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Operation Rubicon, Part 1
Date: 22 August 2003, 2:09 AM
Operation Rubicon, Part 1
Note: because the database does not support tabs, I have indicated paragraph changes using bold characters.
2552.5.26 19:26:31
Location: Rally Point Zulu, Human Command Post
Marines are everywhere, running, shouting, frantic yet focused, randomly yet with purpose. They are like a mob of shoppers on a Christmas Eve mall raid, all hauling their packages: crates packed with enough grenades to make a careless marine reach escape velocity on Jupiter in under three seconds, enough magazines of 7.62mm ammunition to fuse shut the barrel of every assault rifle in Zulu long before expending it all, tins of dried rations that look and taste like dessicated pre-digested baby food, enough morphine syrettes to anethesize the better part of eastern Asia. When the marines first arrived on the ridge that marks Zulu, they cleared the trees with the efficiency of a colony of elephant-sized termites, leaving a bare promontory with a clear sightline for miles around. But all these soldiers are each part of a new jungle fashioned of green camo, alive with perpetual motion, each appearing part of a verdant rainforest canopy fighting a hurricane. She leaves her bird under the loving care of one of these soldiers and then passes through the mob of marines that separates the landing field from Zulu-proper.
The tent housing the infirmary is full. An overflow has been built in the looming shadow of a damaged pelican, propped up by the remnants of its own engines, its hull melted into wicked ridges of metal teeth from the plasma cannons of a Covenant dropship. She makes her way past this without flinching. In her peripheral vision, med techs desperately try to clamp a bleeding femoral artery, and blood spurts upward in violent bursts, as if some rookie is using bottles of ketchup for target practice. She has been seeing bleed-outs all day; indeed, she has located and ferried many marines back to the C.P. so that they may die in the company of their own instead of... out there.
Plasma scoring is worse. Metal body armour melts under prolonged plasma fire; she remembers one poor soldier whose leg had been broiled inside his metal greaves, and the entire leg broke away like the burned flakes of an overcooked croissant as his comrades lifted him into the back of the pelly. The VTOL jets blasted the leg into a veil of ashes as the rest of the marines climbed aboard. And the screaming...
The mess is made of four large tent poles driven into the ground, over which has been strung a large tarp. Soldiers sit on the ground, or on empty ammo cases, or on the hulking carcasses of damaged warthogs. Half-buried in the soil adjacent to the mess tent sits one such hog, its hood missing and the entire engine block having been melted into something with the technological complexity of apple pie. The M41 still functions, and soldiers take turns manning the gun like a turret because they feel better knowing they've got one more gun on guard against a surprise Covenant strafing.
Soldiers salute her as she enters the mess area. They view her like they do their favourite sports idol - or perhaps their favourite sex symbol - it's hard to understand the obscure inner workings of a soldier's mind. There is no doubt that the men respect her... she has seen things that would make grown men turn their guts inside out and hurl bits of last year's Christmas dessert in a dispersive spray of digested food bits resembling a hail of flechettes, and still she returns to save more lives.
She takes a bowl. It isn't terribly clean, but she hasn't eaten a real meal in over fifteen hours, and she isn't being picky.
The cook takes the bowl and fills it with an odd-looking substance that smells vaguely like chili and looks like freshly ground porcupine seasoned with rabbit pellets. After returning the bowl, the cook sits rigidly at attention and offers her a stiff salute. The cook is a marine who would still be driving smoking ballistics into Covenant hides if not for the fact that he has two less limbs than the average man. He understands what it is like.
She takes her food and sits down next to Fish.
"Lieutenant."
"Corporal Fisher," she acknowledges in return.
Fish's face is covered in ash and blood. The only clean areas are wrinkles that fan outward from his eyes and mouth, as if an artist were etching character lines into a black marble bust. Fish had participated in the Operation Silent Cartographer with the Master Chief and had been one of the few to survive the beachhead assault. Intel had reported light resistance, but the L.Z. had been hot. Many marines died in plasma fire before even leaving the dropships. The mission had ultimately been a success, but the backs of the pellies ended up looking like the insides of overcooked microwave dinner trays.
