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Tin Cans: Prologe
Date: 22 June 2006, 9:46 am

01452h, January 21, 2527 (UNSC Military Calendar)
Taurus System, UNSC Outer Colony Controlled Space
Diamond Continent, Ruby.

Two years before, when humanity was all he knew, he could have said he was invulnerable. The M808B Scorpion MBT was, by far, the heaviest, most powerful beast in the Corps arsenal. During the Campaign at the Trinity Moons it had been nicknamed by the rebels the "Devil's Tortoise," slow but deadly in all ways. It had been the powerful Covenant weapons that had changed the infamous nickname to "Tin Cans."
      Still, it was in armored combat that the humans stood the best chance of wining, when properly led. In the first engagement with the Covenant a Jackal sniper, and he hated the Jackals with every member of his body, a Tank Commander was killed by a beam that penetrated the hatch from above, a tree, thus leading the way into the new era, the era where armor was not as thick as it was and when tankers could be sure that whenever they went the Covenant would find a way to penetrate their hulls.
      At two thousand meters down the flat terrain, part of the road and the grasslands that flanked it, the cannon had to elevate to compensate for the flat range of the ninety mike-mike hyper-active APFSDS. The long rod penetrator, as so called by the tank people, fell free of the casing leaving a depleted uranium arrow that flew straight into the hull of Wraith, it struck it a seventy five degree angle on its purple bow and ricocheted skywards, loosing itself on the deep, blue sky.
      "Damn," said Gunnery Sergeant Ernest Atwood. He pressed the red LOAD button on his right joystick and a new Armor Piercing round was loaded into the breech of the cannon just above the turret. "Fire," he barked at his young gunner on the station bellow him, PFC Andree Stevansson.
      The young man pulled the trigger of his T-shaped handles and in a millisecond several sparks leaped out of the hull of the Covenant tank. "Target!" He pulled his brown, sweat soaked T-shirt and away from his neck, so to breathe, and punched the hatch open. It had been a short, costly meeting engagement, in other words, both the Covenant and the humans found each other while marching towards and objective.
      Task Force two-twenty two Mech had been ordered to march, secure and hold a hilltop that overlooked the metropolis that was Diamante. The commander of the battalion ordered a column, vehicle behind vehicle, formed by the bulk of the force to roll up a paved street flanked by the infantry in their APCs and Marine Fighting Vehicles hiding in the woods to avoid a Varo's dissaster.
      His tank was with the scouting party, attached to an APC platoon and they found the Aliens marching on a slight slope, twenty vehicles total. He immediately reported to his superiors what he had seen and right away the green officers took action, ordering the entire Battalion, tree tank companies and a mechanized team, to form at the opposite side of the ridge shoulder to shoulder like an muzzle loaded company in the sixteen hundreds.
      The Covenant acted extraordinarily fast. In one volley of accurate plasma rods and Wraith-shots they hollowed the hulls of the human vehicles with no losses, at least not serious. The remaining infantry retreated leaving the scout party, two tanks and six APCs hiding in the woods that flanked the slope as a forward observer party, as per the battalion commander's orders.
      The Lieutenant in charge ordered his team to flank the Covenant when they began to move again, separately. Apparently the Aliens followed that old military principle and saying, march separately fight together. Their heavy element, six Wraiths took a path down a paved road the battalion had previously passed by where the small task force laid waiting.
      "Good job!" he told his APC wingman that popped his head above the hatch right after a blue explosion rocketed skyward. The engagement consisted on several rear shots and, for a damned last second a Wraith made a three-sixty turn to face the incoming fire, to face three accurate shots from both tanks, one penetrated found the plasma generator and the vehicle went up in blue flames.
      "Thanks gunny," replied the Corporal with his head popped over the square shaped tracked vehicle. The rear door of the vehicle swung open and a young Marine ran out, rifle shouldered and his cap pointing towards his back, he trekked towards the tank where Atwood was waiting form him.
      "Lieutenant," he paused as he took a deep breath of cold air. "Good to see you."
      "You too Gunny, I have new orders from HQ." He held his right fist up swung it right and pointed down the road where the six carcasses of Wraith stood. "The Colonel FUBARred the entire op before it even started."
      The Sergeant had never liked the idea or reality, in his case, that someone less smart than him, albeit stupid would tell him exactly what and when to do shit. He had a sense for people and, when this Lieutenant spoke to him he understood immediately that this guy was not FUBAR, this guy was a killer. "We have orders to scout down the road, hope to locate the Covenant supply vehicles that must be following the Wraiths."
      "FUBAR is right sir," replied Atwood. "Their supply vehicles must have heard the racket. If not warned, we could be going straight into an ambush."
      "They think they can mircromanage the entire war," the Lieutenant nodded with his upper lip bitten. "They are wrong-"
      "Contact, car, front," reported the gunner. "It looks like a Ghost," with the thermal scanner the visibility of the gunner sight was extended long enough to identify the vehicles five kilometers ahead.
      "A Ghost it is," replied the Sergeant turning to face the Lieutenant. "Talk to me sir."
      "Are there any troop carriers with them?"
      "Roger," said the gunner swinging slightly the turret of the tank. "Just behind them, PCs, whats what they are called?"
      "Shadows," noted the Lieutenant.
      "Who comes up with these names?" said Andree.
      "Oscar-November-India," said the Lieutenant pulling the charging handle of his MA5B backwards. "We are going to ambush them," he turned around and waved at the crews of the APCs. The backdoors swung rearwards, and out of the six troop transports eight men walked out, spread and dropped on the ground just inside of the treeline.
      "I have an idea sir," noted the sergeant as he grabbed his escaping Lieutenant on the shoulder.
      "Talk to me sarge."
      "Why don't we simply dodge?"
      "Marines don't run like cowards sergeant."
      "No, I mean we simply let them pass us by, then march towards their hilltop."
      "Hmm."
      "See if we can find a Covenant base to blow up."
      "Roger that," said the ell-tee, signaling the troops to embark on. "Retreat one hundred meters, to the forest, we will cover you."
      "OK."
      Atwood grabbed his left joystick and pulled it towards him, making the tracks spin rearward. He swung his hatch to the rear –so that he could see- and zigzagged his way across the forest.
      "This is Echo one-three, in position." He swung the turret back towards the road. He was joined shortly after by the APCs.
       "Echo seven-one in position."
      Aerial contacts detected, warned the onboard Situation Computer.
      He jumped inside the turret closed the hatch and looked at his computerized sighting system display. The crafts had skis for landing gears, were purple, and almost oval shaped. They were Banshees. Low orbit, hunter-killer crafts that were responsible for most of the recorded tank kills of the war.
      Not this time. He knobbed on his right joystick a HE round, pressed the green LOAD button and frowned. "Seven-one, I have gun slaved on the flyers, want me to take them out?"
      "Negative."
      "Cease fire," he told his gunner.
      "Roger."
      The Ghost was the covenant equivalent to a cavalry scout, it was their all purpose vehicle capable of reaching five hundred miles an hour on open fields, other than its incredible speed, it was useless in armored combat. With two Ghosts leading the supply convoy reached the burnt Wraiths and immediately the Elites, Grunts and Jackals unloaded and secured the area, unaware of the heavy and light guns that followed their every movement.
      Sergeant Atwood stroked his right eye, and slid his left hand towards the floor of the turret wiping a pool of sweat out of his face, his plan had failed and the Covenant were looking for him, and his mechanized team. The night hid the green, brown and black camouflaged Scorpions from sight, yet, they were perfectly visible if you knew where to look. So he had to be very careful not to warn them with any sudden movements.
      "It could be a turkey shot," said Andree.
      "It always could be." He locked the gun in place and relaxed on his chair by inhaling air conditioned air and arching his shoulders. It had been a long day and his entire body was close to a sudden breakdown. It had been a sunny morning and the conditions were given for a memorable battle. The UNSC Fifth Marine Division, the "Consummate Assassins," had formed a circle around the massive Covenant landing zone where at least a dozen dropships orbited the nap of the earth. Sergeant Atwood was a vet from the Trinity moons campaigns, a suppression of an armed rebellion, and he thought his tired old eyes had seen everything.
      Nothing he had seen, either good or bad, compared to what he had laid eyes upon that morning. An entire battalion, sixty two tanks and twenty APCs were set aflame in a single blow by a Covenant dropship. He had bailed out in time to avoid the long, wide purple beams to cripple his tank; he crawled to safety -after jumping away from the hull- behind a tree and waited for three days under a clasp of grass until rescued by a scout Warthog.
      It had been unbelievable. An entire division wiped out shortly after the "Attack, attack, attack," order was patched through on to the lower levels. For the next three days the ¨Covenant had advanced like a bulldozer over soft sand, killing everything on their path, until they reached a hard line of defense where the entire firepower of an Expeditionary Force had defeated the Covenant on a gallant move.
      The Marines let the Covenant pass just above them, turn around and shoot them on the back. True, it was not the Jarhead way to shoot targets like backstabbers, yet, it had been a successful move. Alas, the Corps retreated shortly after, towards new position on which to fight. The hilltop was one. It was now open for grasp and the Covenant knew it. "They are moving." Two of the Ghosts were boarded by Elites; they lofted of the ground, and accelerated away down the road passing the burning hulls nearby. Though he hated to admit it, the infantry had won the day. The armored counterattack that had been planned after the bold maneuver had been canceled.
      Then, all plasma Weapons in the troop convoy opened fire, sending screeching noises through the maze of erected vegetation. "Ambush!" immediately Andree pressed the twin triggers of the gunner handles, the hammer struck the base of the semi-oval round causing an explosion on the chamber. At several dozens of thousands feet the round was invisible even if it was totally painted red for tracing.
      It struck one of the Shadows on the glacis as it turned to face the forest. The explosion took out six Grunts onboard and the send the Shade turret skywards. "Compromised!"
      "Gunner, coax troops!" Stevansson centered the cross of his sight and a jackal and opened fire sending hundreds of 7.62x51mm rounds in an opening arch, taking the Covenant out one by one.
      "Target!" he bellowed. "Re-engage, HEAT, Shadow," the second vehicle was turning when it took out an APC with a single burst of purple plasma. "Fire!" The entire sixty-six tons of hardware shuddered a bit backwards as the main gun fired a shaped charge at the Covenant vehicle. It blew upwards for twenty meters and landed sideways right next to the Wraiths carcasses.
      "This is Echo seven three!" called the damaged APC.
      "Copy," noted Atwood looking to his right and staring at the burining PC, several men were jumping out, on fire and hurt. "On the move." He grabbed his right joystick, pressed it to his right until the tank made a nearly ninety degree turn and pushed it forward. The tank rolled through the forest zigzagging the trees until it reached the front of the burning PC, shielding its occupants from the incoming fire.
      "Fire," he ordered his gunner, who lat loose on a pack of assaulting Jackals formed on a perfect phalanx. The high-powered 7.62x51mm rounds from the coaxial machinegun tore through them one by one, making them fall lifelessly on the ground.
      Immediately after the Jackals fell the enemy, with their small arms, opened fire on the tank sending blue, green and purple beams towards the hull. They began to chip the armor. "Don't worry sir," said Andree popping a HEAT round down towards the road. It struck a tree and exploded immediately, the sixty millimeter warhead send a shockwave that dropped the Covenant on the spot. "I got a hang on it."
      "Copy," his voice blended perfectly with the soar sound of a mini-gun spraying ammo on the road, taking down an entire row of shooters in one burst. The APCs joined the fight and together with the tanks wiped out the entire covenant force.
      The next HEAT round found the third Shadow, its bow blew up and it fell on the ground separately from the rear. "Target!" he bellowed. "Seven-one this is one-three, recommend you warm up the engines and retreat," he knobbed HE-FRAG on his right joystick and pressed the LOAD button, placing a fresh one on the breech. "Troops, in the open, fire!"
       "Roger," called the Platoon Sergeant of the four APCs as a thud indicated smoke grenades were jettisoned out of the light tracks. "We are waiting for the wounded to be loaded out of the burning track, otherwise ready to move."
       "Copy," replied Atwood looking at the soldiers moving behind the tracks, loading wounded on the second track of the platoon. Just as they did a train was to be heard coming in, in a blue, spherical form. The detonation made the tank shudder and jump. "Better move now!"
       He moved his left joystick towards his left side, making the left track go towards the rear, turning the tank and facing the road. "We will hunt that Wraith down."
       "Roger that one-three."

