A/N: I didn't mean for this chapter to take so long, but one part of it gave me fits, and I managed to lose track of time. I apologize. I have also had to... fudge the timeline a bit. I think the narrative flows a bit better that way, but if you should experience any temporal dissonance while reading, that's why.
I also did not intend for it to be this long, but I had much to do in this section, and it grew a bit more than I had anticiapted. I beg your indulgence in this, dear reader, and I hope that you will still enjoy this new installment.
As usual, Halo belongs to Bungie and Microsoft, Kim Possible belongs to Disney. The book Hell's Faire, mentioned in this chapter, is copyright John Ringo and Baen Books. The song March of Cambreadth, quoted in this chapter, is copyright Heather Alexander.
Enjoy.
Chapter 5 – Molon Labe
2525
You are Kim-487.
That was the refrain that had dogged her every step for the last seven standard years. It followed her like the droning of the bagpipes; it guided her like the metronomic tapping of the drums. Every PT session, every tactical exercise, every encounter with CPO Mendez, every conversation with the other SPARTAN-IIs was build upon the bedrock assumption that Kim Possible was gone, and Kim-487, SPARTAN-487, was all that remained.
In her bearing, every part the ideal soldier, it was true.
In her eyes, bright and wary and always on guard, it was true.
In her face, that showed no fear as they strapped her fourteen year old body to table, to subject her to the knife, it was true.
In her heart, Kim Possible called out for her Daddy. She called out for her Mommy. And she called out for her best friend, Ron Stoppable.
She was afraid, but she'd learned to hide her fear. She wanted to cry, but she'd learned to hide her tears. She wanted her Daddy and her Momma to show up and tell her, "Don't worry, Kimmie-cub. It'll be okay.", but she'd learned to find reassurance in herself, and in the presence of the SPARTANS beside her. She wanted to play in the creek behind her house, or just listen to Ron laugh and enthuse about something completely ridiculous and off-the-wall to everybody except him, but she'd learned to put away childish ways for the way of the warrior.
She wanted his laugh, his bright brown eyes that showed that he thought she was just the coolest girl ever, and she wished, as the anesthetic kicked in and the procedures began, that she would get to see Ron Stoppable and her family just one more time...
2552
The world known as Thebes, named such for reasons inscrutable to all but the cartographers, was a world of only moderate (in terms of frequency; on the rare occasions that the plates did something, that something was quite noticeable) tectonic activity. However, there were a lot of individual plates, whose relatively infrequent motions had driven them together into three primary continents, each of which were crisscrossed with mountain ranges. Most of those ranges were worn down by time and weather, reduced to gently rolling and tree covered mounds. Yet a not insignificant minority were far more recent formations, as such things are measured, and towered high above the surrounding land with great spires of solid rock.
And in a .88g gravity well, those spires could reach some pretty impressive heights indeed.
It had also, as Colonel Steven Barkin (CO, 24th MIR, the Mad Dogs, UNSC Marines, "Who's the big dog now? Woof-woof-bark!") discovered on his way down from orbit, given birth to sentient life. The look-down-radar in his command Pelican had spotted ancient ruins atop one of the mountains. It wasn't so high that the air would be too thin to breath; it was fairly level, if terraced; and there looked to be only one way up to it, a single zig-zagging road, just barely wide enough for a Covenant tank. There was the possibility of air attack, yes, but that would be a factor anywhere on the planet, and he had the resources on hand to fortify against a Banshee raid.
All in all it looked like a good place to set the regiment down, reorganize after the losses taken on Moonlit Lotus, send out scouting parties to identify and case the target... then saddle up and show the Covenant why "hoo-rah!" is and will be unto the heat death of the universe a cry to be feared.
A good plan, or at least the nucleus of a good plan, and it all came unraveled in the six point seven-two-nine seconds between the order to land-and-gather and when the squadron-strength flight of Covenant Banshees came screaming out of the sun.
He'd lost three Pelicans, and all the men on them; twelve others, including the one with Lieutenant del Cielo and the Specials Platoon, were forced to break formation and had gotten lost in the ensuing furball, though one of those had quickly found its way back to formation; and five others were damaged, including the one containing Captain Pellman, a support platoon, and the Captain's command Scorpion tank and crew.
The tank, flight crew, and support platoon had survived; Captain Pellman and his gunner had not.
Thank God, though, that his three Assault/Escort Pelicans (the other ten were lost with Moonlit Lotus) had managed to down the Banshees without any losses of their own. Configured not for troop transport but as gunships, and ready for limited CAP and extended CAS operations, they were each pearls beyond price.
Thank God, also, that the remnants of his tank company (ten tracks, not counting the command track) had survived; Captain Pellman's XO, a young first lieutenant whose name Barkin hadn't quite figured out yet, was showing good hustle in getting the tanks organized, and none of the regular tanks had lost a single crew member.
Still, an inauspicious start, all things considered, and in a way, it only got worse when they actually landed.
Barkin was not a superstitious person. He had little to no use for ghosts and goblins, and kept only to some of the more arcane traditions of Corps because a great many of his junior officers and senior NCOs (including the Sergeant Major, an honest-to-God Ghurka) swore by them. He did make it to chapel on time each Sunday, but he was not one of those who equated religion with superstition. But there was something about those ruins...
They looked too familiar for one thing, like something – he hesitated to even think it – out of the ancient history of Old Earth itself. There was also a sense of wrongness about the ruins. Not that they didn't belong where they were found, unsettling familiarity or not, for each block of stone, cut to where they fit together without mortar, had clearly been carved from rock of that very mountain, but that something wrong had happened there. Something fundamentally unholy, for that was the only word that could describe the feeling.
Then one of the troopers uncovered some wall paintings, and carvings, in one of the buildings.
Images that depicted what was likely a native Theban (bipedal, vaguely humanoid, and tall and spindly as befitted its low-gravity origin) being attacked and... changed... by something that the discoverer christened a "giant yellow eggplant death-crab". Other images followed, depictions of a war against the crabs and changed Thebans, a war fought with stone knives, spears, and something that looked suspiciously like an atl-atl. They were accompanied by indecipherable writing (Barkin's men were Marines, no xenoarchaeologists), which despite its unreadability gave off a definite air, in the changes of slant and thickness of mark, changes unrelated to the equally obvious changing of hands, of slowly mounting terror and desperation. The last drawing was a depiction of the ruins as they must have been in their prime, with the stone-age Thebans mounting a defense against a great force of the strange crabs and the changed.
There were no further images.
Upon seeing those drawings, somehow preserved despited the ravages of time, Steve Barkin found that he might just be able to believe in ghosts after all.
But he hadn't reached the rank of Colonel by giving in to atavistic terror, so he stamped down firmly on his mounting disquiet and set about arranging for the defense.
Now, Steve Barkin nodded grimly as he surveyed the battlements. Whack drawings aside, he had chosen his ground well. The ruins made for positively lovely fields of fire and – theoretically – hard cover against Covenant plasma weapons. Each building now hosted a single squad or more, with the rest the Marines still spreading out, while most of the larger buildings also bore a single anti-air team on the roof.
He would emplace two platoons, along with his own headquarters platoon, at the end of the road just behind some earthworks which his engineers were in the process of erecting. Those three platoons were little more than bait; they would engage whatever Covenant infantry made it up the road, then fall back into the ruins and draw the enemy in along with them. At which point the rest of the Marines would make bloody use those lovely fields of fire.
But he didn't expect it to come that. In fact, he didn't expect any of the enemy to make it up that road.
Two sets of terraces flanked the city; one going downhill, the other going uphill. He'd corralled the Pelicans on the uphill terraces, and set a small guard there of his regular sharpshooters. The command tank, by and by, he placed at the top of the uphill terraces, the highest point which could be seen from all areas of the ruins. It did not sit in defilade, but rather fully atop the ground, turret angled as high as it would go. The tank served as their battle standard, for upon the gun was chained a skeletonized Elite, bones held together by the remains of its armor and careful preservation on part of Captain Pellman and his crew.
