The Doisac Campaign
Chapter 1 – Going Down (literally)
“Exiting slipspace in twenty seconds,” a disembodied voice of an AI said over the speakers on the command deck of the CCS battlecruiser Lightning's Fury, the numerous Elites manning the controls all snapped to attention.
“Bringing active camouflage generators online,” one of them mentioned.
“Powering down all non-essential systems,” another added.
The shipmaster observed the main view screen from the command platform while stars flashed into sight as the cruiser transitioned back into normal space. “Report,” he barked.
“Im detecting at least thirty Brute ships around the planet, active camouflage is holding and we have not been detected,” one of the command crew replied.
“Excellent, Major ‘Ivys inform the spec ops squad that they are clear to launch.”
An Elite clad in the crimson armour of a major that was stood behind the shipmaster nodded and walked out of the command centre, he proceeded down a corridor and stepped into the ships central gravity lift.
Several decks down he arrived on the hangar deck and proceeded to where the spec ops squad were waiting by their phantom.
The leader of the group, Reja ‘Emasut was making small adjustments to his commando helmet when he noticed the major approaching. The spec ops leader motioned to the others in his group and they turned their attention to the major who had come to a stop before them.
“Ok, we have transitioned back into normal space above the brute home world as I am sure you are aware,” the major paused before continuing “now this attack has been planned for months and your mission is vital to its success.” Another of the spec ops spoke up interrupting the major.
“Infiltrate the city, destroy the anti air cannons and secure the landing zone for when the main attack force arrives, we have already been informed of this.”
“Quiet Lysl,” the leader rebuked before motioning for the major to continue.
“Well as you must already know,” the major continued while giving the unruly spec ops a stern look “those cannons must be taken down so we can use that city as a landing zone for our main invasion forces, in order to do that we will need to strike them from orbit which is where you come in.” he gestured to the spec ops team.
“Plant a beacon on each of the cannons so we know exactly where to target and then secure a landing zone for reinforcements.”
“And I thought this would be a difficult assignment,” another of the spec ops troops muttered while polishing the casing on a carbine.
Major Ivys’ stepped back as the squad began to prep their gear “good luck brothers, spill those foul apes blood.” With that he bowed and headed back towards the command deck.
The spec ops squad began to move towards their personal phantom, finally after three years of planning it was time to get revenge on the Brutes, revenge for the countless young that had been slaughtered on high charity, revenge for the cold blooded murder of almost all the high council members. The Elites would enjoy this.
As soon as they were all strapped into their gravity harnesses the pilot of the phantom engaged the crafts camouflage and eased it forwards out of the Lightning's Furies hangar, the small transport began its short descent down to the planet but as with most operations something went wrong.
Just as they had entered the atmosphere the pilot announced he had two seraphs trailing them, even though the phantom was effectively invisible to both visuals and radar it generated gravity distortions while dropping through the atmosphere that the brutes were able to detect.
A volley of plasma fire flashed past the phantom, the Brutes knew they were there just not the exact position but eventually they would get lucky. Such a time came after about two minutes of blind firing. A single bolt of plasma struck a power conduit on the phantom which sparked and overloaded, the ship flickered back into visibility as the camouflage generator lost power, the seraphs now had a target.
A flurry of plasma rounds slammed into the back of the phantom, a secondary explosion flashed out of one of its engines and the dropship quickly began to lose altitude. Another burst of plasma impacted it and another explosion ripped through the phantoms hull and cockpit, the pilot was incinerated in less than a second.
Now with only one functional engine, no pilot and malfunctioning stabilizers the phantom listed to one side and increased speed towards the surface, it was a very rough ride for the spec ops squad and they had to fight not to pass out. The emergency stasis field that would have normally protected them had ceased to work due to the amount of damage the phantom had received.
Thirty seconds went by that seemed to last an eternity for the Elites before the phantom crashed into the Jungle below, trees were knocked out of its way and set on fire by the extreme heat coming off of the phantoms hull. The last thing that Spec ops squad leader Reja remembered was a loud crash, a sudden burst of pain and then everything went black.
Chapter 2 – Infiltrate/Move on
Something crackled, a pause for a few seconds…then again. Slowly Reja opened his eyes, his vision was blurry so he blinked several times to try and clear it. Looking around the phantom he saw his gravity harness had failed to keep him in place and the proud Sangheili warrior was sprawled across the floor.
Luckily the rest of the squad members remained strapped in and had taken little to no damage; unfortunately the same could not be said for the pilot since even from this angle Reja could see through to the twisted metal and charred controls that had once been the cockpit.
