July 15, 2534 (UNSC Calendar)/
Jotunheim Correctional Facility, Jotunheim, Eden, Neutron Secunda
The first shot of that battle was, unsurprisingly, a wraith mortar explosion, followed by a couple of beam rifles firing on the marines manning the AA guns. Then came the Grunts. It seemed like they were thousands of them, a lone jackal here and there, but it was mostly Grunts.
I knew that Grunts were used as cannon fodder and as a way to probe and poke us into revealing our firepower. I never imagined that over five hundred enemy soldiers would be sent straight at us.
Those first hours of battle were a massacre. Grunts fell to the floor, the rocks and debris behind them were now dyed in bluish blood. The LAAV's were making quick work of the unshielded grunts. The jackals were being taken out with grenades or acurate battle rifle shots. I contributed with a couple of jackal kills, but mostly I dedicated myself to shooting any heavily-armed grunts I could make out in the rear of their advance. I probably bagged around fifty kills in an hour alone. This was like a shooting gallery.
The only bad part of this (aside from being in a war) was that I knew, in the back of my head, that as soon as the grunts either fell back or were wiped out, the real assault force would come at ue. We would be exahusted, low on ammo, and probably a little bit sleepy was well.
I hit a grunt in the head. The grenade it had primed fell to the floor and the three grunts next to it were engulfed by the blast. I could make out their melted skin and armor through my scope.
"Ugh," I said.
About two hours after the first wraith had fired on us, the remaining dozen grunts fell back behind the buildings, we had suffered no kills, but eight men had gotten some pretty nasty plasma burns.
We waited for the onslaught, the rain hitting our helmets. I wasn't feeling very well at the moment. My friends were dead, and I was, for all intents and purposes, alone at the moment. Don't get me wrong, I loved having a small army backing me up, but I was being generally ignored by everyone, so it wasn't like I was having a jolly good time with the jarheads here.
"What was that?" someone asked.
Two seconds later, there was already a flare up in the sky. People were peeking through their covers to look for the enemy. I saw something shimmering about twenty yards from my position. I raised my rifle and fired a single shot. To my surprise, my suspicions were right and there was actually a shielded elite there. It was promptly taken down by a sniper round through the skull.
"Nice eyes buddy," someone bahind me said.
"I aim to please," I said to the marine. The HUD on my helmet wasn't working, so his name didn't come up. He wasn't wearing his helmet, so even if my HUD was working, it wouldn't have identified him.
Then the night lit up like the Fourth of July. I stood in awe, watching the wall of plasma and needle rounds coming at us.
I dropped to the floor, behind a relatively sturdy piece of debris. This section of the wall was the only one that had a hole in it, so the Covenant were doing their best to come through here, that didn't mean we could ignore the walls on the other side though. Those guys could be sneaky bastards.
I looked up and saw a couple of strafing banshees being peppered by small-arms fire. One blew up from the concentration of lead hitting it, the other was knocked down by a rocket, from what direction, I do not know.
I fired blindly before looking at the ground in front of me. There were a dozen ghosts escorting three revenants. The revenants fired onto the ground in front of me. I could feel my rocky cover heating up.
Laying there, with heated plasma streaking through the air around me, I did the best I could to take out the drivers of the revenants. The ghosts were being worked on by a couple of LAAV gunners and some SPANKr weilding marines. I concentrated my fire on one of the drivers. It was an elite, so I had to fire bursts at it quickly to avoid his shields from recharging. It is a lot harder than it sounds, especially when said elite is weaving around like a drunk driver after Saint Patty's day. After a long minute, he hit the floor.
"Yeah motherfu…" my celebration was interrupted by a ghost flying upwards right above me. I could actually feel its anti-grav generators push me slightly against the floor. I was lucky it was airborne, or else I would've been squashed.
I flipped onto my back as I switched to full auto. I hit the ghost with all I had. Luckily, so did five other marines. A round eventually hit its gas tank, or energy tank. It blew up at least five meters into the air in a beautiful blue explosion. I didn't have time to watch though, as a wraith being escorted by no less than five elites was slowly making its way towards here. I peeked over my bunch of rocks to take a look. I was forced back down by plasma from its turret. The guy next to me had his face melted into his cranium by the same gunner an instant later.
