walk-on Part in a War
1455 Hours (Colony Local Time), July 22, 2552 (Military Calendar)/
Fort Vengeance, Formalhaut I
"Well, I know I wouldn't like it. Do you think he does?"
"The hell I know. Ask him."
"I don't think so!"
"Fine, bitch. I'll ask him. Hey Sarge!"
"WHAT?"
The morning was warm and dry. The air hung heavily despite the feeble breeze that daily heralded the orangish sunrise. Within the fortifications of Fort Vengeance, as the liberation force had dubbed the salvaged UNSC base, the 19th Orbital Drop Shock Trooper Platoon variously guarded, drilled, snacked, maintained, and gambled, as well as cleaned ordinance, as PFC Hutt and Corporal Doubet were busy doing.
Doubet propped his unencased battle rifle up, sighted down the exposed barrel. "Sarge, my colleague here wonders how you feel about being kidnapped and drafted into the navy when you were six years old."
The initial bellowed response had issued from beneath the nearest Warthog. The gauss cannon had just been lowered into the rear and the seargent was fastening the initial connections. A spanner clinked to the stony ground before the man snaked out from underneath. He stood, and the two hundred twenty centimetres and the enormous shoulders of his startling frame cast both marines completely in shadow. His skull was topped with receding stubble; his aquiline nose jutted from between slightly sunken cheeks. His eyes were clear and grey and seemed to consciously project power.
"Best thing ever happened t'me," Master Sergeant Lloyd 090 drawled in a thick accent. "You pikers don't know what ya missin'. Now get your shit together and give me a hand with this baby - the call could come in any minute."
The marines raced their weapon reassembly, the corporal winning by nearly two clear seconds. Installing the gun on the tray of the 'Hog was a technical ordeal but it was a self-contained component, and by necessity difficult to screw up. Sweat spread rapidly over their corps-issue t-shirts.
"One of the guys, y'know," the corporal said, "he said he heard the muscle-growth injections they gave you Spartans to make you so big also, ah, wipe out your sex drive."
Lloyd vaulted off the vehicle. "Ain't what your mamma said."
Private Hutt shook his head sadly at his fellow enlisted man, then smiled, as the ammunition feed system showed green. The marines similarly dismounted.
"She also said she tried to teach you some manners 'n stuff. If I'd known what an unruly, brutish lot the 105th really were, I might have reconsidered this transfer assignment."
Doubet was grinning too by now. "What if you'd known you'd be stuck on the last outer colony, with the only way to contact FLEETCOM sitting in a Covenant-infested arcology?"
"The only thing that makes your company bearable, Corporal."
Hutt still had a question for the Spartan, what he had originally wondered. The private was not green, but still very young, with vivid memories of his home in the West Europe Protectorate. "What about your parents, sir?" he blurted.
"What about them, son?" Lloyd wiped thoroughly at the grime on his hands.
"Do wish you'd known them?"
"I know they were innocent, but buried under glass on Alpha Cancri II a year ago anyway," he replied calmly. "I have twenty-five brothers and sisters. I'll be going back to them when I've personally slaughtered the last of these alien shits."
The prearranged alert sounded as punctuation to Lloyd's statement. Marines all around burst into action.
Lloyd 090 bellowed, "What are you waiting for, people! Prep this 'Hog and get ready to roll!" With that, he sprinted to his makeshift quarters for his armour.
Salvatori, the communications Specialist, met him at the doorway with a salute. "Our sniper scouts reported in. It looks like the Covenant have abandoned their salvage operation. Our teams are standing by."
"Right. Suit up, marine. We leave in four minutes."
"Yes, sir!"
Lloyd opened the door of what looked like a huge antique refrigerator, but was in fact a makeshift closet for his massive armour. It hung within in segments, a dull metallic olive; the chestplate was embellished with the ODST golden comet. He stripped and slipped into the fitted undersuit, and with practiced haste assembled the armour legs upwards around his body. MJOLNIR activated as the helmet sealed around Lloyd's throat, displaying crosshairs and real-time physiodata. The neural interface connected and the Spartan relaxed, letting the suit moreso than his body respond to his natural movements.
