Chapter (35) Between a Rock and A Hard Place (5)

(3rd Pov)

"All Pelicans the light is green. I say again you are free to begin the trip to the planet's surface," A authoritative voice is heard through a pilot's headset. The pilot smiled at the message and stood up from a crate she was sitting on, "We got the go-ahead. I hope you said your goodbyes and used the bathroom. Because we are leading the way,"

The pilot and co-pilot after giving the small platoon and additions a heads up began to make their way to the cockpit of the D77-TC Pelican. The marines groaned at the interruption of their game of cards and began gathering their equipment. Meanwhile, two abnormally tall individuals were finishing a conversation when their eyes lit up upon hearing the pilot's words.

The shorter of the two was leaning up against a large upright box with her left foot raised up behind her pressing on the crate. While the other taller one was simply standing straight beside her. They both had their helmets off and were holding them under their arms and were equipped with nearly identical loadouts. The loadouts consisted of an MA37 assault rifle with approximately four hundred rounds of ammunition, an M6D magnum with sixty rounds of ammunition, three frag grenades each, and additional equipment such as biofoam and armor patches in case of a breach. The only difference being that Cal Sierra-141 opted to add an SRS99-AM sniper rifle while Anna Alpha-156 decided to equip an M1319 Grenade Launcher with a belt of forty-millimeter grenades.

(MA37 Assault Rifle)

(M6D Magnum)

(SRS99-AM Sniper Rifle)

(M1319 Grenade Launcher)

Hearing the pilot informing the pair of their impending departure the short woman angled her face toward the other woman while pushing herself off the crate, "Seems like he actually managed to pull it off," she spoke with an impressed expression.

"It would appear so," said the taller woman in a short manner.

"Oh? Is someone upset by the little teasing he did before he took off?" Asked the shorter woman with a sly and amused expression, before putting her helmet on.

The taller woman ignored her and placed her own helmet on her head. She then turned and picked up the SRS99 sniper rifle leaning against the crate and placed it on the magnetic clamps of her suit. She began walking into the bay door of the pelican not paying mind to her laughing partner. Who seemed amused by the reaction she provoked from her taller friend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Daisy S-023 Pov)

"I just had to open my mouth" I mumble to myself lamenting the fact that I had jinxed us earlier while feeling the vibrations through the concrete wall I was taking cover behind.

*CHING*

*CHING*

*CHING*

I looked up and watched as multiple superheated spikes were fired by a Brute Captain flew through the air. They struck their target impaling themselves into the eye and clavicle of a Marine that had just peeked out from behind his cover.

(Brute Captain)

I didn't let the soldier's death be in vain. I turned around and quickly made my way to the other side of the wall and peeked around.

The Brute's attention along with the small attachment of Grunt's focus was still in the direction of the marine he had just mowed down. Seeing this, I fully came out of cover and let loose a stream of bullets from my MA5C shredding through the Brute's armor and shields before impacting his head. I then whipped around and switched my rifle to a single shot delivering four shots to each Grunt's head. The bullets pierced their environmental suits and cratered each of their skulls.

I scanned the shattered stone floor area (that used to be a courthouse) checking for more hostiles. I found no other targets and retreated back behind cover and began reloading. My ammo counter and HUD showed that I had less than half of a mag left in my rifle. So I swapped the rifle in my gun with another from one of the pouches on my thigh. I made sure to keep the near-empty magazine for later with how scarce I was on ammo.

As I was reloading I heard a set of footsteps approaching and my head snapped up to see who or what it was.

Looking up I spotted Sergeant Foley and three other Marines running with him. I had a small sense of relief seeing any soldiers remaining, seeing as this firefight began shortly before the end of that Spartan's bombing run, and I had not seen the sergeant or the rest of his men since then.

'Heh it seems that guy really pissed them off,' I couldn't help but smirk under my helmet knowing that he had most likely completed his mission and whatever he did definitely hurt those bastards.

The sergeant with his men in single file stacked up beside me on the wall I had been using for cover. I didn't greet him yet, instead, I checked my motion tracker first. Seeing that there were no enemies in the vicinity, I peeked around cover to try and spot any out-of-range of my tracker. Thankfully, there was nothing but an eerie silence that was spreading throughout the new graveyard.

I plopped down on the ground with my back pressed against the wall. I leaned my rifle against it as well with the barrel pointing upward. Sitting down I took off my helmet and shook my head, getting my hair straight as the wind blew through the strands. This wasn't the first time I had taken my helmet off while I was grouped with this unit, in fact, the first time every marine was shocked when I pulled off my helmet. Maybe because they were surprised to see what a Spartan looked like or maybe because I was a woman, whatever the reason they weren't expecting me to take off my helmet.

'Though I can't fault them for it. It's actually against regulation for Spartans to take off their helmets in combat… though when have I ever been one to follow the rules?' I reminisced with a smile internally while maintaining an expressionless face on the outside.

The Sergeant told his men to grab the tags and ammo of the marines that were holding this position with me. He slung his rifle on his back and pulled out a cigarette from a pocket on his uniform and lit it with a lighter from the same pocket. Seeing that he decided to take a smoke break I figured I would ask how the fight in the courtyard down the street went.

"I don't think I had any survivors. How was it on your end?" I asked while looking over at him. He took a long puff of his cigarette before reaching into a pouch on his chest with his free hand. Out of the pocket came his fist filled with pieces of metal attached to chains.

Dogtags

"We were engaged by a group of ghosts. We lost a couple more and most of the rest were wounded. However, we were able to take out the ghosts, but we are now out of rockets," he said, filling me in.

(Type 32-Rapid Attack Vehicle 'Ghost')

I could hear the sadness in his voice over losing more of his men. "I am sorry to hear that Sergeant. You have my condolences," I said calmly.

