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Outlaw, Chapter 5 - Suicidal Attack and Learning Your Limits
Posted By: Chris Cassani<plindberg01@earthlink.net>
Date: 3 November 2002, 1:59 am
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The green silhouette stood tall, cloaked in shadow. It had been a long fight, nearly over. Two on three dozen at first, bad odds for the Covenant, but they wouldn't need to worry about that much longer.
"Running low on ammo Outlaw, any explosives left?" whispered a silhouette out of sight.
"Just one rocket, we used the rest of what was left of them on those three Red Elite's." the tall one replied.
Two small weapons, pistols, discharged four times each and eight Grunt's hit the floor, fluorescent blood oozing slowly from head wounds.
The last enemy figure in the room stood tall, cloaked in shadow, bathed in light. Wait...what wasn't right, the light was coming from the figure, reflecting gold and silver. The tall figure let out a roar of disgust and started to run towards the opposite end of the room.
"Switchblade, finish it, now." Said Outlaw, showing no fear at an enemy that could very quickly decimate a group of Marines on its own.
One shot rang out from a larger weapon, and the silver flicker died away "I'm empty" said the short figure holding a long barreled rifle "Use the rocket"
There was a flash of light, a smoke trail, and a small boom as a rocket launched. It struck it's target square in the chest, exploding on impact and vaporizing the target.
"Enemy forces eliminated." Said two disembodied voices that seemed to be coming from the soldiers, but from far away at the same time.
"Combat testing complete, end the drill." Said a voice through a speaker in the ceiling of the holo-training room.
The lights came back on, the Grunt's, Jackal's, and Elite's fizzled out of existence, and the door at the opposite end of the room opened, and an African-American man entered.
"That was incredible you two, three dozen Covenant hit the floor and you don't even get a scratch. Nice shooting in there Major Beckstead, I'd swear those bullets went through the same hole twice. As for you Major Zecks, nice use of um... overwhelming force." The Sarge said, speaking to them face to face for the first time nearly two weeks.
"Thank you, sir." They said in unison.
"Now its time to bring you up to date, I'll brief you in my office, follow me." The Sarge said, turning on his heel and walking out of the room.
The party of three walked down several corridors into a small room with a metal table and a chair cushioned only by a dirty uniform. The Sarge sat down in the chair and propped his feet on top of the table.
"Now, the engagement that Major Zecks damn near died in was a fairly heavy loss. Three marines got toasted, nothing compared to the seventy-eight, if you count those invisible Elite's, we wasted. But, they managed to kill a good deal of our techs and officers, especially those in our Control room. We did save the most important though, Communications Officer Menks." The Sarge lectured.
"All in all, sir, it sounds like a win." Said Switchblade.
"Yes, but they fried the communications console. We were going to call for a rescue once the radiation from the plasma weapons that glassed the planet faded, but we can't now. We're also getting tired of these weekly Covenant raids. Its time to attack the area of the base they're controlling. We're going to send in you two and the rest of the survivors, lead by Boomer." The Sarge said matter-of-factly.
"But..But, sir, with all do respect that's suicide. We estimate nearly two hundred Covenant remain in that area of the installation, they've got Shade's at every entrance, trip wire plasma grenades in the vents, and Hunter's around every corner." Outlaw said in a state of shock.
"That's why we're sending in you. You volunteered the moment you put on those suits. The only way we're getting off this rock is if we can get to the large dropship and its radio, in THEIR area of the base. Your both dismissed, go eat some breakfast, dinner, or lunch. I've been out of the sun so long I can't even remember." The Sarge replied.
"Sir, that would be lunch sir." Outlaw replied as he left the room.
The armored green figures walked into the Mess Hall, and the sounds of utensils falling onto tables and food trays dropping onto the floor accompanied them. They grabbed a tray, got some food, then sat down next to Boomer, whose eyes were as wide as his coffee cups.
The figures took off their helmets with a hiss as the pressure equalized, and two very friendly faces were behind them.
"You just can't talk in these things..." Switchblade grumbled, setting his helmet next to him on the floor.
"Uh...what the hell is going on. I haven't seen you in two weeks, then you scare me half to death by strolling in here wearing MJOLNIR power armor." Boomer said.
"It's a long story, one best told after we eat. This is the first normal food I've had in a while, a man just can't live on protein packets alone." Outlaw said, spooning chicken soup into his mouth.
So the Mess Hall returned somewhat to a state of normality, heads turned every now and then, who can blame them, it isn't every day you see a Spartan, even an unofficial one.