The downhill terraces, now, those were the interesting ones. They were of higher average elevation than the zig-zag road, and ran parallel to the roads "best fit" line. He didn't know what those terraces had once been used for, whether for crops or for play, but now the downhill ones crawled with engineers.
Great clouds of dust and dirt filled the air as they used digging charges to carve out a series of ditches on those terraces, readying them to nestle in defilade all ten surviving tanks (save the command track) and most of the Warthogs (all five of the M12A1 rocket variants and sixteen of the thirty-two standard M12s). Each pair of tanks, with a M12A1 in support, would target a single kink in the road. The M12s would hold the ground between the tanks, darting in and out of trenches as needed for support. Just for the hell of it, he placed a pair of fire teams, each with two M19 "Spanker" rocket launchers and support, along with the tanks and 'hogs.
Give how it was a perfect position for enfilading fire, one might as well be thorough.
'I can see why you chose to stand here,' he thought in salute to those long-dead Theban warriors. 'This is good ground, and if only you'd had the advantage of a couple thousand years worth of weapons development... anyway, if it comes down to it, I hope you don't mind if I show you how it's done.'
Somehow, Steve Barkin who didn't believe in ghost got the distinct impression that whatever ghosts resided at these ruins wouldn't mind such a demonstration at all, and he grinned savagely at the thought.
Time for some recon.
"Guns, load up a recon drone," Captain Director ordered.
The same geological peculiarities that gave Steve Barkin his rally point had also created the box canyon which nestled the wrecked Heart of Sword. The only way in, save by air, was a narrow pass between two rather large hunks of rock. Which meant that the narrow pass was the only way in, as Lieutenant DeLong had repeatedly demonstrated his ability to swat from the sky anything the Covenant tried to send.
Which, along with the Banshee kills from the earlier engagement, included a pair of Spirit transports that had tried to airmobile something into the canyon. They... hadn't gotten far, and Covenant forces hadn't tried that again for the past twenty minutes. Which was so far beyond normal Covenant behavior (somehow, an enemy that lacked genocidal fervor just didn't seem right) that it was cause for worry.
The Sword's sensors could barely see through the pass, just enough to show a teeming mass of Covenant emanations, but not enough to give any specifics.
"Loading," Lieutenant DeLong announced, and Betty tried not to smile at the not-too-well concealed note of worry in his voice. She knew she was in bad shape, seeing as how it was getting a bit hard just to stand up, and Bonny certainly didn't look thrilled that her captain was up and moving on the bridge.
But they all knew that she could not, would not, be anywhere else.
"Drone loaded," he continued in that same even tone. "Straight up?"
"Read my mind, Guns," Betty confirmed with a genuine smile which, for a moment, hid the all-too-obvious pain in her face. "Launch drone."
"Launching," he said, then pressed the firing stud. A second later, "Drone launched."
The drone streaked out from the Heart of Sword at level flight for a good twenty meters, then it pitched up and roared into the sky, bringing everything beyond the mountain walls of the box canyon into view.
The recon drone was little more than an Archer missile with the warhead removed and a miniaturized sensor suite and transmitter put in place. A Halcyon-class cruiser like the Heart of Sword would only carry three or four of the drones, as they were of limited utility in a ship-to-ship engagement, given how if one was close enough to the enemy not to experience light-speed time lag, one was close enough that a drone wasn't needed in the first place. They were still carried because on the few occasions that they did come in handy, the recon drones tended to haul one's butt out of the fire quite effectively.
In this case the drone didn't so much haul them out of the fire as it gave them a pretty good few of what the fire looked like, as it showed them the extent of the oncoming hoard of Covenant infantry and armor: ranks upon ranks of Grunts and Jackals, let by their Elite captains and supported by Hunters, Ghosts, the remnants of a flight of Banshees, and at least two Wraiths. Enough to fill the box canyon twice over, and the Sword's weapons would only depress so far. At that point-
Betty Director took one look at the sensor readings and felt a bleak tide of despair wash over her, submerging her resolve. Her crew had worked wonders, and worked them still, but it wasn't enough. The would engage as best they could, hand-to-hand if necessary, but it would not be enough.
None of it would be enough. The Covent would come, her crew would kill many of them, maybe most of them, but there were too many, and all they'd have to do would be get in flush with the hull and cut into the engine room, and then-
Then Middleton, and Lowerton, and Upperton, all over again, except she'd be here for it. Unlike then she'd get to watch and feel it as her world and family burned away.
She took a look around the bridge, as if for the last time, not letting the fear show in her eyes. There was Doctor Rockwaller, bandaging up one the crewmen and getting ready to head back to sickbay, while trying very hard not to hover over her wounded Captain. There at the tac console was Lieutenant DeLong, looking a bit pale and worried, but otherwise calmly readying the missile pods and guns for a decidedly unorthodox ground engagement. Her helmsman, Ensign Eric Corwin, and one of the enlisted navigators, having nothing else better to do, had somehow managed to scrounge up a SRS99C rifle, plenty of ammo, and a spotter's scope, and were setting up shop at the forward viewport.
Several monitored showed reports from the remaining crew and Marines, as they brought weapons to the landing bays, the airlocks, the empty escape pod tubes, anywhere that had an opening, and made ready to fight.
They hadn't given up.
So how could she?
Betty clamped a stranglehold upon the encroaching despair and held it there until all it stopped squirming and clawing at her resolve. Then she flung that lifeless fear into some dark, sealed off corner of her mind and turned the rest of her self back towards keeping her crew alive. Gone was the fear, the desire to just curl up in a corner and wait for the inevitable.
She didn't believe in the inevitable.
Returned now was Captain Betty Director, Commanding Officer Heart of Sword, UNSC Navy, Master and Commander after God alone, the woman who had tracked down every last survivor of the Tri-Colony System in the Service dragged them up by their bootstraps and and kicked them in the ass and got them to live when so many survivors of other dead colonies had burned themselves up with directionless hate or killed themselves out of despair. The woman who gave them back their pride, and their passion, and helped them to turn their hate into focused and purposeful vengeance for their dead homes.
Kill her worlds, would they? Not so long as one person from those planets lived.
Kill her crew, and her ship, would they? Not before she and her men exacted from them a fearsome price. For to reach her ship they'd have to fill the box canyon; and to fill the box canyon they'd have to come through that pass; and the pass between those mountains was a choke point and a killing field Leonidas would have envied.
The pass. Between the mountains. They'd have to come between the mountains.
Between. The. Mountains.
It came to her, then. A long shot, but still a chance to not only hurt the enemy but to kill them and keep her own crew alive in the bargain.
Call it a crazy-ass idea. Betty certainly did.
So crazy, that it just might work.
"Guns," she said almost conversationally, "you remember those books you keep leaving the Officer's Mess?"
"Skipper?" he asked in abject confusion. Carlos was well-known amongst the crew as a fan of late-twentieth-early-twenty-first century military science fiction, possessing a library that started with the (still) famous and venerable Starship Troopers and carried on from there. He was also the sort that tried to get other people to read the books he liked (it made conversation easier), and had taken to leaving copies of some of said books in and around the Officer's Mess. Quite a few the crew, including Captain Director, had found that they'd a bit of taste for that sort of story.
But what-all that had to do with the current situation, she could tell he had no idea.
Betty gestured at the view of the mountains, and the pass.
"Hell's Faire, Guns," she said, naming the title of one of the books.
"Hell's- oh. The SheVa at Green's Gap?"
"I was thinking more along the lines of Windy Gap Hill, but that'll work too," she said with a grin. "How soon can you set it up for me?"
"Twenty minutes to set up, assuming you want to hit both mountains, sir," he answered, and she nodded. "We'll have to dial down the warheads, but the charge itself is doable. As for penetration..." He shrugged. "It should work. But Skipper-"
"Lieutenant DeLong," she announced formally, "on my authority, you are authorized 'weapons free' for use of nuclear weapons against enemy ground targets."