"How are you feeling, Fish?"
"Better. Just needed some rest, is all. My arm hurts like a son-of-a-bitch, but that ain't important. Didja hear? Command says they might have a lead on the ring's natural defenses. They're puttin' together another team."
"You really think you should go out there? Your arm was burned pretty bad, Fish. The recoil from the A.R. could pop it right off."
"There ain't enough healthy men left, Lieutenant. Everyone's injured. All I know's that we ain't gettin' off this ring unless we pull our shit together. Morale's down. The younger boys are scared shitless. We gotta move on this while we still got any momentum left."
She nods. She is no stranger to soldier logic. If there were a trench wide enough for two and inside it a bolt of blistering plasma searing down its length, behind which waited a horde of Covenant that would make the Nuremburg rallies look like a house-warming party, these marines would still charge down that trench with a song in their hearts as long as the coda included a crescendo of Covenant parts being mixed with other Covenant parts.
She begins to eat her lunch. It tastes like dirty socks, but under certain circumstances almost anything can be appealing as a meal.
"What did you do back home?" Fish asks.
"On Earth?" She smiles. "I train pilots. Navy. I'm a lifer, Fish. You?"
"I fixed cars."
She nods.
"The truth is, we can't go home, can we? I mean, if we go, they'll find it, won't they? That's why we got that Cole Protocol?"
She reaches out and lightly rubs Fish's good arm.
"Ben, were going home. We're going to nuke the Covenant back to whatever hole they came from, and we're going home."
The corporal attempts to smile, but the expression comes out as a more of a grimace, the type of expression elicited when a nurse inserts a cold rectal thermometer.
A female voice calls out, "Lieutenant."
The voice belongs to First Lieutenant Potievskaya, the highest ranking officer at Zulu. She places her bowl on the ground, stands, and salutes her.
"We have a situation," Lieutenant Potievskaya says, in a voice so husky and robust that it could instantly shrivel the erection of a man who had spent the last five years in solitary.
"We always have a situation," she responds, keeping her tone serious. Even at the best of times, she knows that trying to elicit laughter from Lieutenant Potievskaya is like trying to squeeze water from a block of rocksalt.
"Approximately four hours ago, we sent in a team of Spec-ops to an alien structure in sector 18. Five minutes ago, we received an emergency communiqué from them. The reception was poor, but they're in trouble.
Lieutenant Potievskaya unravels map on a nearby table while casting a glare over the mess that causes marines to quickly scatter in a manner similar to the dispersal following a sudden violent outburst of methanogenic and sulfurous flatulence. "The structure is in this canyon, here, 326 miles north northeast of Zulu. We left them a pair of hogs under cover of the jungle growth, here, but they've got too many injured to move out of the canyon. They say they've found a wide ledge suitable for dustoff and they're ready to prep an emergency L.Z. here, on the far side," Lieutenant Potievskaya says, pointing out an area that has been delineated by a big red circle. "They're using the trees as cover, so they won't blow the daisy cutters until you get there. I've uploaded the coordinates to your bird."
She sighs.
"Foe Hammer, I know you just got back, but echo 416 and 417 are down for repairs. We've lost three others, and 420-and-up are currently deployed. This team has priority one information. It is imperative that they return to C.P."
Lieutenant Potievskaya places her hand on Foe Hammer's shoulder, pulling her in close. In Foe Hammer's ear, she whispers, "It could turn the tide."
Foe Hammer nods.
She turns to Fish and says, "Corporal, find Chan and get him to make sure my bird is fueled. And hose out the passenger area. I don't want those men lifted out of there in a pool of their comrades' blood."
"What was that about wantin' to go out again?" the corporal asks sarcastically.
"Just do it, Fish."
"Yes ma'am." He moves off toward the landing field, leaving the officers alone.
"Foe Hammer."
"Yeah?"
"The Spec-ops' mission was called 'Rubicon.' They went there looking for a secret Covenant weapon. We don't know what they found, but you could be flying into some deep shit."