Tin Cans: One-three is down
Date: 14 July 2006, 9:59 am

0232h, January 21, 2527 (UNSC Military Calendar)
Taurus System, UNSC Outer Colony Controlled Space
Diamond Continent, Ruby.

Covenant tactics relied not on maneuver, but rather in complete and overwhelming firepower combined with speed. They would suppress an enemy with small arms and indirect fire, then charge for an overrun. They never attempted to flank an enemy by sheer fire-and-maneuver; ET constantly avoided fighting on the move.
      Thus Marines relied on one simple thing to countermove the Covenants ability to disappear hardware, movement. Thence the humans turned to elastic defense as their main battle plan. The Covenant was engaged, fought on their own terms then an orderly retreat was to be executed, and then, when the Covenant was on the move, a counter attack was to be launched on the flanks.
      Tank battalions were to be left on reserve, behind the lines, waiting for the order to exploit the Covenant weaknesses, the Scorpions would move in a pincer like movement to hit the Covenant on the flanks, creating a crossfire pit that would decimate a Covenant formation.
      Lieutenant General Mark Wenzel knew that as he ordered his forces to commit, he had drawn a plan to envelop the Covies on the march and one of his commanders had jumped the gun ordering his Mechanized Team to engage the Covenant on a simple static defense.
      He had to do the last thing he wanted, commit his light reserve Battalion against the Covenant. The Covenant had landed en mass on Sapphire Naval Air Station fifteen miles outside the city's outskirts, the Marines had air assaulted in, landing on the front as the nearly inexistent Territorial Army held the Covenant at bay.
      The three Marine regiments immediately jumped inside the lifeless, empty trenches of the soldiers that had already done their part. The Marines immediately came under attack by six Covenant Legions –so called by them- the Marines hid down and lat the Covenant pass right above them, then turned around and waxed them. It had been the grunts who had won the battle, not the tanks or airplanes.
      When OPORD Eagle three had been launched the Marines moved to create a stronger line ahead of the ones already fixed, they moved out with their fresh-in-theatre heavies towards the hills and plains that faced the general direction of the Covenant landing zone.
      It had been a young Colonel, eager to fight the Covenant who had opened the wound on his lines, the one he desperately tried to clog and left Diamante, the city he had been ordered to protect, was open to a Covenant ground attack.
      Task Force Two-Twenty Two Mechanized had to take a battle position, on a hill, of three armored Companies lined up, and hold it as long as it could. But the aliens had sent a small reconnaissance team exactly on their path. Instead of engaging them in open combat and maneuver against them he poised his tanks and PCs in a line, on the open against the juggernaut. The result was a slaughter of humans and now, the gap was open and there was nothing in the way of the Covenant and the City of diamante.

The Covenant kept a steady flow of red, blue and purple beams towards the Marines who lay prone behind their APCs inside the forest. One of the square shaped vehicles lay burning, out of commission but still metal between the plasma and the troops behind it. Still, with the barrage coming in, setting aflame the trees around the Jarheads, the order was clear, trigger discipline.
      Lieutenant Gustav Oleg knew that he had to keep his men quiet until the Covenant charged, something that was about to happen, if his experience taught him something. Just then, it happened. Five flaming, blue spheres crossed the road, entered the forest and magically stuck to the five trees.
      The effects of a plasma grenade were devastating, not only did they kill you, but they blinded you like a mice, or so the Marines said. One of the first things told to Marines in MOS Combat Training was to close your eyes and open your mouth every time a plasma "frag" was thrown, that prevented you from getting deaf and blind.
      "Troops!" called the armored team leader, SSg Mack, who held fire as the unbearable heat enveloped the soldiers. The first out were the Jackals, holding their shields forward and jointly, forming a Phalanx that was followed by small creatures. "Engage!"
      The Marines fixed their laser pointers on the shields of creatures and opened fire, sending hundreds of 7.62x51mm rounds downrange towards the shields; they bounced off harmlessly. It only helped in slowing down the unhampered troops.
      "Legion one-three, hit them." The gasses expelled behind the shell, out of the ninety mike-mike muzzle made as a ventilator for the heat, giving the Marines a much needed breath-air. The Jackals disappeared immediately as the shell struck the shields, the HE-FRAG warhead shattering the formation in one blow.
      The turbine one of the Scorpion tanks came to life, sucking ten gallons of jet fuel, roaring through the Woods. The surviving Covenant fell immediately to Marine's MA5Bs, touring through them as they realized what was coming their way.
      "Flash, flash, flash!" shouted the Lieutenant as his clerk/RTO fired a flashbang from the launcher bellow the stubby barrel of his rifle. The cylindrical grenade landed on the center of the source of the Covenant, blinding and deafening everything in the forest. Gustav grabbed the handmike from the backpack-radio of the RTO and placed it over his right cheek, covering his mouth and right ear. "First squad to advance, second and fourth to provide eyes on and cover fire," he paused to check the men readying their weapons to his sides, "Mech team, suppress."
      The minigun mounts on the APCs began to roar as they suppressed the enemy on the woods that flanked the main road. "Roger, led outgoing."

The plan was going just as it had been hastily planned. The Covenant had fixed the location of two-twenty two Mech reconnaissance team and the only hope the battered Marines had was that the tank that meandered through the woods found it's target, the Wraith section targeting the infantry from a stand-off location, that had ceased fire as the Covenant infantry approached the Jarheads.
      The Wraith was, by far, the most versatile vehicle in the Covenant's inventory. It served as a tank, an assault gun, a fixed artillery battery and a self-propelled gun. A single, well placed shot from one of the Covenant's tanks could take out several bad placed Scorpions.
      As the tank meandered through the woods its tank commander couldn't help to think of what might be going on in the upper echelons. The Marines normally were relief forces for troops already in the field that consisted normally on regular Army and Territorial Guard units. When the hundred and sixth landed on the planet the order was simple, to delay the Covenant while the local authorities evacuated the city of Diamante. The Operation on the ground was simply that, a delay maneuver to give the fleet around the planet enough time for the ground forces evacuated as much people as possible.
      "Contact, tank, right," said Andree. The Wraith lay on the middle of the road, flanking the right of the tree line. The forty ton myth was surrounded by infantry that knew little of the firepower settled on them, walking by it weaponless and chatting among themselves on their native tongues.
      "SABOT his ass."
      "On the way!" the tank's cannon made the trees jump, as the Depleted Uranium penetrator struck the hull of the Covenant vehicle, immediately spark sprung from the purple surface.
      "What the fuck?" said Atwood.
      "Fucking awesome!"
      Normally it took several sabot rounds to take down a Wraith, five or six was the most popular number. When sparks spring out of a target it means the round has penetrated, the sparks being the result of the metal scratching each other, sending particles everywhere.
      "Legion seven-one, target destroyed."

The sound that emerged from tube of a coaxial machinegun of the Scorpion tank was deafening loud, as it could be heard a mile away. "One-three, this is seven one, roger that, are you still engaged?"
      "Roger engaged with troops," Gustav gave the handmike to his RTO and looked to his right. His Marines laid prone on the tree line that right flanked the paved road where the carcasses of several Wraiths, Phantoms and covenant soldiers lay.
      "Copy, stand by," he turned around and faced the tree surviving APCs he palmed towards them and his troops immediately got the order, embark. "We are coming for you, one-three."

The hundred and eleventh Marine Division of Mark Wenzel had one simple task, to delay the enemy forces while local authorities evacuated the City of Diamante. "I know," said Mark. "Everything is named after goddamn gems."
      "Understood," said the commander of three-twenty two, immediately shoving an OPORD folder between his right arm and chest. "Just have to keep joulery intact."
      "So its simple," noted Mark as he walked with the Colonel to his Dragon Armored All Terrain Vehicle. "You have to clog the gap that goddamn idiot opened when he lost two-twenty two."
      "I don't know sir," he said looking at the terrain, where a large hill stood up from the landscape, flanking it where two Marine battalions. "I thought we would be the exploitation group of the division, I don't like to commit my Light Armor against the Covenant in a meeting engagement."
      "Its not my favorite idea either, but if we don't close that gap between the infantry battalions the Covenant are going to pour through it, flank them and destroy them…"
      "And leave the city unprotected and open for assault."
      "If that happens it would not be the Marines the only ones to go."
      "Clog the gap Colonel," said Mark staring at the smoke columns that rise from the Marine's positions. "Or we will be royally fucked."