"Holy crap," the lieutenant whispered, and added a "sir" almost as an afterthought. A nuclear strike by a ship wasn't exactly unheard of, but then again, those were usually conducted with the ship in orbit. And even then, usually not when an enemy unit was in such close contact with friendlies. Unless, of course, the friendly unit was about to overrun anyway and made a "six of one, half a dozen of the other" sort of call.
Firing nuclear-tipped missiles into a pair of mountains so as to induce a rock slide that would both seal the gap and bury the enemy was so far beyond standard operating procedure it just wasn't funny.
Aside from a brief encounter with something that looked almost, but not entirely unlike four-foot long june bug, there wasn't much hilarity on the march to the Pelican.
Kim did in fact take point. Ron and Yori followed just behind her. Yori's platoon sergeant took the six o'clock, with the rest of the platoon strung out between them in a somewhat flattened V, with the Navy crewmen somewhat nestled within the V. They were spread out, with at least two-and-a-half meters between each man (more, with the Marines), but still managed to cover ground relatively quickly, granting that it was unfamiliar forest.
Even so it was slow, silent going, that march from the Ninja Monkeys' engagement point back to their fallen transport. Which gave Ron just a bit too much time to think.
He'd said, once, to Colonel Barkin, that he didn't really care what the UNSC had done to create the SPARTANS; they killed Covenant, and that was good enough for him.
'Only it isn't any more. Because now I know what they did, and I'm suddenly finding that I care about it a lot more than I thought I would. But- for crying out loud, we were six. Six! We only knew each other for two years, and I ought to just barely remember her, and-
'And each day of those two years was a full as a year with anyone else. We just... clicked... back then, and only Monique's even come close since. All of that ended- why? We didn't know about the Covenant back then. All we had were the secessionist movements... was that why they took her?
'To keep the UNSC in power? Yeah, it would've been bad if the UNSC had fallen, 'cause the only thing nastier than this war would have been a galactic-wide civil war, but still... dammit, was it worth putting the Drs. P., all of us, through watching her-'
His thoughts cut off when Kim stopped moving and raised her hand for halt, then lowered it for a down and freeze. Just before he dropped Ron looked through the trees and could just barely seen the nose of a nearby Pelican, and what looked like-
Yep. That was an Elite, patrolling.
Kim knelt there and watched for a moment, her head cocked to right like she was listening to something. Then she made the hand signal for 'Elite', another for 'eight', and then made the sign for a circular patrol.
Ron saw Yori, who had moved somewhat ahead of him, turn towards her platoon, point out four snipers, and then made a gesture towards the Pelican, one that Ron didn't recognize. The four, along with their spotters, dropped out of formation and crawled into the forest. A minute passed. Then ten. Then twenty.
Then thirty.
'So what do you think about all this, KP?' he wondered. 'Do you even remember me, besides the name and the face? Do you remember who I was? We're not the same people we used to be, but I wonder how much they changed you. How much of the woman in that armor is Kim Possible, and how much is SPARTAN-487?'
Forty minutes.
'What do you think I should do about this, now that I know the great secret behind the SPARTAN program? You were my best friend, and I've been judging myself in comparison to you for these past thirty-five years, and now I just don't-'
K-K-K-KA-BAM!
A pause. Ron figured that the snipers had fired, and would soon-
K-K-K-KA-BAM!
Yep.
"Clear," came a quiet voice over the com; the young Corporal, Sigmundson.
Ron stood as Kim waved for the rest of the party to raise up and start moving. While walking, she turned her head slightly and addressed Yori.
"Impressive shooting, Lieutenant. You do have an excellent platoon."
"As I have said often," Yori agreed with a smile. "Though I can take little credit. They were all quite skilled when the Colonel allowed me to assemble and train the platoon."
"Certainly the fastest moving snipers I've ever seen," Ron interjected as they stepped out into the clearing and caught sight of the ruined Pelican and felled Elites. "Thirty minutes for, what, thirty yards for the farthest man?"
"More like forty yards, Commander," Yori corrected as her four shooters stepped out of the woods. "And yes, it was a faster sneak than we are used to; normally we insert well ahead of the regiment and then maneuver into a support position. However," she continued as she, Ron, and Kim reached the back end of the Pelican, "sniping is not all that we do. Ah, good. They survived."
Six weapons capsules, two of them open, were attached to the rear portage area of the Pelican. Yori opened up two of the remaining four, and Ron's jaw dropped when he saw what was inside.
"Dude... boo-yah."
"I recommend that we distribute the rocket launchers amongst your crewmen, Commander," Yori said respectfully, though she sounded both pleased and amused at his reaction. "We have enough to arm, say, half of them, while the other half carries the reloads."
"How about it, guys?" Ron said, turning to the gathered Navy men. They raised up a brief cheer, and he grinned at Yori. "Sounds like the men are all about the rocket launchers, Lieutenant."
"Contrary to the rest of the Corps, I have always considered Navy men to be wise and discerning individuals," Yori said dryly.
"Of course we are," Ron said diffidently, though he noticed that she had that look again. As if he didn't have have enough to worry about. "Anyway... so it'll be your team on rifles, and my guys on rockets. K- Senior Chief? Anything for you?"
"Actually," she admitted, "if Lieutenant del Cielo will allow, I wouldn't mind trading this," she gestured at her assault rifle, "for one of the SRS99Cs."
"We would be honored to have you shoot with us, Senior Chief," Yori said. "I, personally, have heard many stories of the... versatility of the SPARTANS," she continued as she reached into one of the pods and pulled out a sniper rilfe. She handed it to Kim and said, "I look forward to seeing if more of them are true."
"Well," Kim said as she took the rifle from Yori, "I'll try to give you a good show, then. But if you wanted a marksmanship display," - she checked the action and the chamber, and found them both satisfactory - "then you should probably know that I'm only the third best SPARTAN sniper."
"Only the third?"
"Yes." She slung the rifle over her back and accepted the magazines that Yori passed her. "I've only tripled Hathcock's record."
"And she's good with a sword, too," Ron whispered. No matter what else had happened during her training, becoming a SPARTAN had obviously not drained away Kim's natural confidence. He still wasn't entirely sure what else it had done, and he certainly still wasn't all that thrilled about her being a SPARTAN in the first place (aside from, of course, the fact that she wasn't dead after all), but-
'But I can't worry about that just now. Like you said KP, I need to keep my head in the game; that's what your doing, that's what you'd expect me to do, so...'
"Well, then," he said aloud. "Murphy!"
"Sir!" the j.g. said, coming to attention.
"Setttle down, kid," Ron grinned. "Lieutenant, divide up the men, half to launchers, half to ammo. See who's best at seat-of-the-pants navigation, gunnery shoots, that sort of thing. When we reach the outpost, follow Lieutenant del Cielo's lead. If she tells you to blow something up, you ask one missile or two, got it?"
"Yes sir!"
"Commander-" Yori began quietly.
"I haven't done anything like this in awhile, Yori," Ron said equally quietly, surprising them both by using her given name. "So I'll bet you know more about this than I do."
"I- very well, Commander. But if you, or the Senior Chief, would have any recommendations..."
"Oh, we'll give them," Ron said. Kim just nodded. Then he turned back to the ambling crowd and raised his voice. "All right, you! We don't have all day, so let's get this firepower passed around.
"We've got Covies to kill."
That set them to it with a great deal of enthusiasm. Cheerful insults filled the air as the Marines and Navy crewmen, coordinated by Yori's platoon sergeant, broke open the rest of the ammo pods and passed around the rockets and rifle ammo. Most had joined to fight the Covenant in one way or another, and they all believed Ron's promise that they were about to get some.