Foe Hammer smirks. Deep shit is not new to her. She has flown pellies into and out of more deep shit than could fill the Pacific Ocean. She has been in so much deep shit that, in her opinion, water siphoned from a septic tank could be bottled and sold as crystal clear mountain spring by the Coca-Cola company.
"Pelican Gamma 124 is on her way back to C.P. as we speak. We're going to reload her M41's, and we'll send her out to rendez-vous with you at the emergency L.Z. to provide gunship cover."
Foe Hammer salutes.
Lieutenant Potievskaya returns the gesture. "Go and save some soldiers."
2552.5.26 15:00:00
Location: Rally Point Zulu, Human Command Post
"Officer on deck!"
Mitchell scrambles to his feet, nearly bowling over his chair, and whips a salute so flamboyant that he nearly scalps himself with his hand. He sees the six other marines in the room snicker as the Lieutenant passes by.
"Good afternoon, soldiers. As you were."
The marines reseat themselves, and Mitchell follows suit, with about as much grace as a one-legged man figure skating. These six guys have a metallic aloofness reflected in their irises that unnerves him, and the Russian lady clearly unnerves them, and though he's never really dealt with Lieutenant Potievskaya before, Mitchell is pretty sure that her arrival is the official cue for him to soil himself.
"At approximately thirteen-hundred hours today, we intercepted Covenant broadcasts that indicated that they are developing some new form of technology at a facility nearby. We did not discover what kind of technology, although, being Covenant, it is likely plasma-based. We need to confirm these reports, gentlemen."
"So this is strictly recon, ma'am?"
"Correct. Your primary objective is to discover what the Covenant are working on, Sergeant Peterson. However, if the opportunities present themselves, secondary objectives are to disrupt production of this new technology and to destroy the facility, if possible."
The marines exchange nods, the type of silent communication that occurs between boys who know that their parents are going out for the day and that the collection of pornography is in the bedroom closet in the blue shoebox.
"I saw that look Summers. This isn't a cowboy mission. This is priority one; the Covenant should not even know you're there. You should avoid engagement if possible; use full discretion if not." Lieutenant Potievskaya steps to the side to refer to a large map posted on the wall.
"The facility is approximately 326 miles north northeast of Zulu, in this large canyon. You will insert at L.Z. alpha, here, on the southeast side, about one mile from the structure. The entry point to the structure is on the east face. Once there, you will gather the necessary intelligence and exfil via the western exit on northwestern face of the canyon. Two warthogs will be waiting for you at rally point victor, here, under the cover of the brush, about one-half mile west of the canyon. You will exfil on the hogs and return to base. We estimate that the mission time from insertion to exfiltration should take no more than two hours."
The soldier named Summers raises his hand and speaks. His voice is rough with a drawl so strong that he must have been conceived immaculately from the soil of Mississippi itself. "Do we have an escape and evasion plan, ma'am?" (To Mitchell it sounds like: Doe way hay-ev an's-cape an'vay-sion play-en, may-em?)
"You'll have to rope down to the canyon floor and move southwest, toward Zulu, to a safe extraction point. Make no mistake, soldiers. You want to avoid notice at all costs. There is very little cover in the vicinity of the structure. The canyon floor, as far as we've been able to tell, is rocky and uneven and not ideal for a fast escape."
"Great," Summers interrupts.
"And you'll have to protect your guest."
"We're taking him?" asks Sergeant Peterson.
The moment that it takes for Mitchell to realize that the Sergeant is pointing at him seem like an eternity. When he talks, Peterson sounds like an overeducated Oxford graduate or yet another surviving royal from the now-defunct Court of England, but the index finger that's directed at him like a glistening bayonet seems to Mitchell to be the finger of doom here to dispense the wrath of God, and Mitchell fully expects to have a coronary embolism or develop testicular cancer right there on the spot.
"Correct."
"Who's this guy?"
"He's a military scientist, Corporal Burns. Why don't you introduce yourself?"
Mitchell scans the room, feeling like someone is kneading his guts like pizza dough. He finally settles on a point in the ceiling to stare at.
"Uh... Hi. I'm Mitchell Ryan... Uh... You can call me Mitch - or Ryan if you wish - Uh... Yeah..."