He brought up his motion detector, then armed himself: an MM55 battle rifle slung on one shoulder, plus spare clips; and the Master Sergeant's personal M90 shotgun with its modified stock and a slightly shortened muzzle.
He emerged from his quarters just as Private Hutt, decked in olive drab ODST plate armour, pulled up outside in the Warthog. The gun was already manned by Private Sterling. The other two members of Fireteam Alpha, armed and armoured, jumped into the armoured troop carrier 'Hog already revving behind Lloyd's vehicle. He got into the passenger seat, then stood tall to see the assembling marines.
"It's do-or-die time, marines!" he shouted. Those men waiting to board their assigned transports, now parked in a tight mass, looked up at the Spartan. "You wanna live forever!?"
"Hell yes, sir!" they replied over the comm.
"Then let's make these scum dead instead. And I better not catch any o' you gettin' killed!" With that, Lloyd slapped Hutt's shoulder plate and sat back down. The private pulled smoothly through the gate, onto the tarmac, and accelerated.
The other eight Warthogs strung out in a caravan behind. Two of them mounted manned 12.7mm LAAGs and held positions in the middle and at the rear of the line. Each vehicle seated a passenger, in most cases hefting one of the platoon's M19 SSM Jackhammers, their feat resting on spare rocket magazines. The troop carriers had rear rollcages for their six occupants to grip; although the marines weren't crowded in, most of them had virtually no field of fire. Serious-looking bull-bars decorated the noses of the TCVs.
Corporal Doubet was shouting at Private Heitz, his Alpha team mate, and Fireteam Foxtrot as the 'Hog they rode accelated behind the Master Sergeant's. "Man, I'm fuckin' pumped!" His fists sqeezed the rollbars. "This is gonna be my day, man, it's gonna be a good day!" he remarked enthusiastically. "We are gonna bring them DOWN!"
Foxtrot's Sergeant Nolte grinned over at him. "You keep it up, son."
The 19th had been serving aboard the Macleod, a new rapid-response Seychelles-class UNSC assault frigate fresh from the Reach shipyards. A triple-shot light MAC cannon, Archer missile arrays and a platoon of Helljumpers, designed expressly for the interception of the Covenant scout ships that hunted tirelessly for colony worlds. The freshly promoted Captain Martel had wanted to give a swift demonstration of what UNSC mettle could achieve with the right equipment.
For all the marines knew, it had worked, too. MacLeod had jumped into the Formalhaut system as part of its patrol to find two small Covenant cruisers in the process of securing the colony city of Hamilton. Evidently, the scouts had found the lightly defended target too tempting to share. MacLeod had charged in with guns blazing, her narrow design and advanced engines allowing her to evade the majority of the answering fire. One enemy sustained several direct hits and dropped into a decaying orbit. As MacLeod chased the invaders from orbit, a flock of HEVs and guided equipment modules detached at her closest planetary approach, and the Helljumpers dropped to meet the Covenant forces, feet first. Martel had wished them luck and taken the frigate outwards after his trophy.
Four days ago. MacLeod had been in communicado since the marines had cleared re-entry radio blackout, but nor had there been further Covenant activity. Re-taking the small UNSC base south of Hamilton from the alien guard detail was trivial but satisfying. As the useable gear was gathered, scouts were dispatched to assess the enemy.
"Medusa, do you copy," Lloyd spoke on the advance team's frequency. "What's your situation?"
"Sir," came the reply, "the Covenant salvage teams began returning from their wreck twelve minutes ago. From this vantage I estimate four hundred infantry, including twenty-eight Hunters and a number of tall, pretty tough-looking aliens we haven't seen before. They seem to be running things. The perimeter guard hasn't been altered, however I counted three plasma mortar tanks taking positions on the hillside overlooking the coastal pass."
There was a pause. "I see you now, sir. Standing by."