Wade passed on what information he'd gathered about the outpost from his hacks of the Covenant battle-net. As best he could tell, all that was left of the garrison for that particular outpost was two Hunters, a handful of Elites (read: likely no more than five, but someone hadn't kept up with bookkeeping, so maybe more), four Shade plasma turrets arrayed on the roof of the outpost, the Covenant transport which was the actual target, five Banshee atmospheric fighters that might or might not be manned, seven Ghosts under the same conditionals as the fighters, and one Wraith tank.
All after a three, four kilometer hike.
Funner and funner.
But the plan, ad hoc as it might be, quickly came together, and the rag-tag group of Marines and Navy crewmen, now loaded up with as much ammo as they could carry, set out towards the Covenant outpost.
"I love it when a plan comes together," Barkin murmured as he surveyed the battlements. His lead engineers, Bubba, Verne, Ernest, and Daryl (none of whom, due to an incident involving a Major General, five chickens, and an impressive ballistic arc, were allowed to use antimatter), had finished digging out the tank and 'hog emplacements in about half the time he'd alloted, and the earthworks were finished soon after. Now the final pair of tanks were settling into place, his forward platoons were digging in, and Barkin himself was awaiting work from the recon forces and trying very hard to project a Betty Director level of calm.
Which was hard, as he was not naturally a calm man, and tended to get antsy waiting on other people.
Especially waiting on people he'd sent into harm's way.
Some pacing, therefore, was inevitable.
He had sixteen Warthogs in the field, in teams of two, each team scouting along a thirty-three degree arc from the end of the road. They were his eyes and ears, and while Barkin hoped they wouldn't find anything, he knew that if anything was coming as him from the ground, he wanted to know about it well before the enemy reached the foot of the mountain.
The part of the reconnaissance mission that really hurt, though, was that he'd elected to send off his three gunships. He needed someone to go round up the lost Pelicans, and given the narrow confines of his impromptu mountain base the gunships were a better fit for that role than they would have been slotted into the defense. At least the mountain gave him a commanding view of the terrain, and that his own sensors would let him know if something came from the air.
It still hurt. And they hadn't checked in for a while. And-
"Colonel," called out Tech Sergeant Alicia O'Casey, head of his commo detachment. "Incoming call from Lady Death. She reports that they've encountered three of the surviving Pelicans. However, two of them are damaged. She has elected to release Griffin Queen to guard the Pelicans, while she and Dragon Lady continue the search."
Barkin tried very hard not to roll his eyes at the names for his gunship pilots. Lady Death was more properly called First Lieutenant Hartlage. Said so right there on her uniform. But, given how she'd elected to paint her bird, no one called her anything but Lady Death, save on official paperwork. Even then, well, typos happened.
"Inform Lieutenant Hartlage that I concur."
He, at least, made it a point to use her rank and name. If nothing else it meant that he'd actually noticed her name, given both the nickname and that the uniform name tag lies just over the left breast, and most didn't really notice the name on first glance, since the Lieutenant was very well, um, blessed in that-
Well. He switched off that line of thought real quick, seeing as how 'exploring' that impulse was what got in him trouble with the Corps the first time he'd been a Marine.
The Lieutenant may or may not have minded ogling; officially, the regs didn't mind either. Regs, however, did frown on anything further than ogling someone within the same chain of command.
But that was beside the point.
"Any word from the scouts?" he asked.
"Nothing important, sir," O'Casey answered. "Not even much wildlife. Just a bunch of rocks and grass and trees. And something that looks, quote, almost but not entirely unlike a four-foot june bug."
"Just let me know if they run into anything bad."
"Of course, sir. Bad. I-" she stopped, eyes narrowing, and pressed a hand up against her headset. Then she took the headset off and passed it to Barkin.
"Call for you. Lieutenant Makarov's patrol."
He took the headset from O'Casey and placed it on his head. The sounds of what was clearly a running battle came through the speakers.
"Dog Ear Four, Mad Dog Actual. Report."
"Mad Dog Actual, we have encountered Covenant patrol," said the second lieutenant. "Ran straight into them, took out three of Jackals with bumper. Anders had good laugh, then saw rest of Jackals. Current – Anders! Ty chto mumu yebyosh! Turn gun and engage! - enemy strength is three-seven Jackals with five Elites in command and support. We are attempting withdrawal."
"Can you attempt to draw them away from this position?"
"Negative, Colonel. Enemy can follow old tracks."
Barking figured that he meant the tracks from the mountain to when Vlad encountered the enemy. Which was likely enough.
"Never mind, Dog Ear Four. Get your team back here."
"I will attempt, Actual. Four out."
The Lieutenant signed off, and Barkin returned the headset to O'Casey.
"Alicia," he ordered a moment later, "signal Lieutenants Engelschild and Ben-Roi. Instruct them to swing around and support Makarov, then call back the rest of the patrols, tell them to return to base as best possible, route at their discretion. Also, signal La- Lieutenant Hartlage. Tell her to continue with the search, but to use wherever it was they left Lieutenant Corsetti as a gathering point. Tell her to... gather up the prodigals until I signal other wise, then to get as many of the ships back her as she can and land the Marines behind the Covenant. Understand all that, Sergeant?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good girl. Get to it. Smaj!" Barkin called out, having seen Sib Rawat, the Sergeant Major, ambling about around the commo area. The Ghurka sergeant, battle rifle in hand, honest-to-Shiva kukri at his waist, and cigar dangling from his mouth, switch from a random amble to an amble aimed somewhat in Colonel Barkin's general direction.
"Trouble, Colonel?" he asked.
"Get the men ready, Sib. We've got incoming."
"How bad, sir?"
"Vlad's stopped using definite articles again."
"Oh. Shit."
"Yeah. This is gonna suck."
The situation sucked.
The first ripple from the Archer missiles reached out and swatted the quartet of Wraiths that led the charge into the canyon. The resulting wreckage partially blocked the pass, and forced the Covenant infantry to break formation and go around. Forty millimeter round tore the leakers apart, adding further to the plug, while additional Archer missiles blasted holes in the enemy within the pass and out beyond the mountain. But it liked like every single Covenant soldier on Thebes was charging at the Heart of Sword, and the plug couldn't last forever.
Nor did it. A single Archer locked onto an enemy Ghost, and tracked down upon the small vehicle... as the Elite piloting the Ghost attempted to force his way between the wrecked Wraiths.
The resulting explosion destroyed the Ghost, and killed the pilot along with whoever else was in the general area... but it also blew aside the middle two Wraiths, killing whoever they landed on, and knocked the other two further apart.
The pass was open.
"Dammit," Carlos growled, and Betty looked up from her own tactical board.
"You're doing fine, Guns. Just keep it coming."
He growled a bit and shifted the guns, drawing a line between the ship and the horde with Covenant dead. It would be a while yet before the armory had the refitted Archers ready, so they had to hold until then.
She didn't bother telling anyone. They already knew.
An Elite and a team of Grunts got through the line, an inside of the Sword's range. A loud KA-BAM reverberated through the bridge as the helmsman dropped the Elite with a well-timed shot.
"Axes flash, broadswords swing," he hummed as he shifted aim to one of the retreating Grunts. "Shining armor's-" KA-BAM "-piercing ring."
"Horses run with polished shield," Carlos sang quietly, taking up the verse. "Fight those bastards till they yield."
"Midnight mare and blood red roan," Captain Director finished out, "fight to keep this land your own. Sound the horn and call the cry-"
"HOW MANY OF THEM CAN WE MAKE DIE!"
"Think we can kill 'em all?"
It was nearly sundown, and after a brief, heart-stopping interlude where they'd nearly run into a trio of patrolling Elites, where Kim had to sneak up an cut down each of three with her plasma sword (a feat that clearly impressed Yori to no end), they'd finally arrived at the outpost. Rather, at the edge of a ridge overlooking the outpost, but it was close enough for government work and nuclear warheads. Neither of which had any real utility at that particular point in time.