"…OPORD Romeo one is now in effect, Godspeed, out." The diesel engines of the small Marine Fighting Vehicles came online sending small whizzes through the air inaudible through his ear muffed helmet.
      "Hey, sir," said the gunner of the small rectangle shaped vehicle. "What the hell is OPORD Romeo One?"
      "Fuck if I know," replied Major Carlos Magallanes, "that shit was on a second folder when they briefed us." Magallanes was the Commander of Alpha Company, Third Battalion, Twenty Two Marine Regiment, the Light battalion of the Regiment, the fastest and meanest of the division. "Tell you the truth, it means we are going to march to a gap in the lines, close it and hold position."
      "Didn't you say you didn't know," said Poborsky.
      "Worst case scenario is always on folder number two, and you don't have to be a genius to figure out what the fuck just happened on the mountain."
      "Right, but that was the heavy battalion, what's goanna happen to our thin asses?"
      "Well, the show must go on." He tapped the red, TRANSMIT button. "Net call, net call, saddle up, lock and load, follow my lead."
      His order was followed by "Roger" from his platoon Leaders. He grabbed the left joystick of his console and pressed it forward, making the RPMs go up, rolling forward the tracks of the vehicle. His sixteen vehicle Company before him.

Gunny Atwood ejected the eight smoke grenades on the turret of his tank, creating a smokescreen that enveloped the Scorpion immediately. Still, it only hindered the vision of the Covenant infantrymen that marched upon his tank.
      "Small arms, front," said Andree, reporting the volley of green and blue beams that began to go by the Scorpion.
      "COAX, fire," the gunner centered the reticle on the center of a crouched Elite and pressed the twin machinegun buttons. An Elite disappeared in a white and yellow cloak, then reappeared only to be truck back by twenty 7.62mm rounds. Andree rotated the handles to his right and the turret traversed in that direction, dragging the road of yellow tracers in that direction, taking down small, chubby creatures falling down behind them.
      "Lets doge," he swung the tank forty five degrees to his left, the chassis facing the road now, he pushed it forward and the Scorpion rolled towards the pavement, it poised over it, and Atwood lat the gas turbine berserk, the tank peeking at ninety six miles per hour. "Catch us if you can." The turret, still facing to the rear of the tank, kept hosing the infantry down.
      The track passed right above the arming mechanism of the Covenant mine, it added several tons of pressure over it infighting the plasma generator on it, forming a plasma bubble that rocketed skywards. It went right through the bottom of the tank, and the next thing Atwood felt was his helmet striking the hatch that was above his head.
      His knees rocketed towards the roof, making him land on a fetal position on the roof of his tank. "What the fuck?" the unbearable heat had his feelers on the verge of collapsing, and to his surprise, there was a faint green cloud inside the tank.
      "I'm hit?" said Andree, left legless on the roof of his station.
      Atwood frowned, in disgust. The right foreleg of the Marine was gone and the he was pale. "You are okay," he punched down on the hatch, to see if it popped and it did halfway. "We have a rollover."
      "Damn it."
      Suddenly something hammered the right side of the vehicle, and it sounded like the loud whistle of a train. The tank skidded on the pavement flipped to the right side, swinging open the hatch of the tank immediately, throwing the Marines on the left wall. "Now we got to bail," the gunny pulled the right shoulder of the Marine, making Andree holler. "One-three is down, I repeat one-three is out, bailing."
      He flopped around and grabbed his MA5B from the large holster besides his chair, now at head-level, and pulled it out; Atwood turned to his right and jumped out the open hatch and landed crouched on the cold environment of the planet, immediately scanning the surroundings. He barely had time to wax the Grunt that approached the tank with a blue Sphere on his left hand. It landed on the ground besides the corpse. "Holly-" Gunny turned around and ran around the tank, jumping at the corner where the turret was.
      "Roger one three, we are coming your way, ETA is five minutes."
      "They are fucking creeping on my ass!" he turned to his right and clumsily wasted twenty rounds on a Grunt, which bathed the floor with its purple blood.
      "Two on the right," called Andree who began to dispense ammunition with his sub-machinegun from the hatch. "Down."

"Hear that?"
      "Roger," said Magallanes. "That's an MA5B."
      "Damn those things are loud," he had heard the popping sound of the assault rifle behind the grinding noise of the diesel engine and the wind smashing to his eardrums.
      "Contact, small arms, at grid six-nine-four-three-five."
      "Roger," replied the Vehicle Commanders. He halted the vehicle by setting his left joystick idle. Behind him, on the rear of the vehicle, just behind a four vehicle platoon in a wedge formation, a ramp swung towards the ground, landing on a slight arch and eight Marines ran out, to the left and right and formed two fire teams of four flanking the MFV.
      God. "Someone axly made it out?"
      "Yes," replied the Major. Carlos looked at his digital MFD that showed the map of the region. His battalion had three major objectives, circled in thick blue lines, named GOLD, SILVER and BRONZE. Each parallel to each other, and one highlighting from the others. It was completely Yellow, on the map and several relief lines were on it. It was the mountain where the effort of Two-Two-two Mech had been concentrated. One of the mountains slopes had been the place were an entire battalion had been butchered.
      
      "Roger that," he opened his hatch and swung it to the right, facing his infantry Commander, a very old, silver haired Captain. "Take point, double time it, we will be about one hundred meters behind supporting by fire, I want you to spot ET's ass before we get in their Rod Guns range, if engaged we will support by fire and clear the path for you."
      "March us to the woods in the open?"
      "Draw their fire captain, they surely will have eyes on right about now, I can't risk the entire Company."
"First platoon!" shouted the Captain over the radio set. "Up!" from six MFVs thirty six Marines disembarked the same way the Major's squad had done and they formed up in a four long columns at the front of the company.
      "This should be interesting."
      "The Infantry always makes me-" the sound of a massive train wreck taking place came in directly infront of the marching infantry platoon, immediately spiraling a plume of dirt towards the purple sky. "That was incoming!"
      "Roger," Magallanes immediately pressing the red TRANSMIT button on his console. "Lions, flatten the forest." Immediately several booms on shuddered the environment as the Marine Fighting Vehicles opened up with their thirty millimeter auto-cannons on the forest, sending hundreds of red tracers over the Marine's heads, shattering and splintering the woods with dozens of explosions.
      "Lion three, wheel right, engage on the move, put your metal between the ETs and the grunts, we will support by fire."
      "Roger," called the second Lieutenant, CO of first platoon.
      "Here they come!"
      "What?"

Tin Cans: Clog the gap
Date: 8 August 2006, 1:05 am

0232h, January 21, 2527 (UNSC Military Calendar)
Taurus System, UNSC Outer Colony Controlled Space
Diamond Continent, Ruby.

Covenant tactics relied not on maneuver, but rather in complete and overwhelming firepower combined with speed. They would suppress an enemy with small arms and indirect fire, then charge for an overrun. They never attempted to flank an enemy by sheer fire-and-maneuver; ET constantly avoided fighting on the move.
       Thus Marines relied on one simple thing to countermove the Covenants ability to disappear hardware, movement. Thence the humans turned to elastic defense as their main battle plan. The Covenant was engaged, fought on their own terms then an orderly retreat was to be executed, and then, when the Covenant was on the move, a counter attack was to be launched on the flanks.
      Tank battalions were to be left on reserve, behind the lines, waiting for the order to exploit the Covenant weaknesses, the Scorpions would move in a pincer like movement to hit the Covenant on the flanks, creating a crossfire pit that would decimate a Covenant formation.
      Lieutenant General Mark Wenzel knew that as he ordered his forces to commit, he had drawn a plan to envelop the Covies on the march and one of his commanders had jumped the gun ordering his Mechanized Team to engage the Covenant on a simple static defense.
      He had to do the last thing he wanted, commit his light reserve Battalion against the Covenant. The Covenant had landed en mass on Sapphire Naval Air Station fifteen miles outside the city's outskirts, the Marines had air assaulted in, landing on the front as the nearly inexistent Territorial Army held the Covenant at bay.
      The three Marine regiments immediately jumped inside the lifeless, empty trenches of the soldiers that had already done their part. The Marines immediately came under attack by six Covenant Legions –so called by them- the Marines hid down and lat the Covenant pass right above them, then turned around and waxed them. It had been the grunts who had won the battle, not the tanks or airplanes.
      It had been a young Colonel, eager to fight the Covenant who had opened the wound on his lines, the one he desperately tried to clog and left Diamante, the city he had been ordered to protect, open to a Covenant ground attack.
      Task Force Two-Twenty Two Mechanized had to take a battle position of three armored Companies lined up, and hold it as long as it could. But the aliens had sent a small reconnaissance team exactly their way. Instead of engaging them in open combat and maneuver against them he poised his tanks and PCs in a line on the open against them.
      Now, the gap was open and there was nothing in the way of the Covenant and the gap.

