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The Phokian Wall Part III: Loki

It's just a job. At least, that's what I tell myself whenever things get hairy. It's just business. I mumble those words over and over as I run stooped over from cover to cover. I say it's what I get paid to do as I dodge streams of plasma fire and the enveloping ionization of plasma grenades. You can see my mouth move when I jump behind a piece of plasma-scored rubble charred beyond any recognition of whatever the hell it might have once been. It's a job, it's a job, it's a job, it's a job.

Luckily this hardly ever happens. Rarely do the Covenant see me and even when they do they're hard pressed to get a bead on me. I live in the tangle of blasted architecture. I breathe in the darkness of shadows. Where others huddle for a brief respite to reload or where wounded hobble to suture their bleeding arteries, that's where I reside. It's my home. The shadows.

A lot of the Marines love it; they think it's pretty great that I can skulk about undetected and shoot the eyes out of Grunts or skim a mandible off an Elite's face. They're impressed with the whole thing. They approach me afterwards and call me "badass". I'm always flattered with this, embarrassingly so. But what those Marines never realize is that it is I who is impressed with them. They are the ones willing to wade through the hell of combat and expose themselves to the exigencies of war. They are the ones who proudly stand behind cover in some blasted field or around the corner of some starship corridor and face the Covenant head on. Me? My job is different. I used to be one of them, but nothing good lasts forever, and nothing great lasts for long. I had a knack for accuracy and it wasn't long before SpecOps had snatched me out of my fire team and sent me off to supplemental school for specialized training. God I miss my fire team. No amount of notches on my gun can fill that void. It's no surprise then that I hold those Marine Regulars in the highest regard, far higher than I hold myself or those like me. They're braver than I am. They're tougher than I am. They get all the glory, and they deserve it. I love those guys.

Nevertheless I do feel sorry for them. After a battle they can always be seen picking pieces of blown shrapnel out of their greaves or shoulder paldrons, sometimes the shards come right out of their helmets. This doesn't happen to me, not anymore anyways. Like I said, the Covenant never really find me, they just flail about helplessly as I pick them off; stalling them long enough for Marine Regulars to affect an attack supplemented by my distraction. It's good thing though, for I don no real armor, just my tactical suit and web gear. The suit is air tight allowing me water insertion or even, for a brief time, forays into vacuum. It's thermodynamically controlled so my heat signature never registers. Likewise, I don't carry the standard issue sniper rifle. There's another reason why I pity the Marine Regs: those damn rifles are enormous...and heavy. The contrail alone from that thing would be enough to spot me. No, mine is smaller, more compact, and elicits no muzzle flash or contrail. The bullets aren't armor-piercing like the standard issue sniper rifle, but I don't give a damn. It's not my job to bring down Wraiths and Phantoms. I'm an infiltrator; antipersonnel; and RiF unit, or Recon in Force. I carry sixty rounds in my rifle and a backup M1A2 pistol. I also carry a small knife, just for me. Most Marines carry knives. They'll take them out and wave them around to their friends or slam them tip-first onto a card table while downing a dozen beers. Theirs are butcher knives. It's overkill. You only need an inch of steel to get the job done, even on the complex biologics of the Covenant. There's always a sweet spot that can exploited.

But hopefully I never have to get that close. Of course, there's a certain dignity in killing your opponent up close and in the shadows. It saves their comrades from watching them die. I must admit I feel a twinge of mercy when I open up the veins on the side of a Grunt's neck. I'm doing him a favor. It could be worse: I could blow the top half of his head off while he's waddling down a corridor, painting the walls with his bluish purpled innards. But this also has its merits. There's always something to be said for making a mess of your opponent's body. It creates a distraction. I can't convey to you how many times I've set up my perch waiting for a Covenant fire team to advance down a corridor only to see them clustered together; four Grunts and a pair of Jackals all huddled around a towering Elite like a pack of toddlers around their disgruntled father. This, to me, is a perfect setup. I target the Grunt second from point and shoot him right above his brow. This sends his brains splattering in a triumphant shower all over those behind him and painting the walls. His comrades reel in confusion, blinded by the spray of goop. The Grunts scream with terror while the Jackals swivel in mania. The Elite roars with frustration as he tries to wipe his vision clean of the blue matter. But it's too late. In the second after the confusion I shoot whoever is on the right flank and, hopefully, turned around to inspect the lifeless form of their comrade, forcing the formation to veer left. They do this because they think my only line of fire is off to the right. They are sorely mistaken. The next target is the Elite, before he can get his sight back. It takes at least two shots to take him down. The only pitfall to my smaller rifle is that the bullets don't pack quite as much punch, though there are certainly more of them, eight rounds per magazine and one in the chamber making for nine rounds opening salvo. So now I'm half spent with a few Covenant left. I shoot the hands off of the Jackals because they are the most commonly exposed extremity. This sends the remaining Grunts fleeing in terror. By then I can pick them off at leisure.

