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Battle for Cobalt part 2
Posted By: James England<spartan253wolf@hotmail.com>
Date: 17 April 2005, 9:39 PM
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Matt moved his heavy boots across the cold metal of the Pelican and then felt them sink down as he stood on the sands of New Sahara. This vast desert covered a third of the planet, but they were on the fringes. They had landed only 40 kilometers from the hot zone in the mountains.
The area had been the sight of a battle only a few days ago. Its only strategic importance was that it was the closest area to the mountains with enough cover to hide some artillery emplacements in the desert. He raised his hand to cover his bare eyes and squinted past the elongated shadow of the drop ship. There was a twenty-meter ridge of sand and rock ahead, with the scars of battle making it look dead and gutted. The obvious corpses had long been dragged away and burned, but those buried by the sand blown in through hurricane force winds had marked the place with the stench of decaying flesh. The ground was disturbed from the usual wave formation, by the blackened craters filled with jagged shrapnel. The coagulated rainbow of blood had swirled together and streamed down the slope of the ridge.
The only beauty in the landing zone shocked the Gunnery Sergeant. The boiled ground from plasma hits had turned into shimmering glass that reflected the blazing sunlight. The divine effect created formed a morbid beauty out of the gruesome landscape.
Matt turned on heel and walked over to meet his tank brothers. "Where do we go from here?" he asked "Or are we staying in this frying pan?"
"No we head into the fire, there's the 22nd division form the Phoenix destroyer in the forests surrounding the mountains. They were last reported to be holding off the covenant trying to create a landing zone for some drop ships."
"And once more these mortals have found themselves in shit and require an explosive solution," Matt replied as a half smirk materialized on his face.
"Well Sarge the others are taking seven Scorpions to alleviate the pressure and clear a path through the trees for further support. We however..."
The Gunnery Sergeant turned around and saw a Pelican kick up a tornado of sand blinding him from its payload. A dampened thump echoed through the LZ.
"It's a ..." His tank brother Brent managed to whisper even though both him and Matt were quite detached from the reality around them.
Matt walked over to the experimental bigger brother of the Scorpion. The standard paint job was not deserved for the complete perfection underneath, he had always imagined it covered in gold and platinum. The tank was 36% larger in width and length and 20% taller in height. The armour was pure Titanium A, and three times as thick as the Scorpion. The turret was an unheard 120 mm and extremely high velocity. It featured two 10mm coaxial guns with armour piercing tracing rounds. But the real beauty was underneath the vast exterior, as most beauty is with weapons of unmitigated destruction. The engine was powerful enough to compensate for the added bulk, and its speed exceeded that of the Scorpion. The most impressive feature of this massive machine was the stolen Covenant technology originally used by humans for the Spartan II armour, the ability to create a barrier of energy around the chassis.
Matt ran his fingers over the raised writing on the right side and mouthed the letters quietly to himself, "O, L, M, P, I, A, N... it's completely," he turned to Brent whose open eyes met his, "pimped out".
They broke out into laughter and later turned to help load the ammunition. Matt caught three hours of restless sleep until he finally was able to step into the Olympian tank. "Fits like a glove," the Gunnery Sergeant remarked getting into the leather seats. Brent found his way into his seat for the turret controls.
Matt changed to the comm. and asked the other tanks to report, when all Scorpions were accounted for, he started his version of their briefing. "What fools these mortals be, dropping in from space and thinking that they'll survive without us? So we are going to save their asses by using our big tough tanks to blow the Covenant's ass through its nostrils... in other words we are going to make them less revolting to look at."
He put the throttle full and raced over the sand dunes, he chose not to activate the shields to conserve power. Matt was quite agitated since usually the logical part of his brain was quieter than this. His anger caused his hand to move over the coaxial gun controls and fire aimlessly at the sands, picturing himself running over screaming elites and cowering jackals while the sounds of their bones crunching under the treads was overpowered by the unmatched roaring of the titanic engine.
Battle for The Surge Mountains
Seth's body slid further down the mountain, gently, as the current of viscous, fluorescent fluid caressed his body. He saw his own eye reflected in the tinted helmet less than an inch above his face. His eye was a faint brown clouded by the forever-night sky of his helmet.
The flickering green menu streaked across the visor blocking the view of the entrance to his soul. The battle kept on replaying in his mind, nothing that could be comprehended, just a flash of fire, plasma, screaming faces and streaks as molten metal had passed by his skull. There were also flashes of smells, grotesque smells of searing flesh, boiling blood, and burning vegetation.
The incessant blinking of the menu interrupted his recent memories, Wilshire started to read the options thrust at him by his helmet's computer. He blinked through the options and began to feel his body coming to a rest in the valley below the mountains, into the pool of Grunt blood collecting at the bottom.
He closed his eyes again while staring at the "Playback" option in his helmet, and when they opened the visor filled with complete blue and began to play the battle.
A white arrow appeared in the top right and he saw his arms carefully select the right weapons for the wrong situation. Wilshire fell deeper into the coagulating lake and felt his body gently grow warmer.