"With all due respect ma'am, what do we need him for?" The question comes from a pasty white bald man with a jerky accent that places him in the Territories of New South Africa, where, apparently, the latest government regime has adopted trial by fire as accepted method for distinguishing between innocence and guilt.
"Watch your mouth, de Jager. You're taking him in so that he can have a look at what the enemy is working on. If he can retrofit whatever it is for our use, you'll bring it home."
"We don't need any Covie crap. Show me a marine with a pistol, and I'll show you Covenant skull you can use as a bong."
A chorus of approvals echoes through the tent. The marine, de Jager, winks at Mitchell, a gesture that loosens his sphincter just a little more.
"That's enough private," Lieutenant Potievskaya says. "Dr. Ryan might save your life today, so stow that garbage and save it for the Covenant. Tell them what you've figured out."
"Uh... yes..." Mitchell stammers, moving to the table and picking up a laptop computer. He leans over and pulls the lens cap from a data projector, and on the screen is now a schematic of the inner-workings of a Covenant rifle. The sheer number of labels, arrows, blinking cursors, and animations on the diagram works to produce an image of such ridiculous complexity that the marines may as well be reading the genetic code for God.
"By studying alien guns, as well as some of the technology aboard that dropship that the Captain brought home, I've discovered some interesting things about Covenant weapons.
"As we all know, plasma is a state of matter involving the ionization of atoms in a gaseous state." The annotated picture of the rifle dissolves into a much simpler figure depicting blue dots with "+" signs and red dots with "-" signs. "What this means is that in plasma, there are two sets of charged moieties, free electrons, which are negatively charged, and atomic nuclei, which are positively charged. At low temperatures, similarly charged moieties repel one another, so these nuclei are constantly pushing other nuclei away. However, at sufficiently high temperature, the molecules travel at speeds high enough to overcome electrostatic repulsion. If two nuclei collide at a high enough speed, this causes a fusion event, which releases an incredible amount of energy."
"So what you're saying, Dr. Ryan, is that Covenant weapons are like little nuclear bombs," says Kim, a marine private (by his stripes) who has a distinctly Asian accent, although Mitchell himself does not possess the savvy to know which one.
"I suppose, though to say so would be a gross oversimplification." Mitchell presses a couple of buttons and skips the slide presentation ahead. The picture of the Covenant rifle is redisplayed, with particular attention given to the barrel of the rifle. If Dr. Ryan weren't so deeply immersed in his element (he responds to quantum physics the same way your average male responds to a twirling thong), he would have noticed that the all the marines, except for a darkly-tanned fellow in the back, are busy counting the individual threads in ceiling of the tent. So Mitchell continues his relentless assault on the sensibilities of scientific laypersons everywhere.
"There are many aspects of Covenant technology that still perplex us. What I have told you about plasma so far is true to the extent that our own technology allows us to understand it. The maintenance of plasma is a self-propagating process; once fusion temperature has been reached, it is fusion itself that maintains the temperature. However, Covenant weapons are not like standard fusion reactors. By some unknown mechanism, their guns can maintain the high temperatures without the need for constant fusion events. This allows the plasma fuel for the weapons to be stored indefinitely without decay. Also, when these weapons are discharged, the superheated plasma undergoes fusion upon contact with its target. We don't know how the plasma fuel 'knows' (Mitchell partakes of some melodramatic gesticulating representative of his quotation marks) when to fuse."
"So it sounds like your studies have just created more questions," says Kim. "Much of this information is over our heads, Dr. Ryan. How exactly does this help us?"
Mitchell returns to the slide depicting the simplified representation of plasma. "What we have to remember is that plasma, although gaseous and extremely hot, is still subject to the same principles of any other charged substance. How can you manipulate charged substances without using your hands?"
"You use a magnet," Kim responds.
"Correct. And like iron, nickel, cobalt, or germanium, we can manipulate plasma using magnets. As far as we have been able to determine, that's how Covenant weapons work; they use magnets to focus and direct bursts of plasma energy."