Groggily getting to his feat Reja activated his squad health monitor, an advantage to having an advanced commando helmet he thought to himself, no other member of the squad had this privilege. One by one the squad’s names and status flashed up:
Ornme ‘Aidure – status – 98%
Obru ‘Borut – status – 96%
Lysl ‘Tohul – status – 91%
Shesa ‘Emsom - status – 83% - additional: Sprained leg muscle
Considering they had just had such a serious crash those were fairly good results Reja thought, the only cause for concern was Shesa’s leg but he was a strong warrior and would be able to carry on as normal.
The other soldiers gradually unstrapped themselves, gathered their equipment and jumped clear of the phantoms wreckage, they had to move fast because the Brutes were likely to send patrols to check the wreckage or worse they might…
“Take cover!” Shesa yelled and the whole squad of Elites dove into the undergrowth by the crash site, not even two seconds later a pair of Seraphs screamed overhead. Plasma fire erupted from the fighters and streamed towards the downed phantom, when it impacted most of the troop section was vaporized and only a small bits and pieces of the dropship remained.
“Curse those foul apes,” Obru snarled, “they will pay dearly for this.”
“Calm yourself, we must remain focused on the mission,” Ornme cautioned the younger Elite.
“I- yes of course, sorry brother I let my emotions get the better of me,” Obru replied and hung his head.
“No matter, those Brutes shall be made to pay in time so take heart,” Ornme said before moving forwards to wear Reja was scanning the tree line, “what is our next objective leader?”
Reja slowly turned to face his second in command and whispered “when I give the command throw a grenade between that tree and rock directly behind me.”
Ornme looked puzzled but acknowledged his leaders command, a few moments later Reja gave a sharp nod of his head and in one quick fluid motion Ornme primed one of his plasma grenades and threw it between a gap in the tree and rock Reja had mentioned. A loud squawk echoed out just before the grenade detonated and sent the bodies of two Jackals flying through the air, “Now we move,” Reja commanded.
The five Elites quickly got into formation with Lysl taking point and Ornme bringing up the rear.
Chapter 3 – Watch for Sharks
The five Elites were gathered around a small river, it was only a tiny tributary that joined with the main river about one and a half miles downstream and Lysl had come up with an idea.
“We know the Brutes can track our scent so we go this way and they can’t,” he simply explained to the others.
“But swimming underwater for such a distance, I am unsure that is such a wise decision,” Shesa commented.
Reja turned to Ornme who had been silent during the debate, “What say you brother?”
Ornme snapped his head up out of his thoughts, “Well it is a risky action but I believe given our current situation it is the best idea,” he admitted.
“It is settled then, activate your camouflage, stay low and only bring your head up for breath when you absolutely have to,” Reja ordered and stepped into the water. Surprisingly the water was quite warm; Reja reasoned that it must be quite hot out in the sun where there was not the shelter of any trees.
Slowly the squad moved along the river, they were going in the same direction as the current so it wasn’t too difficult. The hardest part was finding rocks to grip and pull themselves forward since the river had worn the sediment down until it was nothing but smooth pebbles.
Reja was ahead of the rest of the squad by about twenty metres, he went ahead so he could spot trouble and warn the others somehow. In this case it proved to be a bad idea as when he drifted past a pile of rocks that looked to have crashed down a river bank a large serpent shot out of a gap in them and headed straight for Reja.
Before the Elite new what was happening the serpent which was easily the length of Reja and then some had coiled itself around him and began to crush the life out of him. Reja tried to swim for the surface but couldn’t break free, he was quickly running out of breathe so did the only other thing he could, he fought it.
He managed to unclip his plasma pistol from his belt but the position of the serpent was keeping the Elites arm pinned to his side. Reja fumbled around with the plasma pistol trying to turn it to an angle so he could get a clear shot into the serpent but he couldn’t, his vision was beginning to blur as his oxygen starved lungs began to burn.
Reja wasn’t sure how much time passed, Reja could only vaguely remember the water around him becoming very hot, he then recalled seeing the serpents ugly head flowing downstream leaving a trail of blood in the water behind it and its coils loosening. Then someone had grabbed him and was pulling him towards the shore.
Once on the shore Reja tried to inhale some much needed air and spit out some not so needed water at the same time and ended up having a violent coughing fit. Ornme who had dragged his leader to shore gave him a firm smack on the back that expelled the last of the water from Rejas lungs. The leader muttered a word of thanks and Ornme knew he would be alright but then a stench caught his attention and he raised his head. He did not like what he saw.
Krunso and Orangurok were walking through the dense jungle undergrowth, they had been ordered by their pack leader to search for any Elite survivors but so far their search had turned up empty and they were getting bored.
