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Helljumper - Chapter One
Date: 10 January 2006, 2:23 am
August 16th, 2541 - 0630 Hours
Gamma Ceti VI, Dropship Kilo November Zero-Six
"Papa Bear to all units, Covenant forces are preparing to glass the planet, all UNSC units fall back to dropship evac stations."
Antonio Silva listened as the voice crackled through the radio. What remained of his platoon was completely accounted for and inside the Albatross dropship.
Silva pushed his microphone lightly towards his mouth.
"Major Johnson, this is Lieutenant Silva, 1st Platoon, Charlie Company is loaded and ready to take off."
Silva waited a few seconds for a reply.
"Affirmative Lieutenant, is Captain Elias with you?" The reply came.
"Negative sir, his vehicle was destroyed on our way to the evac pad."
"Copy that, I want you to take command of Charlie Company, get a head count and keep everyone in order when you arrive back on your ship. Johnson out."
"Roger."
Silva climbed up into the cockpit of the Albatross dropship. He slapped the pilot on the shoulder and gave him a thumbs up signal. A few seconds later the craft jolted as it lifted off the pad. Silva strapped himself into a seat and tried to relax.
"Lieutenant, make sure everyone is strapped in, I don't think the Covies want us getting off this planet." The pilot said over the aircrafts comm system.
Silva turned towards his men and motioned for them to all put on their safety harnesses.
Before they could however, a massive jolt rang through the ship. Several items inside the ship exploded, and then the rear door blasted off of the craft and quickly dissappeared below and behind the craft. Several marines who were not properly strapped in were also blown out by the explosion, as was an M12 LRV "Warthog" which had been poorly chained down in the middle of the cargo bay.
Silva switched his radio to the air chatter to see what the pilots were saying.
"This is dropship Kilo November Zero-Six, we've been hit and we are going down!" A loud yell went into the radio.
Almost immediately after this, the pilot switched to the cargo bay loudspeaker.
"Everyone hold on tight, we are going down!"
Silva closed his eyes and forgot all that was going on around him. All of his body tension went away, even though the craft was falling out of the sky at nearly two hundred metres per second.
He listened with a cool calm to the pilots as they screamed into the radio, who were unaware or didn't care that their microphones were still transmitting.
"FIRE EMERGENCY ROCKETS NOW!" The pilot screamed.
"EMERGENCY ROCKETS FIRING, I'M PULLING UP HARD!" The co-pilot responded with an equally terrifying yell.
Silva was expecting a warning from the pilots, a brace for impact or we're gonna hit! But the only thing that came was a thunderous crash as the dropship struck water, skipping off the surface twice before slamming into the coastline. Silva felt like his body was being ripped apart, but he remained completely relaxed the entire time, letting his body be jolted around rather than trying to hold himself in place.
As soon as it felt like everything was still, Silva opened his eyes and looked around. Their was carnage everywhere, several seats had been ripped from the interior walls of the cargo bay, their occupants still in them, mangled beyond recognition. Several marines were more fortunate and their seats remained attached to the walls, but the shock of the crash had killed them.
Silva unbuckled himself, and stood up. He immediately fell down however, as he had underestimated the toll the crash had taken on his body. He lie still for a few seconds, as pain went up and down the entire length of his body. As it wore off, he slowly rose back to his feet. He started to climb towards the cockpit, but when he saw that the front quarter of the aircraft was totally obliterated, he realized the futility of finding the pilots and turned around.
After a few minutes of searching in the cargo bay, Silva uncovered a single S2AM sniper rifle, with only one loaded clip of 14.5mm armour piercing taped to the side. Silva reached to his side holster to make sure he still had his sidearm with him. He pulled the M6C pistol from the holster and checked it for ammunition, only one round was left, and it was in the chamber.
Well this is going to suck. Silva muttered to himself as he staggered out the open back end of the dropship. Silva pulled down the visor on his helmet as the sun hit his face. It was mid day on this planet, and a scorching one hundred and ten degrees. He wouldn't be able to stay out for long, and if the Covenant bombardment was coming as soon as they said it was earlier, he'd have to get off in a hurry or a hundred and ten would be nothing.
After searching around the dropship, Silva climbed up on the dirt pile that had been created when the nose of the dropship dug into the ground. It gave a good viewpoint of the area, and he could see immediately that he was in bigger trouble than he previously thought. The dropship had crashed no more than a mile away from a Banshee refueling depot, and a pair of Elites had already headed towards the column of smoke coming from the downed Albatross.
Silva jumped down from the pile of dirt and thought to himself. If I could just get to one of those banshee's, I could make it into orbit and hail a UNSC evac ship.
He would either have to go through the guards, or go around them to get to the Banshee's however. He quickly made up his mind, and headed towards a concealed position in between the crash site and the two Elites headed in his direction.