He smirked at my words, "Don't worry Chief if it wasn't for you I am certain we-"

*FWOOOSH*

"SHIT WRAITH!" the Sergeant yelled throwing his cigarette and grabbing his rifle

Hearing the sound of impending doom and out of reflex I threw my helmet on with my hair getting in my face, grabbed my rifle in my right hand, and sprinted in a single direction as fast as I could. My feet pumping and my rifle was placed on the magnetic mount on my back I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins. I turned around to see a thirty-five-centimeter glob of plasma about three seconds from impact. After identifying that I dove behind as much concrete, metal, and any other material I could find to shield myself.

*BOOM*

Even behind the cover, I could feel the heat wave coming from the impact of the plasma mortar. Thankfully I managed to get behind enough cover that both the concussion and heat wave had mostly dissipated though the armor helped a lot.

Pushing myself up off the ground, I regain a crouched position and don't move out from my cover. I first take off my helmet and get my hair out of my eyes before slowly placing it back on my head. I then slowly peeked half of my head around the corner trying to spot the rest of the Marines.

The courthouse was officially now a crater and the once white rock flooring was now black scorched glass. There was no sign of life in the twenty-meter-long crater of blackened ash. I wasn't aware of where the other marines were so I asked for a sitrep over the comms and was met with silence. Even though the silence told me everything I needed to know about their status I still decided to check the surrounding area before retreating.

I moved from cover to cover using a combination of crouch walking and low crawls in order to not be spotted by that wraith again. The last thing I need is for it to fire another mortar round and crater the rest of my cover.

"Psst. Hey! Chief!" I looked to my right to see a marine with burns calling out to me from about ten feet to my right inside what appeared to be an old damaged shop.

I got up, did a quick scan of my surroundings, and ran into the shop through the missing front door. I didn't stop once inside and continued until I was in the back room and the marine closed the door behind me after I made my way in.

"What's your status?" I asked

"Nolan got some pretty bad burns. I got some as well but his were worse. Jake was near the center of the round so I doubt he survived," he said while sitting down on a box, "We found Sergeant Foley immediately after the blast," he paused and pointed to the other side of the room. Looking over I saw the charred remains of the Sergeant. He was missing both of his legs and his uniform was ragged and partially fused to his skin. The armor on his chest and arms similarly had melted and was goopy clinging onto his flesh like sap to a tree.

He continued, "Me and Nolan dragged him into here. At that point, he was still breathing, and we tried to give first aid… But as you can see there wasn't much we could do. And that's basically it, Chief. I told Nolan to get some rest and bandage himself while I sat at the front looking for you,"

I nodded as he concluded his story. I began walking towards the corpse of the fallen Sergeant and crouched down beside it. I sighed before reaching into a pouch and pulling out a bird's nest of dog tags then reached to his neck and yanked his own. I stowed them in an empty pocket and then began searching his body for any usable ammo. It seemed that my luck was taken with the dog tags because I only found a single mag to which I took.

I got up and walked back over to the marine, "Come with me to the roof. We need to assess the survivability in this sector," I said looking down at him.

"Yes ma'am," he nodded in response.

Once on the third-story roof I made my way to the edge and pulled out a pair of binos. The roof was four stories high and it gave a great angle of elevation as well as cover from the sight of the street. As I looked around I did not like what I saw.

There was a tank platoon consisting of four Wraiths evenly spaced along a sort of arc. They were all at least four miles out from our position, but they were approaching our position slowly. Mixed in with the Wraiths I spotted half of a company of foot soldiers with the full course. Brutes, Elites, Jackals, and Grunts… a whole lot of grunts were making their way toward us.

(Type 26 Assault Gun Carriage)

"Jesus seems like they are making their push. What are we gonna do chief? Asked the Marine to my right crouched down.

I connected my helmet to STRAT COMM, "Gamma actual, this is Gamma Four we are requesting immediate fire support. Charlie platoon has been almost completely wiped out and we are being advanced upon by a platoon of Wraiths and at least half a company, how copy?"

There was a long pause after I sent my message. I was hoping there wasn't a jammer set up or we were just fucked and even I wasn't sure if I could make my way out through so many covies alone. The Wraiths would also shell anyone foolish enough to run and get caught by the foot soldiers' line of sight. Retreat wasn't an option anyway because that would lead to the loss of the entire city most likely.

After what felt like hours a short burst of static came and I heard the transmission, "This is Gamma Actual solid copy, Sierra zero two three. Warthog One has just finished re-arming and refueling. Call out your coordinates then stand by for a gun run,"

"This is Warthog One approaching the target area, over," That same voice from earlier spoke through the comm and I couldn't help but grin under my helmet at the load of shit those idiots outside were in.

"It's great to have you back Warthog One," I said over the comm.

"It's good to be back Sierra zero two three. Now let's begin shall we?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

New chapter!?

Yeah so this chapter was only 2300 words and I know I said it was going to be a longer one and include his new set of armor. BUT I changed my mind and have been busy.

With that stuff in mind I hope you liked the chapter anyway. This was the first in a while that didn't have a MC Pov in it so I hope it was fine.

I will be updating the auxillary probably tonight or tomorrow and will be adding a list of the songs of the day so be on the lookout for that.

Oh yeah by the way Wraiths in the books are a LOT different than game Wraiths. According to First Strike they can literally turn anything in 20 meters to ash including concrete, titanium armor, basically any material. Outside of that range you have to worry about extreme burns and the concussive force caused by the mortar round.

Anyway leave any questions you may have.

Song of the day is "Ten Thousand Fists" By Disturbed

I hope you all have a blessed day and I will See You Star Side