Just as they were losing hope of getting any kills that day they heard a commotion coming from the nearby river, moving to investigate the two young Brutes were delighted by what they found.
A couple of Elites were struggling on the riverbank; the Brutes unclipped their spikers and moved in for the kill.
Ornme stared down the barrel of the closet Brutes gun; his shields could absorb the first shots but then what? He could move to cover and fight back but that would mean leaving the leader and in his weakened state he was in no position to fight off to fully armed brutes.
The Brutes laughed and spoke to each other in their guttural native language, clearly excited about their hapless victims. What they didn’t notice was the other three Elites slowly emerging from the water on the other side of the small river, plasma rifles in hand.
It happened incredibly fast, bolts of blue plasma flashed out and slashed into the Brutes, since they were only minors their armour didn’t last more than a couple of seconds and their flesh quickly began to boil away.
After the action was over Reja shakily got to his feet, chocking up a little more water he quietly mumbled “I think we should walk from now on.”
Chapter 4 – Welcome to the Jungle
The undergrowth was thick and travelling through it was proving difficult for the Elites. It seemed every few steps one of them would trip on a tree root or get snagged by some creeping vine. Reja and Ornme had considered using their swords to cut a path but discarded the idea thinking it would give away their position.
Every now and then the whine of a phantoms engines passed overhead, no doubt searching for survivors. Luckily the jungle canopy was thick and the pilots couldn’t spot the Elites moving below and due to the nature of the jungle thermal and motion trackers were rendered useless.
Lysl was on point and suddenly stuck his hand in the air, the sign for the others to stop. The Elites crouched down and less than ten seconds later a trio of Jackals moved into view. Lysl whispered into hiss comm. “Shall I take them down leader?”
Reja thought about this for a moment before responding, “No if we are lucky the Jackals will continue their patrol without spotting us, however if we eliminate them then the Brutes shall be certain there are survivors.”
“But what about the casualty’s earlier?” Obru asked.
“They were necessary, the Jackals had spotted us and the Brutes would have killed us but even so we should keep casualties to a minimum, to avoid rousing suspicion.”
“Yes leader,” Lysl responded and waited for the Jackals to pass, once they had he motioned for the rest of the squad to move on.
Reja knew it was best to avoid drawing attention to themselves at this early stage, sneaking into the Brute cities anti-air batteries would be difficult enough after all.
The next half an hour went by without incident, the Elites hit a snag when the trees began to thin out, eventually stopping completely. They found themselves on a rocky bank of a river, no doubt the river that the smaller tributary they had swam in earlier flowed into. On the far side of the river were a lot of large rocks giving the bank plenty of cover and past that was a sheer cliff, unfortunately for the Elites they had to climb it.
Something didn’t seem right to Reja, he had fought battles throughout the human-covenant war and knew a perfect ambush scene when he saw one, “Lysl check those cliffs for snipers,” he ordered.
Lysl crouched down behind a rock just clear of the trees and hefted his beam rifle, the only heavy weapon the Elites had with them. He spent a few minutes scanning the cliffs before reporting. “I see three pairs of Jackal snipers spread out over the cliff face, they are armed with carbines, shall I fire?”
“No, I have another idea,” Reja said.
Rifak shifted on his grav-seat trying to get into a more comfortable position, he held his carbine across his lap ready to bring it up at the first sign of trouble. A couple of metres to his left stood Flintof who was searching for enemies through the scope of his carbine, “Relax, there would not be many survivors from the crash and those that did survive will be dead by now,” Rifak said.
“You can know that for certain and I don’t want to be caught off guard by those Elites,” Flintof responded and continued searching for a target.
Rifak sighed and turned away wishing he had some more talkative company, he heard a small commotion and turned back to the other Jackal only to find him missing, Rifak was alarmed and moved over to the ledge Flintof had been standing on. Peering over the edge of the cliff Rifak could see the body of the other Jackals sprawled out below. “Must have lost his footing,” Rifak sighed. He was about to report the death in when he felt a hand close around his throat.
Ornme searched for another foothold and hoisted himself up, he had almost reached the Jackals position and was waiting for the others to reach their targets checking his active camouflage was still working in the mean time, Ornme knew Reja and Obru were scaling the cliffs to get to the other pairs of snipers so he clicked his comm. Twice, his ‘in position’ signal.
Lysl and Shesa had stayed back at the edge of the jungle while the other Elites crossed the river and scaled the cliffs, they were the backup in case something went wrong but Lysl could also keep his beam rifle trained on the Jackal snipers in case they needed to be taken out.