"I believe we can, Commander," Yori answered him quietly. "However, as to question of whether or not we can kill them before they can shoot at us, well, I believe the expression is, 'your guess is as good as mine.'
"Sarge-kun," she continued, turning to her platoon sergeant. "Please arrange the platoon along this ridge. Do your best to maximize line of sight, but do not discount the necessity of a reserve. Tell the men to aim for the Elites first," of which there were fifteen visible, not five, including one Elite in white armor, an Ultra, the clear commander, "and to ignore the Grunts," which were to the Elites in numbers as three is to one, "until their commanders are down. Then engage the Hunters," of which, contrary to expectations, there were only two, "and then the Grunts. Myself and the Chief will take down the Ultra."
"I will do so, Chu-i. Shoot well."
"And you, Sarge-kun. Lieutenant Murphy?"
"Yes, ma'am?" the Naval Lieutenant asked, looking somewhat uncertain with the rocket launcher on his shoulder, but ready.
"Murphy-san, I want to two of your men to target each of the Wraiths," since there were two instead of one, "and one person each to target the four Shades," another count that had proven correct. "Have the extra men act as backup on the Wraiths. At my signal, you are to each launch simultaneously."
"Of course, ma'am," he said. Then, a moment later, "One rocket or two, ma'am?"
"Two for each Wraith," she answered with a smile, "but only one for the Shades. When your men are in position, send a double-click over the com so we will know. Do you understand?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Then quickly, Murphy-san, quickly."
He scrambled up the hill back to his men, and fairly stealthily so, the boy was a quick learner, and left Ron, Kim, and Yori alone.
"He is a good man, Commander," Yori said at last. Ron turned away from the spotter scope (he was scanning over the outpost and would spot for Yori during the attack, as Kim's SPARTAN enhancements meant she didn't need a spotter, even with the fading light) and smiled at her.
"Yes, he is."
"Do you or the Chief have any recommendations?"
"None, really," Kim answered for them. "It seems like a good enough plan. Just- you do realize that as soon as those rockets go off, everybody down there is going to start shooting at us."
"Yes. I do not suppose it can be helped."
"Not really. We'll just have to shoot them first."
"Indeed," Yori said, then thought for a moment. A somewhat... mischievous look crossed her face. "Tell me, Senior Chief... since we are shooting at the same target, at least initially... would you care to make a contest of it?"
Ron gaped at her. Kim just looked from her scope, to Yori, then back to the scope, then back to Yori, then back to the scope again.
"Bring it."
"Excellent!"
Ron just shook his head and turned back to the spotter scope. Here they were, about to go into battle, and Kim and Yori were making bets! He didn't think SPARTAN did that sort of thing. But even as a girl Kim had always had her pride. Looked like even SPARTAN training couldn't get rid of that... not, he thought on further reflection, that it likely wanted to. Pride, for an elite supersoldier, was probably a good thing.
Probably.
He shook his head and turned back to the scope. One of the Ninja Monkeys' spotters had given him some really brief instruction on the way over, but he thought he had the basic idea. Find target, give Yori distance and bearing, confirm the kill, then rinse and repeat. But that would be during the battle.
Once again he confirmed that, for some odd reason, none of the Elites were in the Ghosts or Banshees. Two of the red armored Elites, who didn't seem to have a team of blue armored Elites (and assorted Grunts) attached, were milling about in the general area of the Ghosts, but that was it. He found himself wondering if any of the crewmen knew how to use Covenant vehicles.
He leaned forward a bit more, trying to get a better view of the outpost and a good count of the vehicles. One lander, what they'd come for, but also eight Banshees and half again as many Ghosts.
A double-click came over the com. Good, Murphy and his team were ready, which meant-
Crack-rattle-rattle-rattle-
The ground shifted, and the rock he'd leaned on gave way and dumped him down the ridge. The scope smashed into pieces on a rock, and Ron bounced off of two others, raising up such a ruckus and cloud of dust that there was no way any of the Covenant could miss him, and finally coming to rest, knocked cold and sprawled out, at the base of the ridge.
Two things happened on Ron's way down. The first was that he drew the eye (and aim) of every single Covenant warrior at the outpost. Their fire followed him all the way down... but neither hit him nor came close to Yori and Kim's position.
The second was that two frag grenades came loose from Ron's belt, struck a pair of oddly shaped rocks, bounced off in two wildly divergent directions, and lost their pins. The resulting explosions didn't kill anybody... but every single warrior save one Elite, the Ultra, was caught looking at Ron or one of the explosions: everywhere, in fact, except for the top of the ridge.
The fist inkling any of them had about rockets or snipers was when the Wraiths and Shades exploded, and the Ultra Elite fell from the simultaneous impact of two 14.5mm Armor Piercing, Fin Stabilized, Discarding Sabot rounds.
"Tango Ten, Zulu Seven," Barkin whispered into his tactical com. While he had a commo section for long-distance and strategic contact, an actual battle required a bit more of a personal touch.
Besides, there wasn't enough room there at the battlements for the platoons and the commo section.
But the personal touch would help.
In this case, he'd just asked tank Ten if it could engage the target at the seventh zig in the road. That particular zig wasn't in Ten's area of responsibility, but he was the closest tank there, and the target was a particularly juicy one.
An Ultra Elite, likely the commander of this little expedition (which seemed to have grown quite a bit from thirty-seven Jackals and attached Elites), who with his escort retinue, a gaggle of Jackals and red armored Elites, was following up behind a pair of Wraiths which were just about to enter into the kill box.
"Barely, Mad Dog," Ten responded.
The Covenant hadn't engaged yet. Given that it was the local equivalent of nautical twilight and he had cammo netting over the tanks and 'hogs, that wasn't surprising.
"Roger, Ten. Hold until boxed."
Inch by inch the Wraiths crept up the road, their progress impeded by the zig-zags and the bordering rocks and trees. Infantry units were mixed in amongst the Wraiths; the rocket 'hogs prioritized to those. Up behind the Ultra came another Wraith, and behind that a Shadow armored personnel carrier. Further still, as best the binoculars could tell, was a lot of Covenant infantry.
But good grief, they were moving slowly! He wanted to draw as much of the enemy as possible into the trap and then spring it, but if they didn't hurry up-
"Whiskey one, box."
"Whiskey two, box."
"Uniform Echo, box"
"Whiskey three, box."
"Sierra, box."
Barkin nodded to himself and tapped the com link once. He wanted this go out to the Regiment in its entirety.
"All right, boys. God be your sword. Engage."
A pair of 90mm HE shells impacted dead-on with each Wraith and the Shadow, ripping them apart in a fiery blast. The shells from tanks Five and Six, along with a three-shot ripple from their attached rocket 'hog, impacted on the Ultra Elite and retinue; what was left of the Ultra soared a good seven meters into the air and flew a fairly impressive ballistic arc into a nearby tree. The rocket 'hogs attached to tanks One through Four and Seven through Ten rippled their shots into the infantry which had walked amongst the Wraiths and the Shadow; their were assisted in the slaughter by the 7.62mm coax cannons on the tanks and the M41 chainguns on the regular 'hogs.
The Spanker teams, seeing little chance for targets, held back; there would be enough for them in the second wave.
In the span of three seconds every single warrior in the Covenant vanguard had been killed, and the fires of their death lit the darkening sky.
But more came, up over and around the burning wreckage, some trying to shove the wrecks aside but most just bypassing them. These were infantry, Grunts and Jackals and Elites, and even with the wrecks they could move up the road a lot faster than a Wraith. Most were stopped, killed by shell and by rocket and by bullet... but some got through.
Barkin flipped the safety off of his shotgun and rose up over the edge. The rest of the platoons followed suite.
"Grenades!"
A quartet of frag grenades arced over the battlements in response to Barkin's order, and landed amongst the enemy survivors. What little were left after the explosions seemed frozen in place.
"Open fire!"
