Okay, sorry it took awhile, but here is seven. Also, eight should be out soon.
btw, thanks for the names Ablot, methinking 'Vengeance' or mabye 'Reclamation' are sounding good for prophet names.
Chapter Seven
22.05.2576
Station ENIGMA
System CLASSIFIED [SIERRA CLEARANCE REQUIRED]
Subjects appear to be adapting well to the Mk.VIB MJOLNIR system. Despite lowered levels of protection from the Mk.VI, subjects from Gamma Company and S-062 concur that the ‘B’ variant is superior, or at least equal, to the Mk.VI and SPI-III armor systems when used for advanced front-line engagements. Combinations of the new color scheme, active camouflage, and captured Covenant powered armor technology create an ideal system for such units. Perhaps it should also be adapted for the S-IIIB reconnaissance squads? A change in designation is a recommended however, it is only aesthetically similar to the Mk.VI, we really should be calling it SPI-IV.
Also, recommend an adjustment to the armor’s power output, G043 was injured by an overload in the energized armor system when he came under fire while running the [CLASSIFIED] scenario.
-Notes on MJOLNIR MK.VIB Armor
10 December 2583; Military Calendar
Twenty kilometers outside Saunders City, New Cyprus
The M12’s engine slowly silenced as the squad of commandos dismounted and formed up a few meters ahead of the vehicle. Anthony looked around making sure the small cluster of foliage in the relatively open lands around Saunders City was enough to provide concealment for their transport. Satisfied he addressed his teammates, “Alright, we will be sticking with plan Bravo for now. Charlie, I want you and Jack to break off and recon the airfield, if the Covenant missed something, it’s probably there. Tom, you and I will head for Saunders and see if we can’t dig something up there. You Spartans know the drill, get in, get out, and only make a crapload of noise if you absolutely have to.”
It did not take a stretch of the imagination to visualize Charlie rolling his eyes at his commander’s order, “Sir, we were at the same briefing, we know what to do.”
“Just making sure, remember what happened last time I didn’t give you a reminder about the mission details?” the leader said to the sergeant calmly. Other squad commanders would have exploded at the man, but it was not Anthony’s style, and by now he was used to Charlie’s remarks.
“Yada, yada, yada, I accidently alerted a few rebels to our position, but hey the explosion I had to make afterwards was pretty awesome,” Charlie said, in a way both acknowledging and undercutting his superior.
Tom shook his head, “Yeah, and we only made it out of being part of that one by about fifty meters and three seconds.”
“Whatever, we keep going over the same thing, drop it for once. Now, let’s figure out what the hell happened here,” Jack added effectively ending the conversation.
“Agreed,” Anthony shifted back to the mission, “We rendezvous here in eight hours. Sludge will be picking us up at the DZ in ten, so make *** sure you’re here. Move out, Spartans.”
.
“See anything?” Charlie asked of his squadmate.
Jack shook his head, “Nothing moving, looks like the Covies dropped a whole cruiser’s worth of munitions on the field.” This was probably a showing of good luck, thought the Spartan. Movement on the bombed-out base would mean Covenant infantry were or would be soon returning to finish the job of eradicating any survivors. Even though he had spent the last fourteen years of his life training for combat, Jack hated combat ever since he had gotten his first taste of it in an impromptu hostage-rescue mission at a school near the team’s base of operations. Now, the chance to escape the fury of battle and only view the aftermath appealed greatly to the armor-clad man.
“Thermals clear, too?”
“Yes, now let’s move out. AC on as of now,” the pair all but disappeared as the active camouflage systems went active and rendered their forms nearly transparent. The base was almost a kilometer away, but the commandos covered the distance quickly and stopped at the burned-out wreckage of an Army Pelican dropship.
Charlie turned on his internal radio and spoke first, “Them craters look pretty shallow, probably just standard plasma munitions methinks. Lotta flash and bang, but not too much in the way of damage underground.”
“Right,” Jack said, “and that means we might have survivors in the base’s lower regions. Let’s move up to the control tower ruins and see if we can’t find a way in.” They did just that, but the rubble had crushed or blocked any way in, becoming a severe annoyance to the commandos.
Next they tried the pilot’s barracks, but again luck ran out. “You know, we could just blast our way in, I have enough explosives…” Charlie said, his voice gaining a tone that would send shivers down the back of anyone who knew him.
“No, stealth first. I would rather not be in a situation where it’s the two us versus a division or six of Covies,” Jack cut Charlie off. He was becoming frustrated, the bombing, and apparently a follow-up infantry attack, had destroyed most of the easy access to the underground complex, but then something caught his eye. A reinforced hanger stood largely intact a few hundred meters away, and the only major damage where something had crashed through its western wall.
Charlie followed Jack’s gaze, “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Oh, yes,” Jack started off towards the damaged structure. Upon closer inspection, it had been a crippled Phantom that had ripped through the building, this being denoted by the scarred remains of one of the ships that lay inactive in the hanger.
“Hmm, stop for a second, I want to check something,” Charlie trailed off as he slipped into the dropship through a hole in one ofits side hatches. He reemerged a few seconds later carrying a Covenant ‘Mauler’ shotgun, “You have any idea how long I have wanted to get my hands on one of these?”
“Let me guess, since we first went over them in basic?” Jack replied, rolling his eyes.
“Right on,” Charlie attached the weapon to a magnetic clamp on his right hip and a spare magazine for the weapon in an empty utility pouch. “If you’re interested, there is a Fuel Rod cannon and a couple of plasma grenades lying in that thing, too.