But not always can I affect a turnabout. Sometimes I am faced overwhelming odds. Take, for example, our current plight. The BCS Aspis, a heavy battleship used mainly for blockades, was overrun with Covenant nine hours ago. The battle, itself and extension of a three day defense campaign, had been waging for two hours prior with little fortune going in our favor; we were holding our own but just barely. We're somewhat used to this by now. We were not overwhelmed this time, then again we rarely are. Second Fleet contains nearly a hundred and forty combat ready UNSC vessels with full compliments of Marine detachments and wings of Longsword fighters. Our particular flotilla, Battlegroup November, enlisted seven ships of substantial size and armament. The Aspis was one of our best. But it was not good enough. Nothing ever is against the Covenant. With each passing hour our situation grows more desperate.

Our lead ship, the Titan X, a massive Ravager Class Starship, had taken up point in a bottleneck created by two neighboring fields of asteroids. It was suicide to travel through the belts of celestial debris and the Covenant knew it. They'd have to pass through our choke point. We had hoped to hold them here, knowing full well that it might be a suicide mission. But with the rest of the Second Fleet engaged elsewhere and heavily occupied with Covenant battlegroups, there was nothing we could do. We had to hold by ourselves. We should have just lined the place with neutron bombs and blown it the second the Covenant entered. I sometimes wonder why starship captains take a more direct approach to fights rather than implementing a little ingenuity. A fantastic asteroid shower could have been accomplished with a few well placed explosions. But apparently our lead captain felt otherwise. Needless to say, it might have been a mistake. The Titan X fought valiantly in the fore, while behind the rest of us tried to affect some decent cover and suppression. But it was to no avail, there were too many Covenant vessels. I could feel the explosion from the Titan X's reactors going critical while still inside my armory, preparing for the inevitable. Seven hours later and our hull was breached on the foredeck. The sound and the fury of those alarms still wail in my ears like a banshee's call. The red lights rotating in their shells still elicit ghastly emotions of dread in me. I hate starboard combat. One wrong grenade throw or rocket blast -hell, even one wrong bullet near an explosive tank! - can create a hole in the ship and suck everyone into the vacuum. The screams that erupt from humans and Covenant alike are enough to curdle the blood in my veins. It shakes me to the core. But I manage to keep my composure, my training has conditioned me to; the necessity for my services compels me. Therefore, while the red lights strobe overhead and the sirens shrill into the pressurized air of the starship I kiss my Saint Michael medallion and silver cross before zipping up the inner layer of the rubber-like body glove. I then don my VacSuit and assemble my web gear. When this is done I load my weapons, taking a few seconds to fine tune my scope and clean the bores one last time. I wipe the blade of my knife on my sleeve, once for each of the two edges. This is for nothing other than good luck. Call me superstitious, but after three and a half years of skulking about I've learned that luck often enough can save a person's life. After that I grab my multi-visored helmet and seal up the air tight clamps. The thing pressurizes itself and I see the systems diagnostic come alive in my HUD. I have a compass at the top set to C&C for "North". To my bottom left I see a bar graph displaying my various suit diagnostics: heart rate monitor, communication antenna strength, temperature control, pressure seal integrity, reserve air tank, and radiation levels are all displayed in the same small bracket of colored bars. Then my helmet runs through the three modes of vision: Light Enhancement, Thermal, and Targeting. When this is done I say a prayer and close shop. I head out of the secured armory and report to C&C. The shipboard AI, Dienekes, describes the situation to me via my implanted communicator.