"How long until we can fire?" Betty asked as another deep boom reverberated through the ship. Four Hunters had gotten past the fire line, and were bombarding the hull with their arm-cannons. They were proving most difficult for the defenders to hit, especially given everything else they had to shoot at.
"Just a few more minutes, Skipper," DeLong answered. "The armory-" another boom, but this one came from the helmsman's rifle, "-had to toss out a couple of the Furies as duds. It slowed them down a bit." Then, quieter, "We're running out of ammo."
"I know. Just-"
KA-BAM!
"Yee-heh! Cap!"
"What is it, Eric?" Betty asked the excited helmsman.
"Cap, we just got the guy in the gold armor! That's the head dude!"
"Then go for the ones in white!" Carlos admonished. Eric just grinned at him and turned back to shooting. Carlos shook his head and turned back to Captain Director, looking a bit abashed.
"Sorry, Skipper."
"No trouble, Carlos," she said evenly. "Still, if he did get the enemy general..."
"He probably did," DeLong said, pointing to the tac readout. "See? Their attack is coming loose. So if he can kept disrupting the chain of command..."
"Then Eric's bought us some time."
"As much as it pains me to say it, yes."
Eric blew a raspberry out the window, but it was clearly directed, in spirit at least, towards Lieutenant DeLong. Carlos glared at him and then turned back to the battle.
"So," Betty asked after a while, "did we figure out where those transports airlifted to?"
"Communications picked up on something about another battle going on north of here, Skipper. No details."
"Probably Steve," Betty announced.
"I'd say the XO, myself."
"Nah, I don't see Ron getting in the middle of something like that."
Even for Kim, the start of the battle was a bit of a blur. One moment she was hearing Lieutenant del Cielo give the order to execute... and then Ron fell over the side of the cliff, and landed, if not in the middle of the enemy, then far to close for her comfort.
And why that should be the case, she still had no idea. Her family, and friends, were the SPARTANS. For Kim-487, there wasn't supposed to be anybody else.
'But you wanted to see him again.'
Even while Ron fell and rockets blazed forth overhead, she sighted down her scope on the Ultra Elite, and felt more so than heard Lieutenant del Cielo do the same. She held back a bit, letting the Lieutenant zero in... and then she fired. Kim didn't bother watching the bullets track in, but started to shift aim to another target – Elite, blue – almost as soon as the bullet exited the barrel.
'I wanted a lot of things. But that was before the changes.'
It wasn't until she racked in her third magazine that Kim realized that her shots, along with Lieutenant del Cielo's, were targeted primarily as cover fire for Ron.
She felled another Elite, and then another, and then a shot took two Grunts at once, and the last shot from that magazine skitted off of-
Off of the armor of one of the pair of Hunters, who were still alive and charging directly at Ron.
She sighted again on one of the Hunters, trying to find a one of the gaps in the armor, to hit the vulnerable orange flesh of the neck or midsection, but the angle was wrong and its shield was in the way-
"Chief-san!" Lieutenant del Cielo called out. "The one on the right! Go for the neck, I will fire first."
Kim shifted her aim to the designated Hunter, and Lieutenant del Cielo waited for no further acknowledgment. She triggered off a single round, which struck the Hunter on the top of its armored head. The shot bounced off the armor, but transferred just enough energy and momentum to snap back the Hunter's head, baring its vulnerable throat.
At that sudden flash of orange flesh, Kim took the shot. The bullet entered the Hunter in a splash of orange ichor... and then the Hunter fell.
But there was a second Hunter, and it was almost upon Ron. She shifted aim towards it, knowing even as she did so that she would not be able to shoot in time.
Tanks Nine and Ten burned. The Covenant forces had a Wraith set up at the base of the mountain, and somehow or another had figured out the angles to lob plasma charges up into the human lines. They were inaccurate as hell, but a couple of shots had gotten lucky... including one that landed right on top of Nine and Ten during an ammo replenishment.
Almost as bad, Tanks Two and Five were immobile with broken tracks, having taken a few shots from a Hunter the wrong way. The crews were still firing, however, but those tanks were stuck in place and unable to maneuver.
Not that Barkin himself was in any better shape. Well, he was in a little better shape, given how he had the whole length of the battlements to stalk up and down while he encouraged the men and added weight of fire wherever it was needed. His bait hadn't taken the casualties he'd feared, but they were taking enough, and-
An Elite jumped the battlement and roared something. Barkin whirled around and filled it full of buckshot.
Damn but he wished Makarov and the scouts had returned. The local 'hogs had performed gallantly and mostly died valiantly. What few remained were darting around the remaining tanks, trying to engage the still-coming Covenant column while not getting blown up themselves.
At least he knew, now, where those forces had come from. Alicia had intercepted a Covenant message, and finally translated it, asking for a certain count of forces to be detached from a battle with a crashed human ship and transported up to his position.
Not that that bit of intelligence helped him any, except that the inference that Captain Director was still alive and kicking took one worry off of his shoulders.
Another weight fell off when he passed orders on to Lady Death to get herself back there and take out that Wraith. It would be awhile, of course, but it was always a good thing to know that air support was inbound.
"I think that's the last of that, Colonel," Sib announced. Gingerly he slid another magazine into his pistol, and racked the slide; his left arm was weak and bandaged, the end result of a brief encounter with a Jackal and a plasma pistol.
"For this wave, at least," Barkin growled. "Everybody, check ammo!"
"At least they're committed to the offensive."
"Yeah, right," Barkin agreed as he re-loaded the shotgun. The clicks of shells sliding into the magazine were strangely therapeutic.
"Should we start to pull back?"
"Maybe. How's everybody for ammo?"
"Two clips. At most three, and some of the boys are picking up Covenant weapons and firing back with them."
"Dammit. Alright people, listen up! Next attack we hit hard and fast, then we start falling back into the ruins. Plan Bravo. Understood?"
"Hoo-rah!"
"Comments?"
"Ammunition?" the acting First Platoon CO, Staff Sergeant Leo Weissman, asked over the com. His Lieutenant had taken a needler round to head two charges back, and First had been hit the hardest of the three 'bait' platoons, and would also be the first to pull out the battlements and fall back.
"Manage your ammo, but kept in mind that we've got dumps set up," Barkin replied. "It would suck to run out of ammo on the pull-back, but if you don't mind me mis-quoting a Naval officer, no one ever did wrong by firing on the enemy."
Everyone agreed with that sentiment, even Lieutenant Eleanor Fourier, Second Platoon CO, who was by no means a fan of Horatio Nelson.
"They're coming again, Colonel," Sib announced calmly. As if to confirm his statement a series of plasma shots impacted on the battlements, just below his head. He ducked back behind the earthworks and shook off a few bits and pieces of dirt.
"Prepare to volley grenades," Barkin ordered. "One salvo, then fall back by platoon and fire."
'Alright, you sons of bitches,' Barkin thought towards the Covenant warriors. 'You want me and my boys? Just few more meters, and you can come and get-'
"Colonel!" someone shouted, he wasn't sure who, it sounded like one of the new privates. "Flare, five o'clock!"
He whirled about and caught sight of the red signal flare soaring skyward above one of the rearmost buildings. That wasn't supposed-
"Sergeant MacKenzie," he yelled into his com, "report!"
Nothing.
"Sergeant MacKenzie! Dammit, Third Platoon, Able Company, what the hell is going on out there?"
"Sir, this is Corporal Ellis," came a young, very scared voice over the com. "Sir, I don't- we've lost contact with the Captain, sir, and the Lieutenant. I think they're- sir, they just came out of nowhere!"
"Settle down, son," Barkin said, attempting to soothe the youngster. Ellis was normally a good troop, even if a bit green. "What came out of nowhere?"
"Elites, sir! At least a dozen. Must have come in under stealth, over the mountains, and- oh no. Brian, there in the corner, the distortion. No, right corner, fire at it-"
The whisper of an activating plasma sword drifted in over the com.