Sergeant Peterson raises his hand. "Okay, I get it. So we can use magnets to control their weapons."
"To a point. Again, the paucity of our understanding limits the efficacy of any countermeasures we can hope to develop. However, we do know that if we can slow down the nuclei, we can prevent fusion events, thereby rendering their weapons less harmful. This is where magnets come in. Now, remember, these weapons maintain heat without fusion, and there's just no way to diffuse that much heat in time between firing and contact. The plasma is going to burn you whether you like it or not. However, if we can generate a strong enough magnetic field in which the force of magnetism can counteract the force generated by the speed of motion of the nuclei, then we can prevent nuclear fusion, or at the very least we can prevent fusion from occurring at the point of contact."
The picture on the screen flips to one of a suit of armour. Arrows with "+" signs radiate outward from the armour, and the red-coloured nuclei float around it, outside the area delineated by the arrows. It could be a simple representation of a magnetic field repelling charged particles, or it could be an advertisement for deodorant.
"So what's the point of that?" de Jager asks. "We're still taking the hit, right?"
"It will take the edge off," the Lieutenant interjects.
"The edge? What the Hell?" Burns, who had been relatively silent until now chimes in with a discordant tone of skepticism that hits Mitchell like an icepick in the nuts.
Hernandez jumps in, in a coarse and quiet voice that could only be the product of years of industrial-strength chain-smoking, "What the doctor is saying, guys, is that the magnetic interference will mean the difference between third-degree burns and coming home with no torso. Personally, Burns, I'd like to keep my torso."
"Hoo-ah to that," says Summers, slamming his fists into the back of the chair in front of him. "You've all seen what happens to a human body at a few thousand degrees-"
"-Um... a few million, actually..."
"-a few million degrees, so if Doc-boy here can keep me from ending up like a used charcoal briquette, he's got my undivided."
The lieutenant steps forward, allowing Mitchell to hide behind her like a three-year old child disappearing from strangers behind his mother's legs.
"The chest plate of your armour has been retrofitted with a prototype electromagnet developed by Dr. Ryan and his team. We've tested it, and the effect is substantial. As Hernandez has pointed out, if you take a direct hit, you'll survive."
"And how much is this thing supposed to weigh? We've already got over sixty pounds of gear..."
"Quit your whining Burns," Peterson says, using a censorious tone that to Mitchell sounds very natural coming from a Briton.
"With the power pack, it's about ten pounds," Mitchell answers. "The power packs should last through three hours of constant use. You'll be better off with than without."
Hernandez stands and salutes him. "Hoo-ah, sir."
"Hoo-ah?" Mitchell asks, again feeling distinctly out of place as he watches five pairs of eyes roll dramatically like corpses turning in their graves. In his mind, he hears the ominous statement: It is better to remain silent and have people think you're stupid than to open your mouth and erase all doubt.
"Hoo-ah, sir, Hotel, Unicorn, Alpha. Heard, Understood, Acknowledged. Sir!"
"Oh. Okay... then." Mitchell looks at the Lieutenant.
"Any other questions?" she asks. "Or is everyone satisfied like Private Hernandez?"
None of the marines says anything.
"We've dug up some modular suppressor attachments for your M6D's and S2's. (Mitchell sees de Jager exchange a mischievous - almost orgasmic - look with Kim.) I'm sure you'll find these useful. Don't forget to pick them up. You have twenty minutes for equipment and weapons prep. Remember your objectives. The operation codename is Rubicon. Be at the bird at fifteen-thirty. Dismissed!"
As the marines disperse, Lieutenant Potievskaya turns to Dr. Ryan. "You need combat gear."
"I'm not certain that I'm really suited for this sort of thing, Lieutenant."
"Doctor, we are getting our asses kicked out there. We have the remnants of one destroyed cruiser against an armada that was expecting us. There will be no dead weight on Zulu, not on my watch. We need a break, and we need one fast, doctor, or we're all staying on this ring, for good. How about it?"
Mitchell possess enough intellect that Lieutenant Potievskaya is not posing a question.
He nods. "I'm in. We're going home, Lieutenant."
"Good to hear, soldier."
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