The Covenant kept a steady flow of red, blue and purple beams towards the Marines who lay prone behind their APCs inside the forest. One of the square shaped vehicles lay burning, out of commission but still metal between the plasma and the troops behind it. Still, with the barrage coming in, setting aflame the trees around the Jarheads, the order was clear, trigger discipline.
      Lieutenant Gustav Oleg knew that he had to keep his men quiet until the Covenant charged, something that was about to happen, if his experience taught him something. Just then, it happened. Five flaming, blue spheres crossed the road, entered the forest and magically stuck to the five trees.
      The effects of a plasma grenade were devastating, not only did they kill you, but they blinded you like a mice, or so the Marines said. One of the first things told to Marines in MOS Combat Training was to close your eyes and open your mouth every time a plasma "frag" was thrown, that prevented you from getting deaf and blind.
       "Troops!" called the armored team leader, SSg Mack, who held fire as the unbearable heat enveloped the soldiers. The first out were the Jackals, holding their shields forward and jointly, forming a Phalanx that was followed by small creatures. "Engage!"
      The Marines fixed their laser pointers on the shields of creatures and opened fire, sending hundreds of 7.62x51mm rounds downrange towards the shields; they bounced off harmlessly. It only helped in slowing down the unhampered troops.
       "Legion one-three, hit them." The gasses expelled behind the shell, out of the ninety mike-mike muzzle made as a ventilator for the heat, giving the Marines a much needed breath-air. The Jackals disappeared immediately as the shell struck the shields, the HE-FRAG warhead shattering the formation in one blow.
      The turbine one of the Scorpion tanks came to life, sucking ten gallons of jet fuel, roaring through the Woods. The surviving Covenant fell immediately to Marine's MA5Bs, touring through them as they realized what was coming their way.
       "Flash, flash, flash!" shouted the Lieutenant as his clerk/RTO fired a flashbang from the launcher bellow the stubby barrel of his rifle. The cylindrical grenade landed on the center of the source of the Covenant, blinding and deafening everything in the forest. Gustav grabbed the handmike from the backpack-radio of the RTO and placed it over his right cheek, covering his mouth and right ear. "First squad to advance, second and fourth to provide eyes on and cover fire," he paused to check the men readying their weapons to his sides, "Mech team, suppress."
      The minigun mounts on the APCs began to roar as they suppressed the enemy on the woods that flanked the main road. "Roger, led outgoing."

The plan was going just as it had been hastily planned. The Covenant had fixed the location of two-twenty two Mech reconnaissance team and the only hope the battered Marines had was that the tank that meandered through the woods found it's target, the Wraith section targeting the infantry from a stand-off location, that had ceased fire as the Covenant infantry approached the Jarheads.
      The Wraith was, by far, the most versatile vehicle in the Covenant's inventory. It served as a tank, an assault gun, a fixed artillery battery and a self-propelled gun. A single, well placed shot from one of the Covenant's tanks could take out several bad placed Scorpions.
      As the tank meandered through the woods its tank commander couldn't help to think of what might be going on in the upper echelons. The Marines normally were relief forces for troops already in the field that consisted normally on regular Army and Territorial Guard units. When the hundred and sixth landed on the planet the order was simple, to delay the Covenant while the local authorities evacuated the city of Diamante. The Operation on the ground was simply that, a delay maneuver to give the fleet around the planet enough time for the ground forces evacuated as much people as possible.
       "Contact, tank, right," said Andree. The Wraith lay on the middle of the road, flanking the right of the tree line. The forty ton myth was surrounded by infantry that knew little of the firepower settled on them, walking by it weaponless and chatting among themselves on their native tongues.
       "SABOT his ass."
       "On the way!" the tank's cannon made the trees jump, as the Depleted Uranium penetrator struck the hull of the Covenant vehicle, immediately spark sprung from the purple surface.
       "What the fuck?" said Atwood.
       "Fucking awesome!"
      Normally it took several sabot rounds to take down a Wraith, five or six was the most popular number. When sparks spring out of a target it means the round has penetrated, the sparks being the result of the metal scratching each other, sending particles everywhere.
       "Legion seven-one, target destroyed."

The sound that emerged from tube of a coaxial machinegun of the Scorpion tank was deafening loud, as it could be heard a mile away. "One-three, this is seven one, roger that, are you still engaged?"
       "Roger engaged with troops," Gustav gave the handmike to his RTO and looked to his right. His Marines laid prone on the tree line that right flanked the paved road where the carcasses of several Wraiths, Phantoms and covenant soldiers lay.
       "Copy, stand by," he turned around and faced the tree surviving APCs he palmed towards them and his troops immediately got the order, embark. "We are coming for you, one-three."

The hundred and eleventh Marine Division of Mark Wenzel had one simple task, to delay the enemy forces while local authorities evacuated the City of Diamante. "I know," said Mark. "Everything is named after goddamn gems."
       "Understood," said the commander of three-twenty two, immediately shoving an OPORD folder between his right arm and chest. "Just have to keep joulery intact."
       "So its simple," noted Mark as he walked with the Colonel to his Dragon Armored All Terrain Vehicle. "You have to clog the gap that goddamn idiot opened when he lost two-twenty two."
       "I don't know sir," he said looking at the terrain, where a large hill stood up from the landscape, flanking it where two Marine battalions. "I thought we would be the exploitation group of the division, I don't like to commit my Light Armor against the Covenant in a meeting engagement."
       "Its not my favorite idea either, but if we don't close that gap between the infantry battalions the Covenant are going to pour through it, flank them and destroy them…"
      "And leave the city unprotected and open for assault."
      "If that happens it would not be the Marines the only ones to go."
       "Clog the gap Colonel," said Mark staring at the smoke columns that rise from the Marine's positions. "Or we will be royally fucked."

"…OPORD Romeo one is now in effect, Godspeed, out." The diesel engines of the small Marine Fighting Vehicles came online sending small whizzes through the air inaudible through his ear muffed helmet.
       "Hey, sir," said the gunner of the small rectangle shaped vehicle. "What the hell is OPORD Romeo One?"
       "Fuck if I know," replied Major Carlos Magallanes, "that shit was on a second folder when they briefed us." Magallanes was the Commander of Alpha Company, Third Battalion, Twenty Two Marine Regiment, the Light battalion of the Regiment, the fastest and meanest of the division. "Tell you the truth, it means we are going to march to a gap in the lines, close it and hold position."
       "Didn't you say you didn't know," said Poborsky.
       "Worst case scenario is always on folder number two, and you don't have to be a genius to figure out what the fuck just happened on the mountain."
       "Right, but that was the heavy battalion, what's goanna happen to our thin asses?"
       "Well, the show must go on." He tapped the red, TRANSMIT button. "Net call, net call, saddle up, lock and load, follow my lead."
      His order was followed by "Roger" from his platoon Leaders. He grabbed the left joystick of his console and pressed it forward, making the RPMs go up, rolling forward the tracks of the vehicle. His sixteen vehicle Company before him.

Gunny Atwood ejected the eight smoke grenades on the turret of his tank, creating a smokescreen that enveloped the Scorpion immediately. Still, it only hindered the vision of the Covenant infantrymen that marched upon his tank.
       "Small arms, front," said Andree, reporting the volley of green and blue beams that began to go by the Scorpion.
       "COAX, fire," the gunner centered the reticle on the center of a crouched Elite and pressed the twin machinegun buttons. An Elite disappeared in a white and yellow cloak, then reappeared only to be truck back by twenty 7.62mm rounds. Andree rotated the handles to his right and the turret traversed in that direction, dragging the road of yellow tracers in that direction, taking down small, chubby creatures falling down behind them.
       "Lets doge," he swung the tank forty five degrees to his left, the chassis facing the road now, he pushed it forward and the Scorpion rolled towards the pavement, it poised over it, and Atwood lat the gas turbine berserk, the tank peeking at ninety six miles per hour. "Catch us if you can." The turret, still facing to the rear of the tank, kept hosing the infantry down.
      The track passed right above the arming mechanism of the Covenant mine, it added several tons of pressure over it infighting the plasma generator on it, forming a plasma bubble that rocketed skywards. It went right through the bottom of the tank, and the next thing Atwood felt was his helmet striking the hatch that was above his head.
      His knees rocketed towards the roof, making him land on a fetal position on the roof of his tank. "What the fuck?" the unbearable heat had his feelers on the verge of collapsing, and to his surprise, there was a faint green cloud inside the tank.
       "I'm hit?" said Andree, left legless on the roof of his station.
      Atwood frowned, in disgust. The right foreleg of the Marine was gone and the he was pale. "You are okay," he punched down on the hatch, to see if it popped and it did halfway. "We have a rollover."
       "Damn it."
      Suddenly something hammered the right side of the vehicle, and it sounded like the loud whistle of a train. The tank skidded on the pavement flipped to the right side, swinging open the hatch of the tank immediately, throwing the Marines on the left wall. "Now we got to bail," the gunny pulled the right shoulder of the Marine, making Andree holler. "One-three is down, I repeat one-three is out, bailing."
      He flopped around and grabbed his MA5B from the large holster besides his chair, now at head-level, and pulled it out; Atwood turned to his right and jumped out the open hatch and landed crouched on the cold environment of the planet, immediately scanning the surroundings. He barely had time to wax the Grunt that approached the tank with a blue Sphere on his left hand. It landed on the ground besides the corpse. "Holly-" Gunny turned around and ran around the tank, jumping at the corner where the turret was.
       "Roger one three, we are coming your way, ETA is five minutes."
       "They are fucking creeping on my ass!" he turned to his right and clumsily wasted twenty rounds on a Grunt, which bathed the floor with its purple blood.
       "Two on the right," called Andree who began to dispense ammunition with his sub-machinegun from the hatch. "Down."

"Hear that?"
       "Roger," said Magallanes. "That's an MA5B."
       "Damn those things are loud," he had heard the popping sound of the assault rifle behind the grinding noise of the diesel engine and the wind smashing to his eardrums.
       "Contact, small arms, at grid six-nine-four-three-five."
       "Roger," replied the Vehicle Commanders. He halted the vehicle by setting his left joystick idle. Behind him, on the rear of the vehicle, just behind a four vehicle platoon in a wedge formation, a ramp swung towards the ground, landing on a slight arch and eight Marines ran out, to the left and right and formed two fire teams of four flanking the MFV.
      God. "Someone axly made it out?"
       "Yes," replied the Major. Carlos looked at his digital MFD that showed the map of the region. His battalion had three major objectives, circled in thick blue lines, named GOLD, SILVER and BRONZE. Each parallel to each other, and one highlighting from the others. It was completely Yellow, on the map and several relief lines were on it. It was the mountain where the effort of Two-Two-two Mech had been concentrated. One of the mountains slopes had been the place were an entire battalion had been butchered.
      Time for a little revenge. "Range to the mountain," the gunner lased the forested mountain bed and shouted "Three-hundred and ten mikes!"
       "Roger that," he opened his hatch and swung it to the right, facing his infantry Commander, a very old, silver haired Captain. "Take point, double time it, we will be about one hundred meters behind supporting by fire, I want you to spot ET's ass before we get in their Rod Guns range, if engaged we will support by fire and clear the path for you."
       "March us to the woods in the open?"
       "Draw their fire captain, they surely will have eyes on right about now, I can't risk the entire Company."
       "First platoon!" shouted the Captain over the radio set. "Up!" from six MFVs thirty six Marines disembarked the same way the Major's squad had done and they formed up in a four long columns at the front of the company.
       "This should be interesting."
       "The Infantry always makes me-" the sound of a massive train wreck taking place came in directly infront of the marching infantry platoon, immediately spiraling a plume of dirt towards the purple sky. "That was incoming!"
       "Roger," Magallanes immediately pressing the red TRANSMIT button on his console. "Legions, flatten the forest." Immediately several booms on shuddered the environment as the Marine Fighting Vehicles opened up with their thirty millimeter auto-cannons on the forest, sending hundreds of red tracers over the Marine's heads, shattering and splintering the woods with dozens of explosions.