“Leave ‘em, we might want a backup stash of weapons later,” Jack turned and began heading to a blown-in door recessed into the ground at the rear of the hangar. The door itself was big enough for a Warthog to fit through it, but the area it led to was not. Entering the small room, Jack turned to another door on the left side of the space. This door lead to a gently sloping tunnel that turned to the right a few meters down and continued back. All along the walls, plasma scoring, chips from ricocheting bullets, and a few metal spikes adorned the tunnel. Jack’s stomach tightened when he saw a fallen man in a mechanic’s uniform slumped against a charred door as he must have died attempting to open the barrier and survive, even if for just a few more minutes.
The marker denoting Charlie on Jack’s visor passed him and pulled the body away from the door. “Poor sod,” Charlie commented, “Now, let’s see if we can’t get this here door open.”
The commando’s fingers danced on a keypad next to the door and a small screen flashed green above the pad, and the door slid open. “Am I dead? If this is real I must have died and gone to heaven.” Charlie asked as he stood in awe of what the door just unveiled.
“We can only wish,” Jack answered as he saw Charlie’s object of admiration. It was an ordinance storage bunker for the Air Force’s fighters and Pelicans. Cases of 23-millimeter cannon shells, cluster bombs, missiles, and other munitions filled the room. Essentially, it was Charlie’s dream, enough explosives in one area to level a small city and create a huge fireball in the process. “Don’t get any ideas, now let’s move on.”
Charlie all but cried, yet the two advanced into a second, wider hallway. This section lacked the blast marks and the signs of battle, but a streak of dried blood continued for a few meters down the hall and eventually stopped. Jack dropped to one knee at the end of the streak and examined the trail. The blood was a few days old and a little had probably evaporated or dissipated in some other way, but to have an end like this was unusual. A smile appeared under Jack’s faceplate as he realized what this meant.
Looking up, Jack saw a door off to the side of the hall about five meters down. “Charlie, think you can open that?”
“No problemo, muchacho,” Charlie quipped as he moved up to the door as did his magic on the keypad.
Just before he could press the ‘open’ button, Jack stopped him, “Shut off your AC first.”
Charlie did as he shook his head in compliance and then pressed the button. With a hiss, the door slid open, “Well, lookie here.”
.
“I don’t like this,” the voice came over the COM set in Anthony’s helmet.
“Tom, you never have a good feeling about anything,” Anthony responded to his squadmate. The two were lying on a hill in the relatively open fields to the southwest of Saunders City and Tom was scanning the ruins of the city for any signs of a hostile presence. Insofar, he had not seen much activity other than few large craft the pair had never seen before flying to some destination off to the northeast.
“Hey, I don’t see anything moving in the city and there is that cruiser sitting what, three klicks away? Maybe some kind of ambush is in there?” Tom asked.
“Yeah, and if you can’t see ‘em, it means they’re either concealed or have active camouflage, and even then they would show up on thermals.”
Turning to look at his barely-visible leader, Tom sighed, “OK, you’re right. Now let’s get this over with.” Anthony nodded in agreement and clicked a signal switch that caused a green light to flash twice in Tom’s Heads Up Display. Swiftly and silently, the two covered the distance to the city’s perimeter and stopped at the wreckage of where a Phantom had slammed into a small structure.
Anthony signal Tom to check out the ruins, and the Spartan slipped in and out, and then with an all but invisible hand signal let the higher-ranking commando know what he had found. Two humans lay dead in the rubble, but he could not get a count on any dead Covenant in the dropship. Nodding in acknowledgement, Anthony gave the order to continue, and Tom took point.
After five minutes, Tom stopped suddenly and motioned for the pair to find cover. Anthony did, and with a quick look down, made sure his camouflage system was working. A shudder of slight relief washed over him as he confirmed it did, and then he looked up to see what the commotion was. A lone Covenant Prowler light vehicle slipped by on the street ahead, both its two-creature crew, and a pair of Jackals, riding as passengers on two side pylons, were using some kind of spotlights to scan the dark, night streets. The vehicle paused for a second at the intersection, and Anthony held his breath. A Brute in the elevated gun turret motioned to its packmate driving the front-heavy vehicle to move on, and the transport drove off.
The commando motioned for his squadmate to come to him, and then said in a low voice, “Well that confirms it, we have Covenant Loyalists in the city.”
“Yeah, any change in plans?” Tom responded in the same tone.
“No, but we’ll follow the Prowler down the street, and see if it leads us to something,” the senior Spartan ordered.
Tom nodded once, “Roger, I’ll take point.”
The commandos moved out, following the aliens. Stress grew inside Anthony as the two advanced. This was an unusual first, as the Spartan had felt anxious, but never been stressed before or during a mission previously. Although it was his first encounter with the alien races, he could not use that to explain the sense of dread that built up inside him.
As the two came to point where the transport had stopped, and had its Jackals dismount to briefly check a bombed-out structure, Tom froze and signaled for his comrade to stop. Anthony could feel the fear radiate out of his subordinate as the Spartan went rigid and attempted to dive to the side. It was too late however, a blue blast ripped out of the rubble and a wave of plasma enveloped Tom and threw Anthony back. Stars exploded in front of the lieutenant’s eyes as he slammed into the broken pavement and heard something crack.
.
"Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword never encountered automatic weapons."
-General Douglas MacArthur
The Pheonix War: Pheonix Rising:
http://www.halowars.com/forums/thread/378844.aspx