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Battle for Cobalt part 3
Posted By: James England<spartan253wolf@hotmail.com>
Date: 17 April 2005, 9:40 PM
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Cole city had been taken, the fires had spouted smoke into the atmosphere. The blackened sky was encroaching its way towards the Surge Mountains, and as the recording followed the skyline the radio crackled on.
"Unknown -nshee re-ond! Repeat Un-o-n Banshee Bearing 2-7-5 r-spond!" The radio signal had been full of static and he guessed the emerald forest had been blocking the transmission.
"This is Corporal Wilshire of the NSWG2-ODST piloting Banshee to the west, requesting HQ co-ordinates."
"Corporal, coordinates are uploaded to you HUD and we are tracking your position. We nearly shot you down if it wasn't for your FOF indicator."
"Just make sure some overeager private with his hands on a turret doesn't fire on my ass"
"Don't worry we need an ODST with some guts to help us out here. We have some reports of heavy enemy forces in the area, you might want to watch out."
Wilshire checked the Banshee radar and saw nothing on its screen. He still had a feeling that it was wrong and shook his head in so many directions, frantically trying to locate any turrets or even a grunt with a pistol, that the Seth that watched himself thought that his actions, then justified and rational, were a glimpse into an underlying insanity and fear that he had hoped never would be apart of himself.
He watched himself flash between the arrow indicating the temporary HQ, the forested valley below him, and the odd barely noticeable glimpses to Cole City, he began to think about the Spartans. Whether or not they acted like this (most likely not), whether or not he could sign up, and forsake his humanity for the sake of humanity, and whether or not they were here on this planet, or if they would even bother.
He had remembered when he joined the army, he had enlisted as soon as he graduated from high school, only waiting because of his mothers wishes. The thought of his mother brought up images of her private funeral, and the lavish ceremonies for his glassed homeworld.
He had grown up listening to the war on television and holorecords, the stories of humanity overpowering the alien invaders through their heroics, able to defeat a technologically and numerically superior foe through their sole ability to outsmart and outmaneuver the enemy. As a child he had only been able to stay up long enough to hear about their victories, the list of glassed planets had been on to late for his naive ears to hear.
He remembered going through boot camp eager to prove himself a good enough soldier to put bullets in an alien's cranium. He later learned that if he could walk and pull a trigger, he would have made it past their rigorous screening process. After a few isolated incidents in which he proved himself apt to handle himself with a rifle, he was pointed towards the office of the ODST and their he began the bloody campaign which led to where he was now, the best the humans could offer, lying helpless and feeble in a pond of glowing blue blood.
He snapped out of his reflection when his screen spun around inside his helmets faceplate. The recording had shown where a heavy plasma turret grazed a wing of the purple craft and he executed a barrel roll to the left. The continuous stream of blue liquid fire tried to follow him as he rotated on all axis to create a target that would be hardest to hit. The blue was befriended by thick glowing pink projectiles the size of his forearm that moved slow and homed in on his erratic position.
The armour of the banshee began to melt away as plasma hits boiled through the alien alloy, leaving behind a window into the inner workings of the craft, framed by a glowing red ring. He dove into a steep dive in attempt to gain speed but the never-ending stream of plasma followed and the football sized needles detonated in the hull of his stolen craft. Seth remembered that it was around this point he changed the reasoning for the dive. The craft now devoid of both stubby "wings" was pluming spouts of excess plasma, the engines reaction to over-heating due to the incoming fire. The smoke like blue plasma began to blind his recording and the craft's trademark whine was beginning to fade.
He could see the thick carpet of foliage as he descended down the mountainside towards the deepest center of the valley. The thick squat trees on the other side of the mountain where the former pilot of this craft now lay motionless and somewhat flattened were not adapt to living on this side. This valley consisted mainly of relatively thin trees ranging from five to twenty metres. Underneath the trees there grew various shrubs and mosses, he hoped they would be a good enough cushion as he lowered the craft to skim the trees. The plasma fire now could not match his lowered angle and gave up, but their crippling damage had been enough to kill the frenzied ODST, if he was not careful.
He aligned perfectly with a break in the canopy and descended below the tree line. The craft immediately began to connect and disturb another peaceful section of the valley as tree branches scraped against the weakened frame of the banshee. He tried to lower it down gently but when a sudden squeeze in the tree trench tore off more of the now unrecognizable craft, it dropped. He tried to maneuver but all control was lost. He tried to unlock the hatch, but it had jammed.