Hotel Company, 3-22 Marines (Mechanized) was a reconnaissance element, pure at simple. It served as the Battalion's eyes and ears and the heaviest vehicle in its corps was the lone APC of the Commander's section. The rest of the vehicles were light Colt motorcycles and ten Warthog vehicles LRVs armed with M-247 and Jackhammer turrets.
       "Yeah!" screamed PFC Blackfoot as the last 7.62x51mm round left the muzzle of his weapon, the arming lever snapping forward. "Get some!"
       "You don't even know what you are shooting at," replied Lieutenant Marquez.
       "Sure I do, those big ass woods on the ridge."
      The Lieutenant lets out a small chuckle with his lips closed, and looked through his binoculars the edge of the woods. Suddenly he knelt in the space between the sit and the dashboard, lifting the binoculars to eye level. "What the?" He could barely distinguish the figure of the man carrying on his right shoulder a legless fellow, he came out on the south east of the prairie and the outskirts of the woods. "Check fire!"
      Suddenly the volley of 7.62mm and .30 cal rounds ceased and the Marines began to exchange warning shouts. "Two o'clock at three hundred meters."
       "Marines in the line of fire!"
       "Hit it Marcos," ordered the Lieutenant as he picked up his SMG between his legs. "Get us there." Like clockwork the entire company began to fire their smoke grenades from the launchers over the vehicle, the canisters landing right next to the Marines. The hog rolled over the terrain, skidding on the wet grass beneath the wheels, with LCpl Smith hollering away with his M-247.
      The Marine stopped cold on the ground, he threw the wounded Marine on the ground and began to wave with both arms in despair. "What the hell?" Suddenly the cold breeze of the air began to swirl around his body. He felt the gentle coldness after the intense heat. He had experienced once that type of feeling. He had been hit by a fuel rod gun and he had been rocketed out of his vehicle.

Magallanes hollered. "Down!" the infantrymen had already seen the Warthog race to the two humans. He knew why, thanks both his extensive training and experience, that the Covenant had seen it as "shoot and scoot" movement. They would respond with all their artillery and arms. The Warthog disappeared immediately after the long green beam struck it amidships.
      Still pressing the transmit button he shouted, "get the fuck down! I'm calling some A-T on that forest!"
       "Roger that!" replied the Captain commander of the infantry.
       "Lima, Lima, this is Red Bat, OPORD Romeo one is fucked," immediately two of his MFVs disappeared in a pair of awesome fireballs. "We are less than a click away from Objective silver requesting a fire mission on zero-niner-seven-three-two-one, fire for effect."
       "Roger." Called a cold voice. Carlos pressed the top of his helmet against his head and shook his head. "They are going to cream us," he pressed again the TRANSMIT button. "Net Call, Net Call, retreat, retreat, retreat!"

Atwood lat loose two rounds striking a Grunt on the belly, it shattered it's inner organs and it collapsed in agony and pain. The Gunnery Sergeant skidded back into the cover of the tree to his left and looked on the receiver of his MA5B, nine rounds left in the chamber.
       The Covenant must think I'm a goddamn sharp shooter, he thought. He was the worst shot in his Boot Camp class fifteen years before passing the shooting range by bare inches. The Aliens had stayed in cover for the past minutes without making any moves, excepting the shift of position of the luckless Grunt.
      He raised his head, his eyes poised on the unseen sound of a growing whistle. The old man knew what it was. "Incoming!" suddenly he was up on his feet running across towards the only refuge available, the rolled over tank. He felt the holt plasma smear past him as he reached the center of the rolled over tank, grabbed one of the corners and pulled inside headbutting Andree in the process, the gunny was inside before the first one-seven-oh millimeter White Phosphorous grenade hit the woods.

Tin Cans: Grunts
Date: 5 September 2006, 1:11 am

0232h, January 21, 2527 (UNSC Military Calendar)
Taurus System, UNSC Outer Colony Controlled Space
Hill 413 Diamond Continent, Ruby.

The Mech team consisted of ten Marines, three crew members and a Marine Fighting Vehicle. They were supposed to fight together. Once the Marines disembarked the MFVs they became maneuver elements for the platoon to move through rough terrain while the armor provided suppressive fire. The textbook had gone down the Jon that evening. Four squads of ten Marines disembarked and took the first blow, an FRG in the center of their lines causing a volley of radioactive rods that took nearly the entire first squad in one strike.
      "Targets, defiladed on the tree line." Captain Marcus Regatta cleared the chamber of his assault rifle on the plasma rifle camouflaged on the rock and foliage above the horizon of grass where the trees began. His first platoon, the only to disembark the MFVs before the retreat, now down to thirty two men remained hidden behind the crest on the terrain above the grassy prairie, the only cover over the featureless terrain. "Sergeant!"
      "Engage with the two-four-seven."
      "On the way." The slightly exposed bipod machinegun lat loose and for three full seconds and the Covenant hid their heads as long. Then, as the Covenant creatures on the cloverleaf regained composure and fired he realized a terrible fact. He and his thirty two Marines too were inside the Covenant artillery range.
      "Hu?"
      "I respectfully said what the fuck now, sir." Said a terrified Sergeant, helmet less.
      Marcus popped his head over the ridge just in time to witness a one-seven-oh millimeter miracle. DIVARTY was doing its job and the entire forest splintering, breaking, cutting and scraping almost every tree in the forest. The Captain chuckled uncontrollably. "Sergeant, if you don't calm down I will kick your ass." He rolled to his back and looked to both his right and left. He counted nearly twenty heads. "Prepare to charge!"
      "What?"
      "You heard me Marine!"
      "But sir there is over a hundred Covenants on that hill and we are only thirty heads with no heavy backup."
      "Look Marine there are three ways to get out of this mess, the first is to attack, the second, to retreat and the third," the Captain locked and loaded his rifle. "Is to show those sons of bitches that we are fucking savages."
      "I'll go with the third one!" called a random Marine.
      "Now we have over two batteries of one hundred seventy on that hill we need to go now!" he nodded to the Sergeant. "OK, sergeant you have ten men, go right, there is a slight slope down the ridge use it to gain speed, get clear of the open as soon as you can and reach those woods, I'll be right behind you."
      The Sarge nodded, turned around and shouted, "second squad! Up!" They were ten men total. He rallied them up, walking past them shouting their names, and then threw a cylindrical grenade over the ridge and waited four seconds. Then he jumped up, and began to ran to be stopped immediately by a plasma beam to his head. He collapsed to his knees and so he was gone.
      Needles to say, the Marines froze and something had to be done. In all his years as a reserve Marine he never expected to do what he was about to. The Captain pulled out his forty five and ran across the ridge. He turned his face around and shouted, "Lets go, they are fucking ours." The Marines, stunned, snapped to their feet, jumped over the ridge and began to run, rifle blazing at the enemy.
      In all the confusion of the fog of war there is always the certainty that to get killed you must be at the wrong place at the wrong time, that day wasn't the captain's. He made the bullet dodging dance, plasma bolts smearing past him, until he reached the edge of the forest where he stopped cold after for a second, he looked right, and then left. There must had been over sixty Grunts around him. For a moment he thought his eyes deceived him. The creatures dropped their arms, turned around and ran across the woods in despair.
      "Fucking get them," shouted the Captain aiming his forty-five on the creatures and shooting. The slide snapped backwards and remained still as the Captain loaded a fresh magazine into the receiver. He whaked two more with seven rounds as the rest of his Marines joined him, fifteen total waxing away at the stampede taking them down, plumes of dirt jumping around them as the ammo missed them by inches.
      "Go for it Marines!"
      "Jeeeeeeha!" shouted a Marine. "Now what we need is reinforcements," said an unruly sergeant. "Why do you think they are retreating?"
      "See any Elites?" asked the Captain.
      "No." Said the Sergeant placing the stock of his rifle on the ground and kneeling next to the captain. "We need to contact Legion, they'll know what to do."
      "No need sir!" said a Marine turned around and pointing at the fields, the MFVs came at full speed leaving a wake of dirt behind them. "Close enough for the squad net to reach them."
      "Sergeant," said the Captain. "Volunteer five heads, move up the hill, base of fire on whatever pokes his head above that hill." He thumbed the radio on, "Hellhound one actual, over?"
      Magallanes tapped the TRANSMIT button. "Hotel-India nice to hear from you!" shouted the tanker.
      "Actual," said Marcus. "We need the rest of the dismounts if we are going to take the hill."
      "Negative, our objective is to close the gap, not take the hill, you will have the dismounts but futher action is not necessary."
      "Roger."

