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Last Hope part 7
Posted By: SSJBRK<brkessler@columbus.rr.com>
Date: 21 May 2002, 4:01 am
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The officers huddled around me, and I began drawing my plan in the dirt. " There are two doors. They may have several levels, and now that they know we are here, traps are a certainty. Exercise extreme caution. There are fifty of us so I want five ten man teams. Three teams designated gold black and white will crash the front door. The other two teams, red and green will sneak up behind them through the back door. First entry team unload the jack hammers and grenades. Soften them up, wait until all the heavy stuff has been used before entry. Some elites will be using plasma swords. I want a sniper in each team to deal with them. Snipers are not expendable until all elites are dead, especially sword carriers. Once the all clear is given, we will destroy the base. Capture a live one if you can, and take any computers or data systems you find. That is all, now let's get some." Megan handed me some ammo as soon as I stepped away from the huddle.
The officers dispersed to relay my orders, we were ready to rock in five minutes. As we approached the outside of the base, the front door slid open. A single red elite was disassembled by no less than a thousand bullets. They would have to try harder than this. " White and gold mark !" With that grenades and jackhammer rockets flew into the open door. A series of explosions was followed by a few screams, and once the smoke cleared, I saw the result of kicking down their door. A welcoming committee of bodies and blood greeted us as we advanced inwards. I could hear footsteps coming toward us. As we moved up the corridor, we came to a hard right turn. The footsteps were really loud now. A marine did a quick peek and moved quietly back to me. " Uh, Major there are two hunters and ten elites that just got finished setting up shop. They have lots of cover, they're just waiting for us."
Great, a regular covenant Alamo. This I had to see for myself. I moved out of the middle to the front and set my rifle on the floor behind me. Sure enough, they had a defensive semi circle of tipped boxes and shields. Right in the middle was another gold elite, plasma sword blazing. There were two side rooms with the doors open, but I couldn't tell what was in them.
This called for some heavy artillery. I fed the video feed from my helmet to the marine toting the jackhammer and instructed him to hit the hunter on the left then right. " The rest of you move back, fuel rod shots will be coming into this corner. Alright soldier, let em have it when I call mark." He hefted his jack hammer and stood with his back to the corner. He turned and loosed both rockets, and in exchange got two plasma shot right to the chest, he fell over, his armor was gone.
I bolted over to him and grabbed him by his collar, heaving him with all my might away from the corner. I then dove away myself, a split second later, a fuel rod shot slammed into the floor right where we had both stood. I heard the bellows of a hunter, followed by the sound of metal hitting the floor. I edged forward to check it out. Both hunters were now laying there, and the elites were gawking at them in what I could only describe as disbelief, the gold elite roared and pointed to me with his sword. The others turned and fired, I felt the heat wash over my face as I pulled back around the corner. Enough of this cat and mouse bull shit, it was go time.
I came over the comm. " Teams red and green the enemy is in a semicircle with it's back to you, when you blow the door aim to the center of the room and fire. Aim rockets at the floor or they will fly into the hall opposite you and hit us. Aim low, do not cross fields of fire with us, we will come out fifteen seconds after I call mark. No frags after I call mark, understood ?" That said I turned to my men and repeated the plan. I made a very quick peek of the room jsut to make sure they hadn't moved. They didn't even fire at me. " Mark!" With that an explosion cut across the room. The distinct sound of jack hammers unloading was heard right after the initial blast. I screamed " Get down !". The floor shook with the impact of the rockets. I could hear an elite yell and heavy footsteps, followed by thud of a body hitting the floor. I counted to fifteen and sent ten marines in. " Clear !" "Clear !" Good, we got them, I turned the corner just in time to see the doors of the two side rooms open, two elites dove out and started shooting. These ones were different, they had on black armor. Special ops, dammit. No sooner had I registered this and ducked behind a box, five marines dropped to the floor with craters for faces, two seconds of exposure and five head shots, these two elites were good.
Marines fired frantically at the two elites, who were so fast they seemed to blur. Dodging left and right, jumping rolling, putting head shots on marines diving for cover. Marines kept shooting, one even hefted a jackhammer, just in time to get his head blown off. We couldn't take much more of this. I jumped back through our entry door, taking a round of plasma to the helmet, it fell on the ground smoking and my vision blurred as I turned the corner. " Marines fall back !" on my command the rest of the marines moved back through our entry points. We had them surrounded, but they were too good to just rush. Blindly tossing grenades wouldn't work, the elites would just roll out of the way. Leave it to me to come up with a plan.