"Twenty-one Covenant boarding ferries have been picked up on radar but more CCS battlegroups are pouring through the chokepoint," he tells me through the communicator. It feels more like someone talking in my brain than speaking into my ear. I ask him what their ETA is. "Six-point-one minutes," he declares with a precision so inane only an AI could produce it. "Captain Dytharimbos has already issued the order for the Marines to respond to the foredeck. He wants you to go swimming and sabotage their boarding craft from the outside." 'Going swimming', as Dienekes calls it, is our captain's coded slang for gaining access to the exterior of the ship by way of maintenance hatches. This is a difficult job. But I trust Captain Nathan Hooper Dytharimbos. Before I know it I am changing my vector for one that will lead me to the nearest exterior hatch. I'm on Deck 15 so it requires me to take a gravity lift. "Better hurry," Dienekes urges with the typical contrived emotion, "they're picking up multiple waves of Covenant bombers moving into an approach vector."

"What's their trajectory," I ask as I push the numbers for the uppermost level of the ship.

"Seventy clicks to port and closing. But they're not headed for us directly; it looks like they're going to take out the Xyphos first." The Xyphos is a small pursuit vessel used to chase down any blockade runners or perform atmospheric bombardments of specific enemy positions. It's a small ship with inadequate armor and ordinance to sustain a barrage by a full wing of Covenant bombers. It won't last long. "My calculations indicate the Xyphos's destruction will buy us two minutes." This, strangely enough, is said with little feeling from Dienekes. Apparently he doesn't care about other ships. Or perhaps they have a shipboard AI that he doesn't like. Who knows with AI?

I'm still thinking about this as I ride in the gravlift. I decide to check my weapons while I wait, the force of the drag tugging on my web gear. Suddenly an explosion ruptures and shakes the area around me. I know what it is: breaching charges. The Covenant are here. My Thermal vision kicks into gear and I see a wave of heat from the explosion bombard the double doors of the lift. This, luckily, does not disrupt the operation of the elevator. Dienekes decides to chime in, alerting me that the foredeck has now been breached and that the Marine Regulars have made first contact. Blood has been shed. I can feel it as a shaman feels the loosing of a daemon's spirit. I'm still embracing this notion like a stepfather embraces an unruly child as the lift doors part to reveal the uppermost deck of the Aspis. A series of gangplanks and catwalks line the low-roofed shadowy bulwark of the ship's top level. Dusty and grease congeal on long-neglected ceiling walls as a scattered array of multicolored lights blink and twitter like cat eyes in the night. Ahead thirty meters I see the ladder leading to the access hatch. Taking no chances I brush my left hip against the handrail of the catwalk as I exit the lift and advance towards my objective, gun held at port and my Light Enhancement vision activated. In case another explosion racks the ship I'll be able to brace myself against the railing with my hip long enough for me to find the thing with my hand. It's a small precaution but one that has saved me from a nasty tumble in the past. I approach at a swift stoop, trying not to think about something unforeseen stranding me out in the cold dead of space. Seconds later and the hatch and enter the code to unseal the pressurized compartment clamps. With a strong hiss and a rush of vapor the door lurches open. With a concentrated shifting of my jaw I switch my vision from Light Enhancement to Thermal. This provides me with far greater details for the rigors of space combat. I peer out the hatch to get a peek at the scene that will great me. My head pokes up for a split second before ducking back into the safety of the bulwark. At once my photographic memory catches and registers everything my eyes have just witnessed.

It's chaos out there, pure and simple. About eight clicks off one of our sister ships, the Cuirass, has received a flogging of incomprehensible proportions. Her hull is lit like a Christmas tree. Spots of orange flame cover her charred surface like the negative of a leopard's skin. Plasma charges continue to crash into her hull creating plumes of blue flame that mushroom out, showering acres of metal plating and shrapnel into space. What little is left of her armor ejects from the surface in flaming shards resembling fireworks. It's a brilliant display of light. In between the Cuirass's impending doom and our own battered hull I see flights of Longsword fighters dart across the black void chasing their prey with salvos of cannon fire or be blasted apart by the deft streams of plasma turrets. I grind my teeth as I watch them die. But there is little time to lament them. I must get moving lest I join the dead. I hop over the hatchway and make a concerted effort to reach for the first rung of the maintenance ladders that course the length of the ship when Dienekes screeches in my head for me to duck. I slam my body against the unforgiving frame of the starship's hull just in time to see a flotilla of Covenant boarding craft zoom overhead, close enough for me to brush with my fingertips. They're flying low on our hull to avoid radar detection. I know this but for some reason Dienekes feels compelled to repeat it for my own edification. I silently curse his existence.