Gustav stood by the ramp of the M1116 Armored Personal Carrier, rifle at the ready with his finger inside the trigger guard. "Troops at eleven, twelve and two o'clock, friendlies trapped in rolled over tank, that's the prize Marines!"
      "Hurrah!"
      "What do we say?"
      "Marine Corps!" suddenly the only thing to be heard was the whistling sound of the diesel engine and the intermittent heartbeats of his pounding ticker, a calming melody before the storm that was about to come. The calm of the roar was interrupted by the groan of the minigun of the APC. That was the cue.
      The ramp dropped and somehow he was on the right side of the APC popping rounds out of the muzzle of his MA5B and leading his Marines. "Breckenridge left!" he ordered the platoon light machinegunner who dropped to the ground next to him and opened fire with his LMG, showering the enemy with bullets. The exposed small creatures, shell-shocked, immediately fell limp on the woods.
      Deployed to his right was first squad, shooting their rifles at will on the enemy. Second squad, moved from behind, passed the left side of the PC and dropped on the ground opening fire on the enemy. Third and fourth squad stayed in a column behind their APCs. "Marine column!"
      The Jarheads of first squad, still engaging the Covenant moved right behind the Lieutenant and stuck to the right side of the APC, facing the Covenant and began to strut forward, their rifles blazing with lead the enemy ahead concealed in the foliage that flanked the paved road. Amongst his men were calls for targets, both acquisition and engagement. "That tank is two-five meters ahead!"
      Gustav gestured a line to be formed, and as his men redeployed to his flanks a scream was uttered. "Corpsman!" The Lieutenant kept moving, iregardless of the scream, to the tank, he stuck to it, on the part of the tracks that faced the APCs.
      Then, he had cover, a place to think what was happening. On the middle of road, exposed to enemy fire and applying pressure to a wound was the Corpsman, Petty Officer Jones. "What the hell are you doing?" The rest of the squad, six men, stuck to the tank as cover as well.
      His reactions were based on both training, and instinct; he ran across the paved street as plasma bolts smeared past him, turned around and popped six rounds into the enemies direction, grabbed the wounded man by the shoulder, causing him to scream in pain as his wound scratched the pavement, and dragged the Marine the seemingly endless six yards to the safety of the tank.
      "Gunny!"
      "Lieutenant!" there was a loud explosion on the opposite side of the tank. "They are getting close!"
      "Stand fast Marine, here we go." The Lieutenant took a step backwards grabbed a cylinder shaped grenade and lobbed it above the tank. The smoke-flashbang hybrid detonated and the lieutenant bellowed "Go, go, go!"
      He followed Team Alpha to the right on which they formed a line and fired dozens of tracer tipped bullets across the smoke. Gustav passed them by and swung left, he approached the hatch and tapped twice. "About fucking time," Atwood helped his buddy out and he followed him after he was safetly in the Lieutenant's hands, who had swung his rifle across his back.
      The Officer then swung right, the man clenched on his back and rolled behind the tank. "Marine Column, organized retreat."
      "Hurrah."
      The Marines began to move to the rear, where the APCs stood, and passed by the second squad. They squad continued to pin the enemy until it was all over, and the Lieutenant had placed the gunny and the gunner of the tank inside the track.

"What now!"
      "I have no idea."
      "Infantry at ten o'clock and fire incoming from the right!"
      "Calm down."
      "How in the name of heaven can I calm down?"
      "Both of you can it," said Gunny Atwood as the smoke cleared inside the track where the only light to be seen came from a orifice on the right side of the PC. "What the hell happened?"
      "A-T from the right side of the road!"
      "Left side you retard."
      The Gunnery Sergeant grunted and crunched from the floor of the APC. "Identify yourself."
      "Lance Corporal Mike Wellington."
      "Pee-eff-cee Steve Perez."
      "What happened," asked the Gunny, calmly to chill the grunts down. "Where is everybody?"
      "They all made a run for it," said Mike. "They left us behind."
      "As soon as we got hit."
      "The other two PCs made a run for it too."
      "What do we do?"
      Stunned, the gunny frowned. He was a tanker, not a poge, and if he recalled it correctly so were the Marines with him. They were the crew of the track. "Are you armed, I cant see shit through this friggin' smoke."
      "Two MA5Bs and a pouch of grenades."
      "Great, get ready to blow out."
      "What do you mean by great?"
      "Kamikaze."
      "Fucking A."
      "You have no idea what that means, do you Perez?"
      "We are going to hold this stretch of road till we get relieved."
      "Why?" said the terrified Corporal. "So they can fuck kill us."
      "Fuck yeah you retard."
      "Yes, Gunnery Sergeant."
      "If we hold we might give those PCs time enough to get somewhere with the intel they have collected," he crouched turned around and walked across the flaming and smoking APC. "Hold the rear, and remember what's the most lethal weapon in the universe is!"
      "A Marine and his rifle!"
      "Fucking Awesome."

When an enemy advances, shoots and retreats, it is called shoot and scoot. That was what the Covenant was doing all around the lines, probing, breaching, shooting and retreating. The aliens tactics were working perfectly and the hundred and eleventh Marine Infantry Division was taking heavy loses in a twenty kilometer front to protect the city of Ruby.
      "We need to do something, fight back, kill them somehow," said the Brigadier. "And we just lost another battalion, without achieving their targets."
      "Check that," said a radioman inside the M1116C Command and control Personel Carrier. "The hill is ours." Closing his right fist and nodding the General celebrated. "We have the hill."
      "How is that possible?"
      "Infantry that was left behind charged the hill an took it," said the Sergeant, "the enemy simply retreated when they charged."
      "Get them out of there!" shouted the Brigadier. "Shoot and scoot."
      "Sir we also have reports of a surviving element of a team of mechanized infantry engaged on the top of the hill."
      "Well get them some air," said Wenzel. "Air support that is."
      "Roger."

"Sir do you feel that?" asked a Marine entrenched in the same foxhole as the captain.
      "Yes," and he felt it, on every inch of the damaged forest. Nothing at all. No movement, nothing, except a few plumes of smoke and scattered fires. He had thirteen Marines and the reinforcements were about to come, on the horizon the MFVs moved rapidly to bring the remnants of Alpha and Bravo companies. "Get ready-" the quietness of the forest was interrupted by a long and familiar sound. It was the bark of an MA5B.
      "Contact!" screamed the last remaining Sergeant.
      "Shut up," said the Captain calmly. "Its not us," he thumbed the radio off. He looked to his right and then to his left. "Get the two-four-seven on the tree-trunk that is collapsed."
      "Net call, net call, all units retreat, retreat, retreat."
      Suddenly thirteen heads turned to see him, and he shook his head. "If we retreat we will be fucked."
      "Over and over again," said the private next to him. "They are endless."
      "And this is only the beginning," the Captain locked and loaded as he saw the light machinegun was set over the tree trunk just in time before the attack, the initial wave of enemy forces. It was, after all, a sudden loud screech came from the west, A Shaman Grunt, or whatever it was, ordering an all out attack.
      The hundreds of footsteps could be heard on every inch of the forest. That feeling of nothing suddenly turned into a panic spree. He immediately shouldered his rifle and aimed uphill. His thirteen Marines were allocated into three fire teams spread in a triangle with two tips facing up and one down, thus forming a perimeter that would be hard to crack.
      "Shat," said the Captain. It was over a hundred beams heading down witch made his marines cover. "Shoot now if you wanna live forever!"
      Shells, unlike plasma made a very distinct sound when approaching at high speed. The swirling move of the bullet spinning on air created a whizzing sound unlike the electric buzzing sound of a plasma beam. He immediately knew what to do. He pushed his helmet harder on his head and barked "Hit the deck!"
      Suddenly the hill transformed into a massive fireball that expanded linearly to the right. It was the one-one-oh mil of a Longsword strafing the mountain. "Get down!" he screamed again once the line of explosions plummeted down on the earth.
      "Fucking flyboys!" he heard between explosions.
      Fuck them indeed. In the cockpit it only looked like plumes of dirt rising from the ground, on the mud it felt like the whole world rained on you. He hated the fucking things. Inderct fire, if there was such a thing.
      The earthquake ceased and suddenly he was on his feet pointing with his right hand to the left flank. "Left flank," he whispered. "Cover."
      He turned around and saw a rocket smear past him, it struck a tree trunk amidships and it evaporated in a fireball. He ducked and looked to the rear. Shades, shadows in the green. Black figures visible only for milliseconds on the green.
      "Rear, identified yourself!"
      Three figures popped out the tall grass. "Man, are we happy we found you." Said one of the Paras, they wore brown, green and black BDUs, packed old arms and a deep look that penetrated the armored vests the Marines wore. "Second Anti-tank team, Parachute Brigade, Ruby northern defense command."
      Suddenly twenty more figures stood up. "What the heck are those?" asked the Marine next to him.
      "Old MA-2A assault rifles. These guys are militia."