After he got the signal to continue Ornme slowly pulled himself onto the ledge, a Jackal was just out of arms reach to his left so he thought up a plan, picking up a small stone he tossed it over the side. The jackal heard the noise and moved to investigate. Ornme moved fast, he kicked the jackal hard in the back snapping its spine and causing it to tumble off the cliff. Out of the corner of his eye Ornme noticed the other Jackal coming over to investigate, he stepped back to give it room.
He waited for the Jackal to see what had happened to its friend and then as it stepped back in shock the Elite moved forward and grabbed it round the neck, “You will report that you eliminated the Elite survivors as they attempted to cross the river,” Ornme commanded and lessened his grip on the Jackals throat so it could speak. The smaller alien activated its comm. and relayed the message. “Thank you,” Ornme muttered before forcing the Jackal off the cliff.
Ornme tapped his comm. “Leader, objective accomplished.”
Chapter 5 – Never Rely on Public Transport
Reja surveyed the area below him, after scaling the cliffs the Elites had pushed forward and were now hidden behind a clump of bushes on a ledge overlooking a small Brute outpost. There wasn’t much down there, just a few plasma batteries and a few supply crates. It was the vehicles that interested the Elites. An outdated Spectre as well as a couple of ghosts.
Reja ducked back down behind the bushes, “So how many are there?” Shesa questioned.
“Four minors, two majors and a captain,” Reja replied.
“Hardly a challenge,” Ornme scoffed.
“Indeed but we should still take them out with stealth to avoid attracting to much attention so move out,” Reja ordered.
The Elites snuck down to the same level as the camp, moving quietly through the trees and bushes that surrounded the clearing they all got into position near to the Brute guards. Ornme was the one to start things; he picked up a small rock and threw it into the trees behind him. The two Brute minors near him heard the noise and drew their Spikers. They slowly moved into the trees scanning for a target. Neither of them had any idea they were in trouble until they were slashed with a blade from behind and by then it was far too late.
After seeing the Brutes on the other side of the camp walk off Shesa began his part. Sneaking up to a Brute major he clubbed it as hard as he could in the back of the head with his plasma rifle, the Brute spun around but seeing no immediate target it got enraged and charged into the bushes to try and find the culprit. Unbeknownst to this particular Brute was that Lysl was lying in wait with his energy sword ignited.
Obru sprung into action now; silently he ran up to the remaining Brute major and plucked a spike grenade from its belt without the beast noticing. He primed it and threw it at a nearby minor who roared in defiance before being sliced into pieces, the last minor and the captain believed the major was responsible and literally tore him limb from limb before he could react.
Now there were only two left Reja leapt into the clearing and deactivated his camouflage, he impaled the nearest Brute which happened to be the minor with his sword and quickly spun round to find where the captain had gone. To his dismay he saw that the captain had managed to board a ghost and was now speeding off into the jungle. By now the other Elites had revealed themselves and met up.
“He can’t be allowed to escape and report us,” Lysl remarked.
Reja nodded “no he cannot, board these vehicles quickly we must give chase.”
Lysl quickly got behind the controls of the spectre while Shesa manned the turret. Reja and Obru settled in the seats on either side while Ornme Powered up the remaining ghost.
In only a few moments they were in hot pursuit of the Brute captain, it was difficult for the spectre however to dodge trees and it soon fell behind. It was up to Ornme to stop the Brute. He soon got within weapons range but the many trees and other forms of plant life made hitting the enemy ghost incredibly difficult. Ornme yelped as he ducked a low branch, sooner or later one of them would get killed if this kept up. Ornme wouldn’t have minded so much if it was certain that it would be the Brute that would die first.
Coming up with a new idea he pulled a short crystal knife from his belt, the Blade crackled as energy surged through it. Although it was extremely reckless Ornme activated the boost engines on the ghost and with some excellent piloting was soon catching up to the Brute. Once he got close enough he leapt out of his own vehicle and hit the enemies hard. He almost slipped off the back but managed to grab onto the Brute just in time.
The Brute roared and tried to shake him off but couldn’t do it since he had to pilot the Ghost as well, seizing the opportunity Ornme plunged the blade into the Brutes spine. The energy from the weapon coursed through its body and caused its limbs to violently twitch. Because of this the Brute could no longer keep control of the ghost. Ornme leapt off and landed with a roll and got up just in time to see the ghost (Brute pilot and all) smash into a large tree.
About a minute later the spectre pulled up. “Perhaps we should let you complete this mission yourself,” Shesa called to him.
“Perhaps,” Ornme replied.
Im back! Now with 72% more unseriousness!