The rest of the day for our heroes was mainly spent telling the story of what had been happening to them over the last fourteen days and hearing the story of how everyone else had been holding up. There was also information exchanged on how repairs were going on the critical areas of the base, including the explosions, which had ripped through the armory.
Later that night yellow tinted shields sparked in the Mess Hall when Major Zecks saw the hole in the lid to his foot locker, then opened it up to see his personal explosives missing.
The next morning, plans were made and rifles checked for the attack. Jenkins had hacked into the covenant side of the base and determined that all of the automatic defense systems had gone untouched and inactive, and Boomer had passed out assault rifles to anyone strong enough to carry one. This was to be their final push, one last attack to get off a god forsaken rock.
"This is McBoomBoom group, calling Death Wish, come in Death Wish. Are you nearing the objective?" Boomer whispered into his headset, clutching an M90 Shotgun with a vice grip as he and a group of Marines walked in a crouch to a line of overturned crates, three Shade turrets visible in the hall beyond them.
"This is Death Wish, we read you McBoomBoom, we are three meters from objective, those turrets are about to go up in flames" Jenkins whispered from the vents, crawling slowly behind Switchblade and Outlaw.
A grate from the vent that ran over the hallway fell to the floor with a clang, a dent the shape of a fist in it, and the barrel of a rocket launcher poked through. The Special Ops unit at this entrance was launched into a state of confusion at the strange sound, the Elite's eyes scanning everywhere. One rocket fired, sailed to the ground and took out two of the turrets and their black-armored Grunt operators, then another took out the third turret and the Gray Elite standing nearby.
The two green armors dropped to the floor from above the ceiling and admired their handy work, followed by the skinny figure of Jenkins holding a laptop instead of a rifle.
"Ok Jenkins, work your magic, the wall port is right over their" said switchblade, pointing to a computer port on one of the walls.
He ran over, plugged in the computer, set it on a nearby section of broken wall, and started typing furiously, breaking through Covenant security like it wasn't there.
"Ok guys, every last autocannon is fully functional and I can activate them from right here. Whoever built this place hid them well enough that not even the Covenant haven't been able to find them. I've also got cameras in most of the rooms and halls between here and the shuttle bay, but they're broadcasting jamming signals from the shuttle bay itself like there's no tomorrow." Jenkins reported after just a minute of tapping away at the keys.
In the time it had taken him to go about his task, Boomer and the rest of the survivors had moved up and secured the area, not finding anymore enemies. The twins were standing guard over a room connected to this one, silent as usual. They never seemed to talk, except for the occasional grunt of pain if they took enemy fire.
"Alright, any details you can give us on what kind of resistance we can expect?" asked the Sarge through the radio. He was hanging back per usual, at the other end of the hall.
"I'm not getting much that we can't handle. Some Jackals beyond the door the Twins are watching, and in the room after that several Special Ops Elite's. The only problem I see is... oh my god." Jenkins cut off at the end.
"Spit it out boy, we haven't got all day" The Sarge ordered.
"I'm sending you guys the video footage I've got playing. You aren't going to believe this." Jenkins replied, looking like he had just seen a ghost.
The video popped up in the HUD's of Outlaw and Switchblade, and in the eye-pieces of the Sarge and Boomer. It showed the room behind that with the three Special Ops elites filled with fifteen hunters in black armor. Special Ops hunters, very rarely seen if ever, were the most ruthless fighters the humans had encountered. They could fire their Fuel Rod Cannons as fast as the M6D pistol, melting anything or anyone who got in the line of fire.
"Wait, it gets worse." Said Jenkins, clicking to go to a different camera.
The video footage changed and displayed a room that had no less than fifty Special Ops grunts, one Gold elite, and ten of the regular Blue Elite's.
"That's the last room before the shuttle bay, but I don't see how we can even reach it through fifteen Special Ops hunters." Jenkins said, his hope as crushed as a Jackal in a Hunters way.
"Well, I see three ways we can take them out. One, we use a LOT of C12. Two, we use our remaining rockets. Three, we turn on the autocannons in that room and see if they can do the trick." The Sarge said, giving them his ideas.
"Alright, I saw we go with the autocannons, how many are in that room?" Boomer asked.
"Uhh... there are ten in that room with five hundred rounds each, there are 2 on each wall, one in the middle of the floor, and the last one in the middle of the ceiling." Jenkins replied after several taps on his keyboard.
"Alright, time to kick some Covenant ass marines, lets move out!" The Sarge whooped, coming out of hiding at last and approaching Jenkins.
Next Outlaw Chapter 6, The Final Push and Impossible Odds
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