"Shit!" I cursed. There wasn't really anything else I could say.
I heard the loud noise of an SRS. I peeked against my better judgement and saw the elite gunner's limp body hanging over the gunner's position. My joy didn't last for long, as the wraith, ever so slowly, turned to face one of the towers. I watched, not being able to do anything, as the same marine sniper that had saved me before threw his weapon to the men below, he tossed a bandolier and a grenade belt as well. An instant later he was disintegrated under a flash of blue and white.
"Fucking hero," muttered the sergeant next to me. He was right in being impressed.
I simply nodded, the wraith was now only half a football field away. I turned around just in time to catch a grenade launcher someone had tossed at me. I never was really good with them, but I could handle it better than most untrained soldiers.
"Cover me!" I requested.
As I popped up from cover, bullets streaked at the enemy, most missed, a few hit home, but they made the enemy elites dive for cover.
I took careful aim and fired a shot. It hit the wraith head on, but it simply bounced of the tough armor. Luckily, it exploded in midair. Taking out an elite escorting the tank. A major by the looks of him.
I popped back down, I had no spare ammo for the launcher, and the marine that had tossed it to me was nowhere to be seen. I simply put it aside and resumed firing desperately onto the oncoming elites and grunts. The wraith was not something I could handle, and it wasn't firing at our position, so I was good for now.
Just when our small group holding the collapsed wall was about to fall back, I saw an orange flash in the corner of my eye. I turned out to see a rocket hitting the ground underneath the wraith, making it tilt about forty-five degrees upwards. Before it had even landed back down, another rocket hit it square in the cockpit hatch. It went up in flames, useful only for cover from now on.
After what seemed like years I could make out the covvies retreating. They were certainly not feeling well of having to walk over the dead bodies of their peers. There was a carpet of bodies lining the floor around the walls, here and there they made little mounds.
Before long, a messenger arrived.
"We will be falling back as soon as possible, the UNSC Marilyn is sending seven pelicans to pick us up, they will be here in an hour. Hold the line for as long as possible, you'll be the last to fall back."
As soon as he said that, he ran to another position.
Me and my new friends simply stayed there, guns always aiming at the no-man's-land in front of us. There was nothing to report. In twenty minutes we would be falling back in an organized circle into the pelicans from the cruiser orbiting above us. Seven pelicans, only seven. Pelicans could carry fifteen people under normal circumstances. Fifteen times seven was one-oh-five. Only a hundred men were left here, give or take a few. There weren't really all that many in here to start with, but over half the numbers we had sported five hours ago were gone.
"Oh shit," I heard the sergeant say.
"What?" I asked him, slightly nervous.
He simply passed me a pair of binoculars. I looked through them. I could see a lot of collapsed buildings, a lot of grunt bodies, and the ocasional jackal skittering to a sniping position.
"Dead ahead, in between the first standing buildigs you'll see," he helped out.
I shifted my field of view and zoomed in to the place the sergeant had signaled.
"I don't see…"
"Just wait," he interrupted.
I waited, and sure enough, about half a minute later, there was some movement. By some movement I mean an AA wraith.
"Oh shit," I said.
"Those things need to be taken out if we are to leave this place."
I nodded. The sergeant notified a lieutenant, who in turn notified the captain, who ordered a raiding party to blow them up sky high as soon as possible. Before long, there were six marines that had volunteered for the job, me and the seregeant were included in that small group.
"Pop smokes," someone ordered.
The police riot vehicle, useless until now launched ten smoke grenades in quick succesion into enemy-held land. It then launched a different set of grenades. Regular ones. I don't know how they managed to get the grenades to fit in the tube, but I am grateful they did.
"Ok, listen up marines," spoke the captain, now in battle gear and next to us, "you will reach those wraiths, and neutralize them in less than five minutes. Then you will fall back into this point," he signaled into his map and then pointed at a semi-collapsed building.
"There, you will be picked up by a pelican and you'll go home."
We nodded, we knew our odds were not high, and I suspected that he was lying about that pelican, but this was something that needed to be done.
"Go," whispered the sergeant, and with that we crept into the smoke.
Our six –man group was made up of three riflemen, me, the sergeant, and another marine, and three marines weilding SPANKrs, with the last of our ammo. We walked silently, each rifleman partnered with a rocket-weilding marine. I got a skinny looking guy that couldn't have been over five four. I was wondering how he could carry all that rocket ammo without even looking tired or struggling.