As the Elites closed to within a hundred metres, they paused. One of them shouted something out, and when it seemed as though the elites had spotted Silva, he opened fire on them. Both elites dropped dead as their heads were vaporized by the awesome power of the S2AM. Immediately an alarm sounded at the refueling depot, and Silva wasted no time in moving. He hoped most of the guards would leave the base and head towards the dropship, but he had no assurances.
Within minutes Silva had reached the depot. He snuck through the small camp, but paused when he heard some alien voices. He remained as silent as he could, with his back pressed up against a glossy purple cylindrical fuel tank. The voices became louder, and Silva slid around the tank, trying to remain as far away from them as he could. Suddenly the voices fell silent, and so did the footsteps. Silva looked at an adjacent fuel container, and saw on it the reflection of two elites, sniffing the air.
They were on the opposite side of the container from him, both facing towards the north. Silva crouched down, and snuck around the south side of the container, coming up behind the elites. When he was within a metre of the Elites, he knelt down to the ground and put two white phosphorous grenades down. He immediately backed off behind another fuel container, where he readied a third HE grenade. He leaned around the corner to make sure his targets were still there, and then removed the clip from the grenade and pressed in the fuse button before rolling it towards the elites.
The noise was enough to alert the two elites, who turned around with their rifles leveled. Silva immediately raised his hands, and gave a faint smile. The elites had not seen the grenade rolled towards them, or the two already on the ground. They were paying close attention to Silva, and seemed to be laughing, probably wondering in what brutal fashion to kill him.
But after only a few seconds, the grenade exploded. Silva immediately dove behind a fuel container, but realizing that it was probably not the best place to be during the fireworks display he took off running towards the landing pads.
The first grenade sent shrapnel into the backs of the elites, knocking out the shields on both warriors, but not injuring them. The two white phosphorous grenades however, went off not too long after and had a profoundly different result. Just as the elites turned to see what the explosion came from, the white phosphorous exploded, sending powder all over the elites before igniting them. The elites both let out horrific roars, as their bodies burned in a hellish blaze.
Every Covenant in the camp heard the sound, and came rushing to the scene. Just as they arrived however, the fuel tanks began exploding. One after another they went up, creating an even larger inferno, which engulfed nearly every Covenant in the camp.
Silva never turned back from his mad sprint. When he reached his objective, he climbed inside the cockpit of a pressurized banshee and looked at the controls. He had a limited amount of training in civilian aircraft from his time on Reach, and surprisingly the Banshee was not much different in terms of controls. Silva powered the craft up and took off, never once looking back to see what havoc he had wrought.
UNSCDF Special Forces Training Centre, Brisbane, Australia
August 22nd, 2541
Colonel Ackerson shot up immediately after the first knock on his door. He hurried to it and opened.
"Major Scott, What is the final report?" He immediately inquired to the man standing before him.
"70% casualty rate, most of them dead or dieing." The man replied.
"And Captain Chaffee?"
"His drop pod collided with another on the way in, he never touched the ground." The major replied, showing no emotion over the fact he had lost many good friends in the latest battle.
Ackerson remained to the point, almost uncaring of the results of the battle on Gamma Ceti VI
"We are the last combat ready battalion in the entire division, and now we've lost nearly all of our officers and men. Major, we need replacements. Go through the files of the special forces candidates, I don't care what you have to do, get some damned replacements or command will scrap the helljumpers for good."
The major immediately responded "I've already got a list of candidates ready."
Colonel Ackerson smiled and remarked at the Major's foresight "Good to see you're on top of things, how many do you have?"
"I have about four hundred, and an additional thirty officers."
Ackerson shifted his head and raised an eyebrow "Have you spoken with any of them?"
The returned with the same emotionless face "Yes sir I have, most of the enlisted seemed eager to join, some of the officers seemed somewhat more reluctant. I've got a candidate that I am particularly interested in however."
The Colonel seemed to lose interest. "Who is it?"
"He's a lieutenant in the 388th Infantry Battalion, Charlie Company."
Ackerson's face immediately lit up. "I thought that battalion was wiped out?"
"It was, he was the only survivor. His dropship was shot down as it was attempting to climb into orbit. He somehow survived the crash, took out several Covenant patrols, a Covenant refueling depot, then stole a Banshee, AND returned to our fleet, all in the same day."
"And he was one who was reluctant to join?"
"He refused to join."
Colonel Ackerson smiled. "Sounds like an underachiever. Bring in the new recruits, I'll get them started with training, but you need to deal with this Lieutenant."
The Major gave a crisp salute. "Aye aye sir."
Ackerson responded with an unrecognizeable hand movement towards his face.
The Major closed the door and left, without ever stepping foot inside the Colonels office.
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