"Good work, Medusa. We will engage from extreme range. See what you can do at your end."
"Aye, sir. Out."
Lloyd 090 opened the general channel as he took a magnified look at the approaching hills through his weapon's smartscope. "Estimate contact in twelve seconds, marines. Co-ordinate the rocket attack and take 'em out fast - we'll try to maintain the element of surprise." Following a chorus of radio confirmations he signed off and shouted at his driver and gunner over the 'Hog's mighty engine. "Keep this thing moving ahead. Sterling, lay down fire as soon as those rockets are off. Paste anything that moves."
"With pleasure, sir!"
The rest of the vehicles fell back, some peeling off the road. They slowed and halted as a spread out row, engines idling, and five passengers shouldered their M19 SSMs and sighted on the already large targets a ways up the slope.
"Fire!"
Tightly grouped 102mm rockets streaked over Master Sergeant Lloyd's charging Warthog. Private Stirling cried, "School's in session!" and opened up the gauss gun.
If there was one thing Lance Corporal Maine liked as much as sniping, it was explosives. So when the rockets impacted downslope, as she and PFC Harrigan, S2 AMs slung, crawled to a new position through the dry, matted indigenous vegetation, a thrill ran up her spine. At the same time, the distinctive whizzing of gauss rounds ended in the shrieking of rended alien armour-plate, or deep thumps where they met solid rock.
"I see two kills," crackled a radio voice on the platoon freq.
"Confirmed. Two down, moving in to get a visual on the third."
"Lay some supressing fire."
Harrigan, a little further ahead, stopped. He silently motioned his spotter up to his side, and as she joined him she saw that they had reached the top edge of one of the quarries recently blown out of the hillside by the Covenant. A stain of ashen blackness more than halfway down marked the terminus of one of the Jackhammer rounds. Thirty metres down a Wraith appeared to be cowering a safe distance from the alcove's lip - which was being spasmodically chewed at by magnetic projectiles. Apparently, the alien driver had quick reflexes but little in the way of guts.
Lying there, the snipers glanced at each-other. Left for long, the alien would obviously figure out how far to launch its hellish plasma bombs - and would report the human positions. They packed nought heavy weapons, but Harrigan brought his hand up with a fat frag grenade in it, proffering it to his partner, nodding his head towards their prey and inflating his soot-smeared cheeks in a silent "boom" impression. Maine grinned. She wanted to laugh; her partner delighted in goosing her about their adventurous love-life.
She accepted the explosive and inched her head over the edge. The Wraith was gyrating around on the clearing in apparent indecision. The marine spotted the canopy opening, immediately beneath the weapon muzzle. She thought she could see a segment of sleek red armour within.
At that moment the tank shuffled forward and belched out a sizzling mass of plasma. Squinting against the residual glare, Maine flipped the pin and tossed the grenade. It vanished into the cockpit with a clunk, followed by an inhuman shriek. A plume of fire spat loudly out of the Wraith, replaced within an instant by a shower of alien gore. Smoke vomitted out from beneath the machine and it scraped sideways into the ground.
Harrigan slapped Maine encouragingly on the rump and exclaimed, "Kick ass!" He rose to his feet.
"Any time, baby." She accepted his hand up, adjusted her helmet and then led the way back to the vehicles.
"Sergeant, this is Medusa," the Private called over the comm. "Third Wraith is junk, but you have incoming, over."
"Copy that," replied Lloyd's voice. "In golf they call that a slice. We're on our way. Proceed as planned and keep your eyes open."
"Affirmative. Out." The marine drew his M6D and scanned the the vicinity of the area they had arrived at. His spotter dug her arms into a mass of light-green bushes - tossing the severed foliage aside to reveal their ATVs: khaki four-wheelers with with independent wheel drive and serious suspension. She threw her leg over her quad's saddle, switched on the fuel and navigation systems, and kicked the engine into deep, roaring life.
Maine grinned back at her partner as he mounted up, twisted the throttle a few times, then took off downhill with him in a shower of torn dirt.