Tin Cans: Grunts part II
Date: 14 September 2006, 11:27 pm

The moment his eyelids opened he was in the middle of a fight. Assault rifles and plasma guns barked and screeched so loud they deafened the Marines and Grunts alike. In all the chaos he merely had enough time to hear the last words uttered from Lance Corporal Pardo standing by the aflame APC that was once his home, "They are ripping us a new one!"
       A plasma bolt smeared over the pavement and found his exposed face and he collapsed lifelessly on the ground. "Shit," said Gustav quickly recapitulating what had happened. His Mech team had been part of the Regimental Reconnaissance Team with four PCs and two Scorpion tanks, he had lost a tank while taking out a Wraith and lost a second to enemy fire prior his blackout when something big struck his APC.
       What had caused the blackout? Well, he had no idea, but he was there, there was a fight and he had to win. It was not a matter of pride, he simply had to make the Covenant pay for what they have done, not only to him, but to all humanity.
       "Give me a SITREP!" he shouted at a Marine in a fetal position right next to him.
       "They are all over us!"
       Gustav frowned, nodded and bit his lips. "That ought to sum it up," he swung his head right and saw his Marines, first squad, pinned down on a ditch nest to the road by enemy fire coming somewhere across the smoke screen. If his gut was right, there was only one kind of Covenant beast able to fire accurately across a smoke screen; Motherfucking Elites. "Platoon Sergeant Stevens?"
       "Lieutenant," said the sergeant sliding into the ditch next the burning APC from across the road. "Your orders?"
       "We need to get first squad out of that fucking ditch. Where are the heavy gears?"
       "We lost them, they are inside the M1116," the sergeant ducked just in time to avoid the plasma radioactive shell that struck the APC again.
       "Its official," Gustav uttered. "We are facing Elites."
       "So what do we do."
       "That bubble turret on top of the PC seems fine," he said staring at the APC next to him. "And the fire-retardant BDUs ought to work."
       "It's a fucking oven in there," said the PSG between machinegun bursts. "I'll do it!"
       "OK, the fire suppressors are in the commander's station if they are not on you should turn them on," the Lieutenant ducked as an accurate burst of bolts passed above his head. "Shit."
       "Roger that sir," the platoon Sergeant stood just to be cut in half by a long, green beam.
       "Hunter!" shouted a random Marine, of first squad, making the entire pinned down group to cut and run.
       "No!" shouted Gustav with his hand raised vertically, to no avail. His men were butchered in three quick seconds.
       "Goddamn it!" shouted second squad leader in the opposite side of the road. He turned around, facing third and fourth squad on the forest that flanked the road. He ordered second squad to form a column setting his right hand flat. He had to keep them safe, inside their ditch while he prepared third and fourth squad to suppress the enemy with only their small arms, not an easy feat to do, specially when dealing with Elites.
       In the hole he was in there were two other Marines, the crew of the APC, both in a prone position still as a rock. "You two, its time to kick some Covenant ass."
       They both looked at him unbelieving their ears, eyes and gut. The Lieutenant Stood up , dragged the first one with him –making the second marine follow him- and ran across the road, right next to the burning APC. "You," he said tapping one of the Marines in the shoulder. "Go tell third squad leader to prepare to flank the enemy on my command." He turned around and tapped him on the back, "You are with fourth squad tell them to spread through the forest and prepare for an enemy flanking attack.
       He took a deep breath and relaxed every member and organ in his body, including his pounding heart. He turned to face the inside of the PC and ran across the unbearable heat. He had only fifteen seconds before the fire burnt past his Battle dress Uniform and armor, including his face plate, he reached the VC station and used his hands to find the correct switch for the fire suppressors. There, with his ring finger he removed the safety cap, and switched it on with his thumb.
       Cold air suddenly whizzed inside the PC and he knew it was safe to ignore the blisters in his body. He grabbed the twin handles of the minigun and pressed the twin buttons, sending hundreds of bullets towards the Covenant and the incoming fire ceased immediately.
       In ten full seconds the Marines ran across the side-ditch of the road and disappeared into the foliage. He had saved his men, but he could not save himself, the bright plasma green FRG penetrated the hull once again ending the life of Lieutenant Gustav Oleg.

The hundred and eleventh Marine Division had tree regiments on the right flank, to on the center and two on the right, 1-22, 2-22 and 3-22. Two Heavy Regimental Combat teams and one Light, Mechanized Regimental Combat Team at a mountain bed. Each had an area of operations that stretched across the fields, now wastelands, of battle. In which the only highlights on the irregular plains were two large mountains on the left. That's where he was right then.
       When he arrived on planet his orders were simple, to delay the Covenant until reinforcements arrived. It had proven a deadly task. He had led his men into battle with two hundred vehicles, now only thirty two remained after two days of combat operations. He had failed as a division commander.
       Now his job would be simple, to play his last card. Admiral Kennedy had managed to sneak one tank battalion into the area by airlifting them in a storm, something that had earned him the Colonial Cross. Now, as simple as that, it was just a matter of where to hit the Covenant.
       The Covenant had snuck up on him twice, advancing on full gear on his position, bathing with fire his troops, and then retreating. Now, he would do the same.
       3rd Regimental Combat Team, 22nd Marine Strike Team had preformed poorly except for a brave few who had secured the mountain bed. Now it was time for redemption. Standing on the rustic tent just before the tree line six Officers and fifteen NCOs listened carefully at the words of Mark Wenzel. "We need the hill," he said eyeballing the commander of 3-22. It had been his mistake that cost nearly his entire Regiment, if he hadn't pulled all his artillery resources on the hill to achieve victory. He had attacked the hill with three companies and chickened out once the first vehicle was destroyed, leaving a platoon alone at the bottom of the hill, who took the bottom part of the mountain. "We need specifically the road so we can move the armored battalion across the mountain to hit the Covenant rear."
       "Sounds harder than it will be." Said the Regimental commander. "We will assault the hill after the tanks and MFVs will flatten it, resistance should be minimal, once we reach the mountaintop we will form a perimeter and wait for the tanks."
       "Sure," whispered Captain Marcus Regatta.

"A Marine and his rifle!" said sarcastically Mike Wellington. "How about an Elite and his fucking sword?"
       "They are pussies."
       "Right on Gunny!"
       "Well, that son of a bitch has been trying to charge on us and we have put like two hundred rounds on him and he still keeps coming every five minutes."
       "We'll get him next time, you have my word on that."
       It had been an odd day, first the Covenant Knocked Out the APC, then they surrounded it, and then, it got freaky. The Covenant pulled out, after having the three Marines pinned down for a few hours. The Jarheads pondered for a few minutes on what to do, but then, it arrived. A Gray armored, impervious to small arms by its energy shield Elite. It had stalked the Marines for two hours now and they were on the verge of breaking. To add to the Marine's paranoia a raging battle a few hundred meters away had ceased and, to their grief, they had not sighted a single friendly unit.
       "Lets just cut and run," said Perez. "Get out of here before it comes back again."
       "Yeah, lets retreat, like the Marines we are," said the gunny, sarcastically.
       "No seriously, I have no idea if we can stay in this tin can much longer."
       Suddenly the sound of rifles barking and plasma weapons screeching went off in the forest. "Those are our guys," said the gunny. "We ought to try to get to them, get ready to move."
       Yes, gunnery Sergeant.

Major Magalllanes could not bear the eyes set on him by his officers and NCOs. Their deep gazes punctured his skin and caused him a pain a plasma rifle could not. He had faced the Covenant in a game of chicken and had blinked. Still only for a handful of officers in his staff the reason was not known.
       He had saved the Company, and perhaps the battalion, from total, utter destruction. Nevertheless he had left a platoon of Marines behind and that, was unforgivable not only from his men, but for himself. Grieving aside, at the sunup of a new day he had been given new orders. "The goal," said the Battalion Commander, "is to secure the road at the mountain bed so we can, well, secure the road that cuts the mountain in half."
       "Lion one-one," said the Magallanes on his radio. "Passing checkpoint alpha."
       "Roger."
       He had gone thoroughly through the phases for mission planning. First he had to negotiate the terrain; he had three platoons of infantry covering the woods as the oval shaped MFVs flanked it as the road was "beyond the red line," where the Covenant lines started; in other words, his Marines would have to circle the mountain to get to their objective, for the most part with Covenant eyes on them. The infantry would hold the line as the sixteen vehicle company moved in a convoy bordering the treeline to the assault position on the woods across it.
       Second he would use his infantry as his main assault force, using his MFVs and .50 cal turrets of his APCs to suppress the enemy, then came the surprise.

For a man who had flunked in battle, he sure made a bold plan. As an infantry commander Regatta could see the brilliance in Magallanes plan. A simple plan, but bold. On his CP, basically a frontal assault on the enemy rear's.
       Marcus signaled at the first platoon commander and slashed the air forward with his palm vertically, the young Lieutenant, grass reaching his shoulders of his crouched body pointed at two team leaders and gestured them forward.
       The Marines stood up and, as expected all hell broke loose. A dozen Grunts opened fire, the squeal of their rifles audible through the forest.
       "Contact!" called his Marines. "Eleven o'clock!"
       "Jackhammer them," ordered the Captain, immediately, a few meters to his left a plume of smoke ignited horizontally propelling a missile towards the foliage were tiny green beams came. The warhead struck a rock, igniting the fuse and exploding the ten pounds worth of plastic explosive, sending the ring of tandem shrapnel in every direction immediately killing every one of the grunts.
       "Beautiful," said Marcus staring at the unwavering Marines of first platoon advancing, zigzagging through trees with the grass at their hips. Once the shockwave of the explosion cleared, the screeches returned.
       "Third platoon, platoon vee, forward, tell the guys that third platoon is to remain put at the center."
       His Radioman repeated the orders and the first two squads of second platoon moved forward, leaving the third and fourth behind, thus forming a flat bottom V. They moved quickly, covering their flanks waiting for the Covenant counter move.
       "Wort, wort, wort," suddenly a Shade turret lit up the forest on the opposite side of the woods, that and three plasma turrets lay hell down on the Marines.
       Staring through his thermal binoculars he saw the location of the Shade, perfectly hidden and camouflaged with vegetation. "Tell third platoon to put a base of fire on the turrets and the two-four-sevens on the Shade," he paused to watch sixty muzzle blasts erupt from the grassy, sending yellow tracers in every direction.
       "First platoon reports heavy casualties."
       "Patch me through to Major Magallanes."
       The RTO threw him the handmike of the radio and he ducked. "Lion one-one, copy over?"
       "Roger, you guys ran into some serious shit up there, over?"
       Marcus frowned his anger while shaking his head, "Yes sir, I recommend we withdrawal."
       "Negative, continue your attack, I have a surprise for them."
       Marcus threw the handmike back to the RTO, stood up and watched the spectacle in front of him. His Marines were being attacked by all sides by superior weaponry coming from three different places, he had three platoons, time to work.
       He turned around to face his crouched RTO. "C'mon I see first platoon holding, if they do that we have a risk of getting flanked."
       "Oh, I see," said the RTO. "Your orders."
       "Call third platoon, tell them to send a squad over," he turned around, bolts smearing around his position. "Call the machinegun team, tell them to switch one hundred meters to the right, I have a feeling the Grunts will charge that way."
       "Zebra, one three…"
       Then, the Marines arrived, "Captain, sir," said the Sergeant leading them crouched, the tall grass covering him to his head.
       "Get up, we are going for a walk." Marcus pulled out his holstered forty five and and began to walk, his stomach turned around and his heart pounding, horribly. He had heard stories of Marine commanders showing absolutely no fear, anguish or horror to the atrocities they witnessed. He had never expected him to be one of them.
       He walked heartbeat by step towards first platoon, a place where no tree stood unharmed, all of whom were either prone or a casualty, and shouted. "Lieutenant Evans?"
       "Yes sir," called a voice on the grass haystack that was to his right.
       "We have to resume the attack," calmly noted Regatta to his men as he crouched besides him.
       "But sir I have fifteen KIA, I lost my platoon sergeant and we have them on a ditch sir, a fucking trench-like ditch."
       "Calm down," he told the terrified Marine, "we will get through this," Regatta uttered with a skin penetrating doubt on his mind. "I will order third platoon to faint a frontal attack, at that point I want you to hold wait for them to halt and then attack to the right, flank them, probe them, do whatever you have to do but find a weak spot, I will leave this squad to form a base of fire on the Shade," the Lieutenant nodded slightly. "Then Second platoon will do a pincer movement on the Shade, once we take out the gunner I will frag it."
       "Understood sir," said the Lieutenant crouching and gripping his rifle tightly.
       "You'll be fine Marine."
       But he would never be the same, he knew he had send the men to their deaths by making them flank. He would never be the same. By ordering the platoon to flank he knew he would trigger the Covenant response to everything, a charge of Grunts. That was why he had ordered the MG team to switch to a right position, so they could cut through the little beasts as they charged.
       On third's platoon area was a Lieutenant barking orders at every Marine in his platoon, he was calmed down by the Captain's arrival.
       "Sir!" shouted the Lieutenant at the Captain. "Sir, we are awaiting orders."
       "We have two squads ready to roll forward."
       "Not yet Marine, not yet."