"We've got to get back inside and warn Captain Dytharimbos," he urges. I grunt my compliance as I pull myself back inside, closing the hatch with a sealed thud. The sudden onrush of gravity tugs at half my body as I enter the upper deck. It is nauseating and can never be reconciled no matter how many times I attempt it.

Within moments I am racing back towards the lift. As I enter Dienekes informs me that there is a jamming ray focused on our ship preventing us from alerting Captain Dytharimbos. He goes further as to alert me that it is Deck 34 that they are headed towards. I punch in the numbers and we are off, racing for the deck in the gravlift. It doesn't take long to reach the vector. Deck 34 is a commons deck directly below the mess hall and above the storage galleys and I am there in no time flat. As soon as the doors open I lunge out and examine the untouched interior of our ship. There are rows of couches and elevated tables ringed with chairs and railings across the entire four acre level. It is very open and roomy with high ceilings domed and arched with architecturally pleasing windows lining the walls. They could enter at any one of these so I must be cautious and keep to the rear. Without disturbing anything I head off to port and wait behind a low-roofed adjunct hallway, one of the many that lead to the upper level eateries. Yet it is so quiet that I almost wish not to disturb this relative serenity. No sooner do I place myself in the shadows than the first of what will be seven boarding craft come into view. The strangely constructed purple craft lumbers awkwardly about the exterior directly outside the starboard-most window across the commons. I see another swoop in behind it and head for the port-most window. This is a standard enfilading maneuver designed to maximize fields of fire without compromising safety. Essentially, they're playing it safe. In the distance I can see two more approaching, their braking thrusters burning like fallen tiki torches in the night. I check my rifle and cancel my Thermal vision just as the window's glass is melted by the circular entry ring of the boarding craft. The Covenant come pouring through this nightmarish tube like demons spawned from Hell's birth canal. I feel as though I am witnessing a blasphemy in action; the birth of monsters that squawk and chatter at one another in a way that only aliens can. Yet I do not hate them, I admire them. I honor them. But they are the enemy. Twenty stream out of the vessel before it seals the breach and detaches to allow the next one to deliver its compliment of Covenant pirates. The other two are not far behind. I watch and wait silently for the right moment to strike. They will never see my point of origin but they will see the direction of the wounds the Covenant take. I will have to be swift and deadly. I espy a red armored Grunt waddling to the fore and jabbing his pistol hand at his lessers, issuing orders. I choose him as my first. It's an honor, really. I slowly pull the trigger, the lower trajectory of my shot will be perfect for what I'm about to do.

A sound like thunder erupts from my rifle. Everyone jumps even as the red Grunt's jaw is blasted away in a gruesome show of violence. He cannot scream for his throat has collapsed from my shot and he drops to the ground like a sack of onions, blood oozing onto the floor. I empty my clip before I can spit, killing four other high ranking Grunts on the rightmost area and two red Elites on the left. This affects the entire boarding party to scrunch up, my fire creating a funnel with which they huddle into for safety and a higher percentage of success in their eventual counter. It makes little difference. I reload and fire every round with maddening succession. Six Jackals go down and another Elite, this one blue. With two of my eight clips spent I slink through the shadows of the hallway to redeploy somewhere else. I get about ten meters when suddenly Dienekes comes into my head.

"Jamming has ceased, I've alerted the captain of our situation," he tells me hurriedly. "He wants to speak to you." I tell Dienekes to patch him through, my mind multitasking the ever-frantic positions of the enemy in concert with my own movements and the reloading of my weapons. I watch where they look and randomly stream fire. I watch where they run and hide, planning my counter accordingly. My heart leaps as I see a pair of gold armored sword-wielding Elites exit the central boarding craft. Things just got more interesting. The captain comes over my com as I load a special clip of four standard issue armor-piercing rounds into my rifle and set up my nest behind a dogleg staircase.

"Dark Arrow Loki," the captain hazards. I acknowledge his hailing. "Hold your position; we've got reinforcements on the way. ETA is six minutes." I confirm his orders and take aim at the gold Elites who expose their faces to me when they turn in my direction. I ignore the sick churning in my stomach as I get a bead on them both. I cannot help but curse under my breath, though if you were to look at me you'd see my lips mumbling.

It's just a job.

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