"Kingfisher, do you copy," Master Sergeant Lloyd 090 radioed.
While the base that would temporarily become Fort Vengeance had been overun and cleaned out by the initial Covenant landing, some equipment had survived. Four of the Warthogs and the ATVs were native, and the heavy munitions had been sealed away securely. The undisputed godsend, however, was the fortified subsurface hangar and the SkyHawk jump jet nestled within, with fuel and stocked racks of 50mm ammunition and Scorpion A-T missiles.
Lloyd was very pleased that Corporal Wong had volunteered for the 105th straight out of the Marine Air Wing.
"I copy, sir," the pilot replied. Formalhaut's major eastern ocean sped beneath the jump jet at close to mach 2. The pale sunlight glinted off the visor of Wong's full-face helmet. Within, an image from the telescopic camera of the rapidly approaching coast was projected in his peripheral vision. "ETA twenty-five seconds. I have your squads on long range now."
Little green-and-black dots beetled along the edge of the bluff, down towards the southern side of the delta croplands. A shiny figure riding up front made the traditional 'charge!' signal with its arm. "Proceed as planned. Maximum impact."
"Roger."
The SkyHawk ate up the remaining kilometres ravenously. The small city came into naked eye view and Wong slowed the craft to attack speed. As he approached over the wide bay, he looked down to his left: a tremendous scared purple hump, the downed Covenant ship, lay in the water. Despite the damage it had taken, its navigator had managed to put it down near the planet's only center of habitation. It was also surprisingly intact - hence the salvage activity. When the human force finally kicked them out again, the ship would make very valuable spoils.
The city was built in one corner of the ancient, fertile delta, a vast shallow valley that had lay right at sea level quite recently, in xenogeological terms, before Formalhaut's ice caps had expanded and sucked up around six metres worth of the ocean. The ground teams would have to cross the agricultural land from the south via the access roads. It was a risky advance across open ground, but that's what air support is for, after all. The SkyHawk closed on the main structure of Hamilton, the four hundred metre arcology. The upper section, above the trunk-like base, expanded out to overshadow the smaller buildings clustered around and under it. The overall shape was reminiscent of some type of fat fungi. The jump jet's targets, however, were huddled around the south side of the structure: warehouses that provided perfect vantage points from which to repel assaults.
Wong flipped open the trigger safety. His HUD tagged the predetermined buildings and beeped a lock signal. His thumb pressed down and a pair of Scorpions roared from their launchers, crossed the remaining distance in an eye-blink, and erupted spectacularly within their targets. He banked the jet to the right to make a wide, curving pass around the arcology. There was a similar density of buildings on the northern side, but no visible enemy activity in the streets below.
"Sergeant, this is Kingfisher, over."
"Report."
"Negative contacts in your blind spot, sir."
"Good. We're about to engage at this end."
"I'll be there shortly. Out."
The pilot cleared the arcology, kicking in the afterburners out of the turn. He sent two more Scorpions into the danger zone on his way out of the city. The battlefield and the thick Covenant frontline raced to greet him.
"Charge and disperse! No straight lines, men!"
On the open battlefield lacking natural cover, standard tactics amounted to driving headlong into the Covenant lines and generating as much chaos as possible. The speed and manoeuvreability of the M12 LRV, combined with its durable armour gave it the upper hand in most direct skirmishes. Even compared to the alien Ghosts, the 'Hog was king of the road.
"Fire at will!"
Since most of Lloyd's men were riding in the backs of the unarmed variant of the vehicle, he did not have the luxury of keeping his force close together. So when the exchange of fire began, it was mere seconds before the three armed Warthogs plowed through the outer cordon of Grunts. Incoming plasma scorched the ablative panels but the marines were moving too fast and eratically for the alien infantry and Shade guns to aim at. The LAAGs growled out steady streams of 12.7mm AP slaughter, their gunners crouching behind the blast shields. Private Sterling picked her targets quickly and carefully, sending small ferromagnetic lumps at them at close to two thousand metres per second.