He froze and all thoughts passed out of his former racing mind. He wouldn't get out. He couldn't get out. The banshee would crash and the power used for the engines, plasma cannons, and the titanic force behind the fuel rod cannon, would evaporate his skin and bones in a morbid flash of green mixed with a bright blue.
The tranquility the realization of his impending death had brought was replaced with an adrenaline rush and the primal urge for his own survival. He pounded ferociously on the "door" release thinking that if he hit it hard enough it would take him seriously. He felt the banshee hit into more trees that tossed the craft around. He continued to will the door to open (or rather unfold the top section from the bottom) by utilizing the force of his fist.
The force of Newton's cursed gravity reared its ugly head when the banshee succumb to its incapabilities. There was shuddering force of the banshee flipping violently end-over-end crunching the frail flora beneath him. He felt almost safe encapsulated within the structure and while the recording continued to show the world spinning around, Seth Wilshire remembered distinctly how he had closed his eyes. Not out of fear or wishing it to end, but rather feeling at peace because for once, the situation was out of his control and the control on any sentient being, human or otherwise, it was all luck now.
The craft began to slow down and stopped when a tree managed to resist the banshee's inertia. He opened his eyes and felt his body writhe with the feeling that he was still moving. He began to squirm in the form-fitting cockpit, the craft still would not open. The purple alloy had twisted and crumpled, pinning him down and slicing through the suit and flesh covering his arms and legs. He tried to force the banshee open but the alien hydraulics kept it closed. He laid there churning over the recent events. He looked at the banshees control interface, the data screen had cracked open and shown the inner workings of the intricate device.
Seth studied the mechanics of the banshee through that hole. He watched it for enough of a time that the real, current Wilshire fast-forwarded through the unmoving stare. He followed a particular black tube of some unknown material. It had been connected to the right place...and it looked like the correct part.
He thought he could reach the tube and pull it out, but the most his left arm could move was an inch or two in any direction. He remembered the holstered MD6 pistol on his left side and tried to grab it. His fingers touched the holster and managed to unfasten it. But with only the dexterity of his index and middle fingers, getting the heavy pistol was a task all its own. He clamped the grip with a finger on either side and contracted his fingers. The gun moved a centimeter out of the holster. He extended his fingers and clamped the MD6 once more, after repeating this method a few more times, the gun lay on the metal where his full palm could grasp it.
The jagged metal pinning his arm down cut further into his left bicep when Wilshire positioned himself for the shot. The pistol was twenty centimeters from his left shoulder, and the target was over half a foot in front of his head. He tried to line up the shot with the pistol he could not see, a phantom pistol heavy in his now sweat-slicked palms. He focused in on the target still visible through the demolished information screen, it had not made an attempt to escape its fate.
His own head however had no such blind courage for imminent possible death. The MD6 was accurate, if one could see down the sights. With only the feel for it in his hand, Seth could not be sure if the explosive rounds would decapitate him, let alone even hit the target now growing smaller in his eyes.
Seth Wilshire tightened his grip on the gun and lined up what he hoped would be a direct hit. His neck cracked as he strained it to the right, trying to put as much distance between him, and the 12.7 mm armour-piercing, high-explosive round loaded into the side-arm's chamber. It was now he closed his eyes out of fear, he faced death all to frequently as an ODST, but never before at his own hands.
Blind with eyes either open or closed, he let the calming darkness of his eyelids relax his rigid body. It would not work, since the rhythmic rapping of the human metallic pistol against the covenant purple alloy interrupted any attempts for tranquility. He began to focus on steadying his enclosed, black-gloved fist.
When he felt the sweat stream gently across his face leaving a salty taste in his lips, he felt that this was enough. He would not be able to bear the fear of this shot any longer, and staying encased in a purple tomb was not something an ODST would let happen.
With that thought, he swallowed any remaining doubt, opened his brown eyes and strained his vision on the targeted black tube until his eyes started to water. Seth's left hand squeezed a total of three rounds, the sound reverberated inside the banshee and nearly deafened Wilshire inside his protective black helmet.
Without looking at the hydraulic tube he spent the better part of the last twenty minutes of his life staring at knowing it would decide his fate, he lifted the top canopy of banshee up. He tried to look at his surroundings but had to wipe away the reddish-orange liquid that sprayed on his visor from the black tube he just shot.
With the hydraulic liquid cleaned from his visor he gathered his equipment, and noticed where a stray bullet had just scraped across the top left side of his ODST helmet. The trees leading up to the wreaked, stolen Banshee had been demolished into a burning path, as if cleared by an isolated forest fire.