"Shhh," he whispered.
I wasn't talking, but I wasn't about to call him out on that right now. I dropped to the floor as a covvie patrol walked by. It was mostly grunts, they were led by one lone elite. At that moment, more smoke grenades were deployed. Good timing as well, we were just starting to be able to see more than a meter in front of us. This smoke grenades had my props, they produced some very nice dense smoke that somehow managed to keep itself together for longer than it seemed to be physically possible.
The lead marine motioned for us to go ahead. We must've looked like idiots, running on our tipotes like that, but better to look like an idiot because you're running like one, than look like one because your face is melted.
Terrible comparison, I know, but give me a break here.
Anyways, running like idiots before we finally stopped at a trench. There were some dead marines there, so it must've been our frontline at one point. It was covered in front by a pile of debris, and it couldn't have been more perfect for our objective.
It was semi-circular, and right now it surrounded the four enemy wraiths. They were on the ground, no one was manning them right now, but their drivers were sitting on top of them, chatting in elite language, they could've been human in that aspect. They were taking a break from their job, they were joking around, there was even one that looked like it was laughing. Well, that or it was choking on something.
Four wraiths, three rocket launchers. We could take out three of them in two seconds, but the other one would be just lying there, and with the elites firing on our asses it would be very hard to reload and aim before someone got in the drivers cabin.
No one to blame for bad intel here but us.
"Shut up," muttered the sergeant. He was the one that spotted the tanks, and I hadn't checked my mouth again.
"Ok, now what?" the skinny marine asked.
"We need to booby trap that last wraith," I said. They all nodded. It wasn't like there was any other option. "Ok, do you have grenades, or C12 packs?" I asked.
A marine laughed quietly.
"Us regulars don't get C12 issued," he whispered, "however, we get to use the C10. Not as powerful, but it'll do the job."
I nodded at him as I took the plastiline he was putting out. I placed all of our grenades through some metal rod we had found and secured them with wires. Now, we just had to wait for a distraction. I wasn't about to sprint into a Covenant artillery site with only five men covering me.
I sat in there, ready to jump out any moment. We were waiting for an explosion to draw the elite's prying eyes away from us. We waited for scarcely five seconds before another barrage of grenades hit the covvie positions.
I was too busy running towards the closest wraith to think about the reason why our own army would shell an area that we could still be in.
Why the hell are they still bombing them? I thought as I ran, my body as low as possible.
Now that I think back to it, I did curse our captain for that at the time, but I can't really complain, since we got exactly what we asked for and no one got hurt.
I was now behind the wraith. There was only five meters of alien metal between me and two elites. Normally, that would've been great, but not so much when they could simply walk to the side and blast me with their plasma rifles. They could jump over as well, those legs were quite strong.
I took a deep breath as I placed the rod with grenades into a wedge in the back armor of the wraith, we had been taught that it was the weakest part of the alien tanks, and that a grenade could be thrown through the rear plates and into the reactor if you were close enough. It was completely true.
Next, I pushed the C10 plastic explosive into the hole between that rear plate and the rest of the tank, covering it up. I inserted a detonator into the soft material and ran for my life. This time, I ran the thirty meters to safety with plasma fire hitting every possible square inch in a one meter radius. Me being in its center, coincidentally, I was the only thing that wasn't hit. I thanked God, Allah, Budah, Brahma, and any other god I had ever heard of in those five seconds.
I made a point to run into a different place from where my little squad was hiding, to draw fire away from them. I jumped into the trench, practically slamming myself into the ground to reduce my air time.
"Woooooooo!" I yelled in triumph. My yell was quelled by the sound of six explosions. I stood up and sprinted through the trench and towards my friends. Just when I reached them I was dismayed to see a body slam down right in front of me. It was the short marine.
I grabbed his rifle and fired over the pile of debris covering the trench.
"Fall back!" called out the sergeant.
Well said, sir.
By the time my mind had finished that sentence, I was sprinting as fast as I could towards our extraction point and so was everyobody else.