He stepped into his entry vehicle and dropped into the atmosphere, that radio chatter was being drowned out by the raging fury of flip music. He looked out the window and saw streams of plasma rushing past the blurred sky. He also saw a fellow Helljumper in his falling coffin wavering through the wind. The delicate currents of air tossing the frail, dropping, metal vehicle in an uncontrollable spin...
The tinted visor darkened as his fellow ODST vaporized in an explosion of bright sky-blue flame. Seth turned back to his own HEV and cut the music as the 'chute opened. He checked his battle rifle and MD6 pistols. He made sure the rocket launcher was secure and accessible so he could go in and start blasting the sons-of-bitches into drizzling purple, blue, and orange rain.
The head mounted camera blinked in and out of static as the Human Entry Vehicle hit the sheer side of the mountain and slid down the rock face. He saw his hands flail around trying to flip switches and yelling at the vehicle in vile disgust. The front door ejected and the view of a peaceful, serene horizon appeared, filled mostly with mountains and cliffs that hid the ceaseless desert.
He took his available weapons but the rocket launcher had jammed awkwardly inside the HEV, with no time left he jumped out of the sinking ship. The next few seconds of images were frantic scraping at the 70ยก, sheer, cliff wall.
His neck snapped down when his outstretch, gloved hand stopped the fall by clinging into a crack in the slick, sedimentary rock. He head jerked around to look in all directions, only resting when the three hundred foot drop filled his view, the sudden, drop-off, cliff edge was 2 feet from his boots. Below was a forest of trees barely eight feet tall, but nearly a metre and a half in diameter.
He watched as the Titanium-A vehicle cratered into the ground. The fat trees were further disturbed from their endless slumber when the stowed rocket launcher detonated its ammunition.
He turned to look up and saw the disturbed marking where the HEV had first made contact, a good five hundred feet about him. The landing zone had been on the other side of this mountain, where a clearing had been designated as a good spot for future Pelicans to land. Wilshire assessed his situation and found no way for him to make it up and down the mountain in time to secure the area. He looked at his right wrist and pressed the button to activate his locating beacon located there on his ODST suit.
He also looked at the rock face a metre above him and three metres to the left. There was a small cave, made of a gouge three quarters of a metre into the mountainside. He found some footing and began slowly to make his way inside. The shadow hid his black form perfectly, and he waited for air support that he hoped and dreaded coming...
He fears were well found Seth thought as he fast forwarded past the ten minutes of cramped sitting that awaited him, he could still feel the warmth that the blue lake had possessed as he reached the bottom of the oceanic pool of blood. When the normal pace resumed the ear-splitting whine of the banshee anti-gravity boosters sliced through the air. The helmet view followed the banshee as it circled around determined to find the signal source. Seth made sure all guns and grenades were secure and moved his body form a sitting position to a crouch one.
The banshee made lazy slow circles downward and passed the hiding spot where Seth was watching. The banshee dropped a little below him and that was when Wilshire materialized from his cover. The shining sun blinded Wilshire as he dropped through the air. He focused on the purple aircraft and ignored the vast stretches of hardwood forests that stood beneath him.
The violet craft turned abruptly to the right when the force of the falling black-clad Helljumper focused on the short "wing" where he now hung helpless. But he wasn't really helpless. The real Wilshire saw his recorded head shake around while the banshee tried to rid itself of the stowaway. Seth clambered around the vehicle and managed to open the small craft and find the pilot surprised as it screamed its battle cry that sounded to the marines like "Wort Wort Wort".
The creature began to kick at Seth in order to make him plunge to the ground 100 metres below. He quickly grabbed hold of the collar of the alien's armour and pulled it towards him. The aircraft became unbalanced and turned the world around so the ground was above Seth. The Elite had no hold of the banshee and fell screeching to the forest. Wilshire still had a grip on the purple exterior and closed the craft when he found himself safely inside.
He checked around him and noticed no enemies or allies on his motion tracker. He found the lever for the boost feature and accelerated forward with the added energy from the weapons used to propel him.
The recording showed the fear that he remembered, the fear of the dull humming of the banshee, the fear that he didn't know where his enemies were, and the fear that he was flying into his own death. These fears that he had always felt in battle, and caused the recording to frantically look between the banshee's radar and his own motion tracker.
The banshee reached the peak of the mountain, and he dropped the nose of the miniature aircraft. The Surge Mountains were burning. The once towering peaks that separated the vast ocean from the unforgiving desert had been marred by the invading forces. The rock faces struck by high ordnance had crumbled and spilled rubble into the surrounding valleys of thick, flaming forests. The River of Cole had been misshapen by the newly cratered ground, and was tainted by the blood of those fighting for control. He gauged the success of the forces by following the rainbow of the river. He followed the river north with his eyes, blue turned to violet, which turned to green. He pulled out his MD6 and looked through the scope of the pistol. The actual Wilshire closed his eyes to hide himself from the horrors that he remembered. The river flowed towards Cole City, but where the hydroelectric dam was located, the first sign of the city, he could make out a graveyard. Even eighty kilometers away the crimson river could not hide the defeat there.
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