Master Sergeant Lloyd, like the other troops riding shotgun, was propped up on the seat's headrest, allowing for a wide field of fire. He concentrated on the aliens to either side, where the 'Hog provided minimal shielding.
Hutt fishtailed and accelerated toward the aliens approaching from one end of their line. The sudden gash rent through their defences was attracting them all at once in a dense clump. The first Grunt crunched under the wheels, and Lloyd put a hole in the skull of another as it scurried out of their path. Squeals were cut short beneath the bumping vehicle, and it broke clear of the other side of the now chaotic mass of aliens.
Magnetically accelerated masses hissed from the gauss gun and sent fountains of thrashing bloodied Grunts into the air. Lloyd took a bead on a Jackal's yellow shield and squeezed the trigger. The 9.6mm high explosive splinter rounds, designed specifically for the recently developed battle rifle, exploded on contact with Jackal energy shields, but penetrated and fragmented in anything softer. Three shots tore the shield down and killed the Covenant soldier. He shifted the sight, zoomed in on the next, and blew its weapon hand off through its shield gap. The grunt behind it tossed a grenade. Lloyd's bullet took off the top of its skull as he shouted a warning; Hutt swerved left up on to the edge of the 'Hog's reinforced composite-belt tyres, jinked to the side a touch to crush another alien in half, then put it back down with a thud.
Ahead, the Master Sergeant could see maybe a score of Ghosts heading past the carnage towards the troop carriers' position. "Main squad," he radioed, "company heading your way. Keep yourselves safe, but catch as many as you can manage."
"Aye, sir! Men, keep your heads down!"
The Warthogs scattered, but not randomly. Each driver picked a Ghost and accelerated straight towards it, eating incoming plasma with their thick front ablative panels, their front passengers responding with MM55 and MA5B fire over the duraquartz windshield.
The first pair of opposing vehicles met. The 'Hog's front wheels dug in as the Covenant craft bounced up onto the bonnet and was tossed to the side. It's tall alien pilot was thrown clear with a shriek before taking heavy fire from the marines in the back of the Warthog.
"So that's what their 'Elites' look like!"
As the Ghost came to a crashing rest, a private leaped from his seat and sprinted to it, grasped the strangely-shaped controls, and wobbled it back into the air with a gleeful whoop.
Three Ghosts were swiftly captured this way, along with five destroyed by prompt, well placed SPNKr rockets and concentrated small arms fire. The Warthog drivers did their best to meet the next wave of aliens.
"A-a-ah! Need a little help over here," cried a driver, as his vehicle was pursued by more than half the remaining Ghosts. Bright plasma bolts spat at the passengers and he swerved around randomly. Private Ciezlinski sat up to loose a volley of 7.62mm fire and screamed when several lucky shots splashed beneath his neck. His armour billowed smoke and he toppled out even as his desperate comrades' hands reached for him. The last they saw was Ciezlinski rolling beneath a Ghost, flipping the pin out of a grenade with his teeth clenched in pain.
The third Ghost along exploded upwards, its pilot limp and bloodied. The others swerved to continue the chase.
"Hold 'em off for a few more seconds guys."
"Hurry!" the sergeant yelled as plasma licked the rollcage yellow-white with heat.
After a final nerve-wracking moment, enormous divots began bursting deafeningly from the ground in the Warthog's wake, then all at once the Covenant craft were forced into the ground and flipped end over end as they exploded into violent blue plumes. The SkyHawk immediately screamed overhead and banked sharply into a low turn.
"Serves you fucking right!" one soldier spat.
"Thanks, Kingfisher."
"Yeah, good one, Wong!"
"Someone get that last Ghost, da-- woah, nice shot, Medusa."
"I aim to please."
"FORM UP, MARINES! We've still got a job to do!"
Some of the soldiers looked back at the churned-up ground and smouldering machinery from the backs of the troop carriers.
"See ya 'round, Chiz."
SECTION 1 of 4
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