"Oh God-"
'They're coming in too fast,' Betty thought to herself as she surveyed the tactical plot. The pain in her body had started picking up a few minutes prior and was slowly getting worse. But she would not slump – dammit, she would not slump! 'We're killing them as best we can, but too many are getting through, and we don't have the firepower to hold them off forev-'
"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee," she heard Carlos whisper. Then, louder, "Skipper, we're up! Blessed are thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus..."
A fierce exultation filled her. They'd done it, they'd held just long enough, and now-
"Show them hell, Guns."
"Holy Mary, mother of God, – loading missiles – pray for us sinners, – loaded – now and at the hour of our death – away!"
Six Archer missiles, each bearing a single Fury tactical nuclear warhead, rippled out from the Heart of Sword. Three were alloted to each of the mountains that defined the pass; all the missiles struck home, pierced the rock, and penetrated deep into the heart of the mountains. For a moment, for a heartbeat, there was nothing.
Then there was a roar, like the muffled dying a world, and a great shower of rock and dust shot out from the mountains. That shrapnel did damage enough to the Covenant forces, but what followed was worse. As Goliath before David, or the Idol of Dagon before the Ark of the Lord, the top of the mountains sheared off and fell down into the pass, crushing the Covenant army in their ruin, and sealing the pass and the canyon from any further ground attack.
Almost as an afterthought Carlos lobbed another pair of missiles, again tipped with Fury warheads, over the mountains to the other side. Just in case.
"Amen," he intoned gravely, wonderingly, after the sounds of falling rock and nuclear fire faded away into a strange sort of quiet. There were still plenty of Covenant in the canyon, but-
Not enough. Nowhere near enough, and Betty closed her eyes and let herself relax. Not slump. However much the pain in her torso made her want to.
"Guns," she said at last, quietly but over the steady, fading sounds of battle. "Status."
"Mopping up, Skipper."
She smiled.
"Well done, Guns."
Then she collapsed like a broken toy.
He lay on the ground like a busted action figure, aching all over and not quite certain of where he was or what he was doing. Fortunately, after a brief status check, Ron determined that he didn't have any broken bones. Maybe a bruised rib or five, but that didn't count. He hoped. After all, there was a battle-
Oh, yeah. That was where he was. He rolled over a bit, lifted up his head and opened his eyes-
Just in time to see a pair of Hunters rushing right at him.
Orange-fleshed behemoths covered in blue armor, ship-hull shields on their left arms, and with plasma cannons in place of right hands were not what he wanted to wake up to.
Before he could move two shots in rapid succession struck the right-most Hunter, and it fell in a spray of orange blood. The Hunter on the left roared in anger and spread out its arms in punctuation.
In that instant, without thought, Ron drew his pistol and put a single round into the Hunter's suddenly exposed belly.
With a terrible crash the Hunter fell to the ground, dead.
Ron looked at the Hunter.
He looked back at his sidearm.
He looked back at the Hunter.
He looked back at his sidearm.
"I don't whether this is a 'boo-yah'," he muttered, "or a 'sick and wrong'."
Then he looked around and noticed that there were a lot of dead Covenant lying around... and, apparently, not live ones.
"Check that," he said as he processed that and heard and a scraping sound from the ridge behind him. "This is definitely a 'boo-yah' moment."
More scraping noises. Then he felt a now-familiar somehow standing over him, armored hand held out.
"Commander?"
"I'm alright, Chief," he said quietly, sitting up and reaching out to clasp her hand. This time he let her haul him to his feet, despite the fact that the rest of his little team was in view and making their own way down to the outpost. She levered him up far more gently than he would have guessed, but he winced even so, as something moved the wrong way in his chest.
"Commander, are you-"
"I said I'm fine, KP," he said, again quietly but now firmly, and looked her straight in the visor. "Just took a bump or two on the way down, nothing worry about."
He looked around, surveying the carnage, and finally turned his attention back to the two Hunters.
"So, who got that one?"
"I took the shot," Kim answered, "but Lieutenant del Cielo set it up for me."
"She did?"
"She did," Kim confirmed as Yori walked up to them. She met Ron's eye and then bowed.
"Commander," she said, "I am very glad to see you alive."
"I'm... pretty glad about it myself. I hear I have both of you to thank for that."
"Honor required nothing else," she told him. "Twice now you have saved my life, and that of my platoon."
"Twice?"
"Of course," she said with a twinkle in her eye and a ringing mischief in her voice. "The Covenant were so busy shooting at you, just now, that we were able to engage without losses."
"Umm... you're welcome?" he said. She smiled, and he continued, "Aside from losses, what's our status?"
"My men are- wait," she said, her hand going to her earpiece. She listened for a moment, and then stepped back and bowed low and formally.
"Commander Stoppable, I beg leave to report that we have captured the Covenant outpost."
Steve Barkin had never really liked the Spartans. There was just too much about their culture that, quite frankly, he found to be sick and wrong. The word helot, for example, and all that implied, as well as the age at which Spartan boys entered the agoge.
But for all that, he had to admit that there was a lot that the ancient Spartans had gotten right. 'Come and get them,' for example, as well as the quality of their soldiers and officers, the way Leonidas of legend and glory had led his men into battle. Hell, the Battle of Thermopylae in entirety was something that they'd gotten very right.
Still, though, as he stood his ground in a ruined, ancient building with what remained of First, Second, and Headquarters platoons, and traded shots with the swarming Covenant outside, he figured that Thermopylae might not be the most... encouraging of historical examples to consider.
The Alamo was certainly more pertinent, given the location.
But he was hoping for Bastogne, all things considered. At least there the 101st managed a breakout, 3rd Army involvement or no.
Still, it looked like the Alamo.
What he'd meant as a firesack had turned into a giant game of dance the Charlie Foxtrot. The sudden, surprise Elite raid had taken out enough of his officers to totally scramble the chain of command: about half of his platoon commanders were still up and moving and talking with him, but all three of his Company commanders were dead and so were two of the First Sergeants. Most of the platoons without Lieutenants were also without platoon sergeants, and so were operating on the squad level or lower.
But they were still operating. He could tell not so much by com chatter but by the relentless noise of close-quarters combat. The screams of men, chatter of guns, and impact of rifle butts on flesh had their own rhythm and flow, a perverse symphony that told him the 24th Marine Infantry Regiment was still in the fight, however scrambled.
He hadn't wanted to pull back and let the oncoming Covenant forces into the mix, but whoever was in command down there had coordinated the attacks well, and the enemy had pushed him back by sheer weight of numbers.
But there were fewer numbers than might have been, as the enemy hadn't cut through to the tanks and 'hogs yet. They continued pouring fire into the oncoming column, thinning it out for the infantry.
Then two very good things happened.
A single Pelican came screaming out of the moon, fire reaching out towards the ground from her wings and nose, as she poured gunfire and rockets into the enemy. Upon the sides of that Pelican was painted a ghastly revenant, born up upon wings of charcoal, clad in a robe of smoke, and clutching in bony hands a scythe with a blade of silver and black water-rippled Damascus steel, Lady Death come with vengeance to smite the killers of her boys.
Her first kill was the Wraith that had continued to pour fire into the tanks.
Upon the com came a call from Lady Death. She reported seeing, at the base of the mountain, some sixteen M12 Warthogs, Lieutenant Makarov and the scouts returned at last, arrayed in line and charging down upon the Covenant reserve. They met the enemy with all the force and glory of knights upon horseback; and they ground the enemy to dust beneath their tires.
But even the good things were of limit, for even though the incoming Covenant forces trickled into a pittance and then faded away altogether, there were still more than enough already amongst the ruins. Not enough, perhaps, to kill all of his men, but enough to gut the Regiment.
Lady Death could not fire upon those enemies, least she risk firing upon her own men, and the scouts could not get up the debris and body filled road in time.
So that was it.
Alamo.
Thermopylae.
"Well, Mike," he heard one of the privates say to another private, "I'll guess I'll see you in Hell."