We didn't even bother with running from cover to cover, the lingering smoke would do the trick for now. The rocket marines even dropped their large weapons to the floor as they sprinted right behind me. We even passed a startled patrol on our way to the extraction point. They were too surprised to even shoot at us. That made it all much easier for the guys behind me to spray them with assault rifles.
After a minute of frantic running, we made it into the building designated as our evac point.
I turned around and realized that it couldn't have been that easy. There was only one other marine with me. It was the other rifleman.
"Oh fu…" once more I was interrupted by an explosion, this time it was a plasma grenade slamming into the house.
"Upstairs, upstairs!" I yelled to the marine. On the second floor there was a collapsed ODST pod, I didn't even stop to check it, I just silently prayed for whatever friend was lying in that grave.
"Watch the stairs!" said the other marine.
I nodded and dropped to the floor, battle rifle and assault rifle both aimed into the stairs, one on each shoulder. The other marine did the same with his MA5, kneeling right beside me.
An elite's head popped up. It was promptly reduced to pulp as three weapons fired in full-auto at the small target.
"What's the time?" I asked as a grunt toppled over, dead.
"One more minute!" returned the marine, this time he killed a jackal as I reloaded my BR55, the assault rifle was now down to twelve rounds, and I had no spare ammo for that one.
"Pop the smoke!" I told him.
The marine complied, tossing a grenade that blew out bright green smoke onto the lone remaining corner of the roof on top of us.
I emptied the rest of my clip on an elite, I hit it a couple of times before it hid back.
"Sneaky bastard!" I called out to it.
An instant later a grenade was tossed from behind the corner.
"A la verga!" I yelled, returning to my native language, it wasn't very often that I did that.
Luckily for us, the grenade was tossed with more strength than necessary and flew over the collapsed walls and into the street below. I could hear a grunt's methane tank blowing up as well. I smiled when I realized what that meant.
"Aaaaargh!" yelled the marine as he charged towards the stairs. That's right, he actually charged down the stairs.
He aimed his rifle around the corner without looking and fired all sixty rounds in his magazine before returning, unharmed.
"What the hell man?" I snapped. He simply dropped his rifle and pulled out his pistol.
All of a sudden the wall on top of us was sprayed with plasma and needlers.
"Watch the door!" I ordered as I crawled towards the improvised balcony that this third floor now was. I looked over to see a couple dozen enemy soldiers, mostly elites this time. I fired and killed the closest one before the rest fired upon me.
I was on my back, looking at the night sky, rain falling on my face, thinking that my military career was going to be over in a couple of minutes when I heard something. It was the most beautiful noise that I had ever heard. It was like someone knocking a door or wooden table repeatedly. Only that it was a hundred times too loud.
I heard the wind go 'whoosh' behind me and flipped over to see the covenant soldiers on the ground, dead or dying.
A pelican hovered triumphantly over the dead bodies. As it turned one-eighty degrees its rear gunner opened fire on the dead bodies, dark purple blood flying everywhere.
The trigger-happy man ceased fire as soon as the rear hatch was facing us. The other marine jumped into the cargo bay and I did the same as the pelican flew away. I sat down when I noticed we weren't going any higher.
Before I could even ask what was going on, our vehicle had landed again, inside the jail. I stood up to see what was going on only to see two pilots and three marines sprinting as fast as they could from another pelican. A marine was cut down and one of the pilots was hit, but made it into the deck before collapsing. I was firing my rifle at the enemy elites, jackals, and grunts on the ground, I took out a few grunts before I fell a sharp pain in my left leg.
"Ouch!" I said, it was more of a complaint than a scream of pain.
I fell backwards and the door gunner jumped at me less than a second after I had been hit. I glanced down to my leg and saw a long pink crystal protruding from my leg. I stared in horror as it glowed brighter and brighter. The door gunner grabbed it with both hands and pulled it out. He tossed it aside as quickly as posible. It exploded mid-air, a couple of small shards embedding themselves in my armor and the gunner's.
There were probably countless microscopic shards in my skin right now as well, but those would be dealt with later.
I started feeling cold all of a sudden. I glanced back down at my leg as blood actually bubbled out. There was already a pool of red liquid forming around my body. My eyelids flutters as the rear hatch sealed. I felt a stinging pain in my leg. It felt like someone was jabbing a million needles in there. I relaxed, as I knew that someone had used a can of biofoam on my leg.
All of a sudden I was floating.