Not dwelling on his miraculous survival from the fatally certain crash, Wilshire shook his head and looked to the west where the Nav pointer on his helmet's Heads Up Display directed. He had another two miles to move through the Covenant invested woods, with no back up to help him. He sighed and briefly thought about what would have happened if his HEV had landed on the correct side of the mountain.
The thick underbrush was going to inhibit his trek to the HQ, not only making it difficult to physically move across the pathless ground, but also his footsteps would have to be slowed down and methodical to avoid needless noise that would let the Covenant know his position...before he wanted them to. His boot crunched down the uncontrolled and chaotic underbrush on the first step and he began to calculate the time it would take to traverse the two miles moving slower than a snail on Earth.
A faint frown momentarily streaked across his face, the sad thing he felt, was that this wasn't the most tediously frightening thing he had done in a battle trying to regroup with the scattered ODST Human Entry Vehicles. He remembered once where he had been a three days journey from any human destination. He and a fellow Helljumper had to crawl day in and day out through thick viscous swampland. The entire swampy territory was Covenant controlled and they had to be careful of where they popped up for air. They had killed more of the reptilian life in the swamp than any of the covenant surrounding them. A slight twinge of regret passed through Seth, he had spent three days and nights surrounded by chances for imminent death at one wrong move, and he could not remember the name of the ODST he had spent that time with.
He trudged silently on through the cheery forest. The sunlight and peaceful surroundings would have given off a feeling of serenity, if it were not for the distant sounds of bullet fire and muffled, fierce explosions.
More than an hour from the Banshee and only five hundred metres through the woodland Wilshire's strained ears almost erupted when he heard a large disturbance in the bush. He looked fifty metres to the front of him frantically scanning the trees for what it was. The trees were more frequent now and he could not make out any moving form.
Splintering wood shot out with the force of a cannon, one of the trees had shattered its peaceful slumber. The 12-metre trunk was thrown through the forest crushing more vegetation in its path. Wilshire dropped down into the thick shrubbery and began to taste the blood in his mouth from where he had inadvertently sliced his tongue with his teeth.
Seth rested his BR55 Battle rifle on the ground and shouldered the butt of the gun. He peered in the scope attached to the top of the rifle and tried to find a hole in the shrubbery to see through. He needed to estimate their forces if he were to make contact with them.
The inspection through the crosshairs sent a shiver of fear that shot through his spine and then reverberated through his mind. Twin bulks of blue armour thundered their way around the underbrush. More than twice his height he had been surprised to see that they were relaxed. In battle they were massive 8-foot tall living tanks, but here with no enemies to focus on, their unarmoured glowing orange parts were fully extended. The long, thin, spaghetti-like necks were casually scanning the area, as their arms utilized the might of the fused alloy shield on their arm to knock down encumbering trees and widen their path.
He remembered so many times when two Hunters wiped out platoons of men without the marines landing a single hit through their armour. Seth remembered times where grown men fled tripping over themselves and other marines, from a shadow that reminded them of the massive creatures. He remembered the screams of the marines who were stabbed by the seemingly rigid spikes extending from the shoulders and backs. And screams from the crippled bodies of men thrown across a field of battle, when one of these Hunters thrust their left arm out, and the alloy shield infused into the entire arm, crushed all obstacles. He could still hear soft distant screams of those around him, when marines were vapourized in flashes of green from the over-lethal Fuel Rod Cannon bonded to the right arms of the beasts.
But he also remembered the heat, and deafening noise from a rocket launcher that connected and hollowed out a pair of Hunters. And Seth also remembered countless encounters where the squelching sound of a bullet passing through the organs encased in the vulnerable luminous orange body parts of the seemingly impervious bodies brought the immense creatures down.
As for now, he wished he still had the SPNKr rocket launcher that had been stowed in his entry vessel. With it he could come out form his concealed position and hit them both before they could react. He peered through his looking glass and half observed them again, he had thousands of battle simulations simultaneously racing through his head. They were still blissfully unaware with their heads maintaining their high and susceptible positions. The flat blue heads were rotating around while they were tossing more trees out of their way, he could just make out the minuscule green eyes that mere specks on the mammoth figures.
He checked all of his gear, he still had all of the extra ammo clips, both pistols, duct tape, six grenades, and his Battle Rifle was resting comfortable on the ground in line with his prone body. Wilshire had a method of attack, and the fact that he was still hidden would help him greatly.
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