"Oh, bullshit!" Barkin snapped, now really pissed off. Not at the private, not even at the sentiment, but at the whole entirety of the situation. So he and his Regiment were trapped, their backs up against the wall?
That is where a Mad Dog is the most dangerous.
"Sir?"
"You think they're gonna find us in Hell, Marine? Not a chance of that."
Shock attack. They enemy was in them, amongst them, confident. But his men still had fight in them.
"Sir, I-"
"Marine, where are they gonna find us?" he growled. None answered, and he growled again, "Nobody knows? Apes don't know history, I guess, but you aren't apes; you're men, dammit, so look to your history and tell me where are they gonna find us?"
Charge them, smash them, break their bones. Only way to win now is to surprise the enemy, do something unexpected.
Still no answer.
"The old United States, boys, remember the song. Now, where are they gonna find us?"
The Sergeant Major, most of the other sergeants, a few of the corporals, and some of the privates, looked thoughtful.
"Guarding Heaven's streets, sir?" one of the privates ventured.
"Exactly. Marines, where are they gonna find us?"
"Guarding Heaven's streets, sir!"
"I cannot hear you! Where are they gonna find us?"
"Guarding Heaven's streets, sir!"
"Put some passion into it, boys! Where are they gonna find us?"
When a Mad Dog has its back up against a wall, there is no telling what it will do.
"GUARDING HEAVEN'S STREETS, SIR!"
"Damn straight! Out and into 'em, Marines!"
He set the example, always in the front, and charged out of their hiding place... straight into the arms of a waiting Hunter. But he did not fear, he did not falter. Barkin changed his grip on his shotgun and slammed the butt into the Hunter's chin. The shear temerity of the act surprised the creature long enough for Barkin to turn the gun back around and pump and single shell into the Hunter's exposed neck, severing its head.
He loaded another shell as he stepped past the falling behemoth. A hip shot felled two Grunts, and then he replaced the shell. His men were following after him, attacking as they saw fit, screaming and yelling as temperament led them, firing into the enemy and following their Colonel's charge. Other fireteams, other squads, other platoons, trapped in nearby buildings saw the commotion and rushed out to join, many getting shot down by Covenant weapons, but most surviving, engaging, fighting.
For Barkin the battle turned into a waltz of run, shoot, reloaded, each shot hitting a target, each shot replaced by a fresh shell. They were-
A shot from a Hunter's cannon impacted behind him, and Barkin was thrown through the air and bounced roughly off a pock-marked rock wall. He shook his head and looked up, and couldn't see any humans but plenty of Covenant, and there was even an enemy transport coming in, escorted by a quartet of Banshees, and why was Lieutenant Hartlage vectoring away-
Then the transport came lower, barely three meters above the ground, and the doors opened, there was Lieutenant Yori del Cielo and some of her platoon, hanging out the doors with rifles in hand and firing into the enemy. The tuning-fork shaped transport's turret was firing as well, but the strangest sight-
From the starboard pod dropped a SPARTAN, Covenant plasma sword in hand. She fell towards the Elite leading the group attacking him, and Barkin watched as she, in midair, snicked away its head with the barest swipe of her blade. She landed and wasted not a moment, grabbing the Elite's fallen head in her right hand and flinging it into a trio of Grunts, bowling them over; in the same motion she stabbed out with her left hand, and impaled another Elite upon her sword. She withdrew the blade, and on the backswing cleaved through a Hunter's shield and sliced the alien itself cleanly in half.
There was a lot, he'd always thought, that was sick and wrong about the new SPARTANS.
But maybe these new children of the agoge had managed to do something right, as well.
In a short while, it was quiet again upon the mountaintop.
Twelve hours later, with the sun in the sky, they readied to move out. Ron found himself walking towards the command tank, rather than towards the Covenant lander. His role in the upcoming attack was an important one, but it could wait a bit. Everything could wait a bit.
This world is part of the personal fiefdom of a Covenant Prophet, who goes by the title Low Prophet of Flesh.
So Wade had told them in council of war. That much, along with the exact location and nature of their target, he had gleaned from hacking the Covenant battle-net. It was a storage and research facility, used by the Low Prophet of Flesh... and was not of Covenant manufacture.
But it was what they had come to destroy.
There remains some six hundred enemy troops at the primary base. Two hundred patrol the grounds at any one time; the remainder are in reserve. All of the rest are dead, either here on in battle with Captain Director.
He hoped, prayed, that she was all right. He knew that Mr. B. was just as worried; he could see it in the man's eyes.
A squadron of Banshees hold the airspace, and the ground forces are supported by multiple Shade emplacements and Wraiths.
The battle in space had reduced the 24th MIR from six companies to three. Each company had consisted of two hundred men, not counting the attached armor and scout sections, nor Yori's platoon. The battle on the mountain had cost Steve one-third of his men, as well as a fifth of his tanks, all of his rocket 'hogs, and a quarter of his regular 'hogs.
But all twelve lost Pelicans, or at lest their crews, passengers, and cargo, were recovered, and few of the other Pelicans were damaged. Lady Death, Dragon Lady, and Griffin Queen remained flying as well, and enough Naval personnel had been recovered (at Ron's stubborn insistence) to make up for the numbers.
Several of those Navy men, however, would fly the captured Banshees, and pilot the captured Ghosts. It turned out that one of the Electronics Chiefs on Heart of Sword had cannibalized parts from several of the games in the rec area and had assembled a surprisingly accurate simulator for Covenant vehicles. It turned out that a lot of the crewmen liked to pass what free time they had flying around in Banshees and Ghosts, pretending to be a SPARTAN caught behind enemy lines.
Unfortunately, the Chief had used parts from the Zombie Mayhem console to construct that simulator, so Ron was torn as to whether he should congratulate the Chief or read him the riot act.
He reached the command tank, shuddered a bit at the sight of the skeletonized Elite, and climbed up towards the cockpit.
"What did you say to him?"
Kim turned from some status board or another and looked at him.
"What did I say to who?"
"To Colonel Barkin!"
"What about?"
"About getting in this tank. I mean, he-"
"You and Lieutenant del Cielo vouched for me, Commander. I guess that was enough."
"I saw you two go off and discuss something. You're not going to tell me, are you?"
She cranked up the engine in reply. Ron just shook his head, then reached out and grabbed her shoulder.
"KP, we really need to talk."
"I know," she said, surprising him. "Just not now."
"I know," he echoed. "I didn't mean now. Later, once we're done."
"Okay."
He leaned there for a moment, watching, and then he gently whacked her on the back of the helmet.
"Kick some Covenant ass, you hear me?"
"You do the same, Commander."
Ron nodded and stepped off the tank, and started to walk away. Before he got far, she surprised him again.
"Ron?"
He turned. Something about her voice...
"KP?"
"Be careful."
"You too."
They saluted, and Ron headed back to the transport. One the crewmen waited in the turret, while Yori and a selection from her platoon loaded up in the drop bays, readying to spring their trap.
He was just strapping into the cockpit when someone came over the com, praying:
"Dear Lord, today we have met our enemies in a great battle, and have emerged victorious, but at a heavy cost. For our fallen brothers and sisters, dear God, we ask your grace and mercy upon them, that You might speed them forth to places of eternal rest.
"For us who remain, we thank You that You have allowed us life, and have granted us victory. We pray that blessin' upon us again today, oh Lord, that Your spirit might move before us and beside us and behind us, even as it did in the days of Israel and the campaigns of Joshua. Grant us the will to stand and the strength to fight on this day, oh Lord of Hosts, that we might win through a great victory against those who would kill all of humanity in the name of their heathen gods."
He paused a bit, as if to gather steam, and when he continued the last words of the prayer were as a ringing blade drawn forth and shining in the sun.
"And Lord, as for those same enemies, may You have mercy on their souls... 'cause we're goin' Garryowen, and ain't nothin' gettin' in our way!"
End Chapter 5