I thought to myself on how to deal with this, they were fast, accurate and had plenty of cover, each one had an entrance covered. "Keep them covered and stay put, I need to go check something. I ran outside and looked up at the dome. Nearby was a dead elite still clutching his plasma rifle. I picked it up, and pointed the rifle at the dome. Three shots melted part of it. That gave me an idea. I fired it until it over heated, and melted a hole clean through the dome wall. I had found my solution. " This is Kolotov, send green and black to gather plasma grenades from the enemy dead, then wait outside for further orders, I have an idea." Five minutes later, both teams radioed in. " We have the grenades sir, now what ?" I took another look at the dome and responded. " Green and Black assemble on me, I'm at the front door." A minute later twenty marines were standing there, each holding a few grenades. I hoped it would be enough.
Place all of your grenades except one at the very top of the roof, the elites are right underneath it. I want a jackhammer standing by as close to the top as possible without being hit by the blast. This thing is pre fab so it should blow. Once the hole is made, fire a rocket right down to the center. I hopped on the radio " Red, white and gold, on my mark turn and loose jackhammer rounds into the center, we are going to blow the roof to distract them. Hold your fire until the roof blows." I then had three marines scale the roof, one with a jackhammer, the other two with the grenades. They placed them all together at the very center. The marine with the jackhammer was about twenty feet away, I had him move back an extra five to be careful. "When I call mark, activate one and drop it in the middle. Then clear out." I waited ten seconds before giving the order. "Mark !" with that the marine lit one and dropped, it fell neatly in the center, burning brightly.
The whole ground shook with the impending blast. Just as I had hoped, the roof caved in under the blast pressure. " Hit em !" I called over the radio. The marine on the roof poked his jackhammer down the hole and fired. Two more rockets crashed into the center of the room just after the first one hit. A marine came over the comm. " Sir, one black elite's dead, the other one is alive, he dropped his gun and he isn't moving." Maybe we would get a live one after all. I radioed back, " Keep on him, if he moves, incapacitate him, do not kill him, he may have intel we need. Wait until I get there." I hustled back in the room, and sure enough, one of the elites was a smear, the other was laying against a box, bleeding, staring up at the marines encircling him.
I walked over to it and looked into it's burning yellow eyes, " We got you, you son of a bitch." I turned to some marines standing by and asked for some restraints. All we could come up with was some titanium wire from a warthog. It would have to do. "Bind him hand and foot, and make sure he doesn't do anything stupid, if he does, kick his wounds." A marine spat at the elite, "Play nice you little bastard or we'll fuck you up." The elite lost consciousness and went limp. "Get him aboard the pelican and keep him covered, we are getting out of here. Set up the comm. I need to tell the fly boys that our entire region is secure. I don't want to nuke this place either, a team can come by and research all the covenant junk laying around."
With that we cleared the building. Using some grenades, C-1000 ( the latest version of a very old explosive, I think it's called C-4) and left over plasma grenades, we set the building to blow. Once the comm. was set up I radioed "The Hellion". Once again the Captain came over the comm. " Captain this is Aleksandr Kolotov, we have secured our region and await evac. We have a live covenant special ops elite. He is wounded an unconscious, if you want to pick at him for intel, I suggest you get us out of here, we need two more pelicans to get everyone back in space."
The captain was clearly pleased. " Outstanding major, your pelicans are en route now, eta five minutes. As for the elite, keep him alive. We need him for interrogation. Good work Major, I'll see you soon." I was then handed over to a radioman who gave me pickup details. I thanked him and ended the comm. link. " Alright men, evac in ten, keep the elite alive, we are out of here, now blow that damn base." The fireworks of the base were impressive, chunks of it flew everywhere.
We had beaten the Covenant, strategy had prevailed, and yet something felt unfinished, the feeling came from the elite. Something told me he knew something important, a gut feeling almost. I hated gut feelings, they usually came true. I sat in a hog and sipped some water. Then I saw the pelicans coming down. Everyone loaded up, and we headed for "The Hellion". I took one last look at Epsilon five and thanked God for our success. We had bigger fish to fry though, the offensive at solitarius seven was sure to be tougher than the one here. I only hoped we would be as successful there. As much as I hated the covenant, we may very well end up relying on this one, provided he talked. Our "questioning" specialists would make him talk. Whether he wanted to or not.
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