Tin Cans: Combine Arms
Date: 22 September 2006, 1:27 am

When an armored company marches in a line the turrets of said vehicles are to be turned side-to-side to cover all possible angles. A Company,3rd Battalion, 22nd Marine Strike Team, 111th Marine Division had the job of securing the road towards that cut the mountain in half. After the hill, if the operation was successful, the tanks would find an empty gap in the Covenant lines, while the Mechanized Infantry secured the woods, and would wreck havoc in the enemy lines. To do that they had reached Phase Line lemon without trouble, where a forest stretched down from the mountain forming a curtain of foliage between the beginning of the mountain road and the vehicles. Approaching from the west, through the woods, was a company of infantrymen who was distracting the Covenant from the main assault.
       Leading the column was a M1116A1 APC armed with a turreted .50 cal machinegun shielded by armored plates and the hatch on the rear. Manning the turret was Martha Robinson, Vehicle Commander. A few centimeters from her eyes were to thick binocular-like thermal scopes. It served as a thermal image system that was extremely useful for picking up targets, just as the one she sighted on a tree branch, camouflaged by brown netting. It was a Jackal scout and it, could not be allowed to survive.
       She stepped on her right pedal making the turret turn to face the general direction of the target, which began to move, she centered the iron sights on the target and pressed the butterfly triggers. The tree branch took the first hit, breaking in half, making the creature fall to the ground and it landed awkwardly, she walked the red tracers towards it and a purple explosion erupted on its belly, it had been that easy, her first kill and she felt no remorse.
       "This is two one, contact troops front, woods on the east, target down," she reported calmly as it nothing exciting hadn't happen.
       "Big dog to all units, they now know we are coming, lock and load, out."
       Martha switched the intercom ON and simply said, "saddle up."
       "Roger that," reported the embarked engineer squad. Suddenly she heard continuous booms on the rear, she turned around and saw the source of it, she already knew it by the sound. Two MFVs blasted into the woods, their sixty millimeter autocannons barking out. The muzzle blasts sparking, lighting and expelling gasses out of their meter long tubes.
       The fuel rod Gun shell fell short of the advancing APC, plummeting dirt and grass in every direction. "Identify," said Martha, still perfectly calmed. The onboard IR sensors had picked the launch, trajectory and touchdown spot of the FRG. Her command voice went straight to the computer, witch uploaded to the turret commands, the fifty cal MG turned around to face a bush grove on the open. She shattered it, the fifty cal rounds ripping the Grunts apart.
       "This is Two-One, contact, AT, right side of the road."
       There was a seemingly endless pause and then, the word came. "R-I-P."

Master Sergeant Lewis Stewart received the order gracefully. RIP, or relief in place, called for a substitution of current units engaged by bypassing them, and taking on the fight. He commanded oval shaped hull called a Marine Fighting Vehicle, and he was to take on the fight. In front of him was the command console displaying three Multi-Function-Displays, to his sides were two joysticks. In one of the MFDs he had his ammo displayed.
       He had three weapons, his main autocannon, a coaxial 7.62x51mm machinegun and a Jackhammer launcher. "Form a wedge," he ordered his vehicles, three more forming a platoon of four. He swung his left joystick was pressed towards his right, taking the right side of the fourth APC of the column.
       The vehicle accelerated to sixty miles per hour, passing by two APCs and two MFVs immediately shifting to third gear. So far so good, he told himself. He reached the edge of the "curtain" and swung to the north, and then, the Covenant appeared. They were dispersing, fleeing in disbelief as they found an mechanized company on their rear. Lewis immediately found his target and knobbed on his right joystick "JACKHAMMER."

Marcus was suddenly surprised the pounding of the Shade ceased, the forest around lit on fire. He raised his head above the grass and saw the three "sticks" of the Shade turning towards the south. Suddenly it exploded in a mini fire mushroom.
       "Jackhammer!" he said as he suddenly felt back in control of his company. He turned back to his RTO and calmly said, "report."
       "First platoon is reporting heavy losses but they are ready to move," he paused. "Second and third report they are ready."
       "Shit," said Marcus immediately pointing at the former position of the Shade, several, lots of Grunts were making a run for it. "Shoot them damn it!" The Marines opened fire, small plumes of dirt and purple splashes of blood erupted in and around the Grunts, falling down before they even got out the ditch. "That's what I'm talking about," said Marcus as he cheered with his Marines. "OK," he said crouching by his RTO, "tell first platoon to get their shit together. Second is to advance and link up with third, once that is achieved they are to push together in a line, reach the ditch and wait for the tanks and engineers."
       The RTO robotically repeated the orders and nodded making the Captain stand from his crater and running –slightly crouched- towards the conglomeration of Marines in the left flank. He shouted "Go, go, go!" and they all sprinted to their duties.
       He zigzagged through the trees as he reached the ditch where he went prone, his two hundred and ten pound body slamming hard into the ground. He could now hear the combination of sixty mike-mike and fifty cal as the vehicles approached.

Martha swung the machinegun in a clockwise spin as she targeted the frightened Grunts, taking as many as she could for her personal count. The MFVs concentrated on suppressing the forest for special surprises.
       "This is two-one in position at checkpoint Charlie, should we deploy?"
       "Roger deploy the engineers, watch out for those mines."
       "Move it, move it," she bellowed as she stamped the ramp open, the engineers deployed in front of the APC with all their gadgets and dohokies. Those artifacts were useless. Covenant mines were stealth to anything human made except for the good old metal detector, witch had to be on top of it to sense it, thus the Marines had to navigate the minefields in the middle of crossfire.
       "Two-one," said Martha, "boots on the ground no fire coming in from the woods, I repeat no incoming fire from the woods, suppression fire established."
       "Roger that Two-One," Magallanes reported.

Corporal Daniel Jeremy stayed in a kneeling position as his engineer team ran a IR sweep of the terrain with a probe they hammered underground, "I ain't seen shit Corporal."
       "Of course you don't meat, we are going to have to do this manually," he dropped his rifle, unbuckled his backpack and swung it around his body, setting it on the ground in front of him. He shoved his hand into it and grabbed a long, shovel like device and pulled it out of the bag. "Metal detectors, everyone!"
       His Marines did the same and the hunt, was on. He began to crouch-walk towards the north, the shovel like device on a regular swing from side to side. Normally the engineer platoon would move overlapping, covering each other as one checked for mines and other provided suppressive fire.
       With six MFVs filling the possible sources for incoming with explosions, there was no need to concern, just seep. They passed the Fighting Vehicles in a line of twenty and suddenly their hands began to vibrate as the detectors picked up metal buried on the ground.
       He crouched. "This is Echo two-one, contact with AT devises underground north of phase line Lancer, request we hold."
       "Roger," said Magallanes.

The RTO nodded, "Roger that."
       "What?" asked Marcus on the ditch besides de paved road.
       "Big dog reports landmines are in position at the mountain bed, its goanna take a while to take them out," said the radioman with a worrisome look on his face. "It doesn't looks good."
       "Aye," Marcus uttered, "Just what I wanna hear."
       His three platoons started the assault with one hundred and eighty men, give or take. He had around sixty left. And the worst, he knew, it was about to come. The Covenant were all but cowards, they were brave and above all, had a tactical situation awareness that made UNSC digitalized divisions look like stone age hordes. He knew it was just a matter of time before they counter punched.
       "MG sections report they are moving to link up with us." To his right, Marcus could see his Marines, on the ditch and the tree line waiting for the enemy move. It was a wait that would last little time.
       "Sir," said the RTO. "They are jamming our freqs," he noted as he hung the handstick on his helmet and gripped his rifle.
       "They always do, right before they move." The Captain took his canteen out, took a sip of water and then ducked.
       "Contact!" uttered a Marine somewhere along the line. Immediately the Captain grabbed the RTO by the shoulder and began to run across the line, with no COM set because of the jamming, he had to do things the old fashioned way. He bypassed his platoon entirely and reached the Heavy Weapons section where the man he was looking was prone on the ground. "Where?" he asked his Company First Sergeant, "Where the fuck what?"
       Suddenly the sound of compressed plasma being erupted out of the arm of a beast shattered the calm that Marine's ill advised got used to. The beam passed right over second platoon and struck a tree, breaking it in half with a heavy explosion, the tree collapsed and landed over one his Marines. He backtracked the direction of the beam to the turn of the road, was a Hunter surrounded by a dozen cheering Grunts. Marcus jumped to the ground and landed prone, rifle at the ready.
       Suddenly the chaos of combat enveloped the Marines, shouting and shooting anything that glimpse movement. It was all wrong. He had to regain composure and command. "Lieutenant Potter!"
       "Yes sir!" shouted a Jarhead three meters to the right.
       "Get your platoon to put a base of fire on that Hunter!"
       "Roger!"
       Marcus turned around faced his RTO, "OK, you are my runner now, go find the MG team and tell them to set up one hundred meters north of here, tell them to cut the access to this stretch of the road, otherwise we are going to get hammered."
       "Yes sir," said the PFC.
       "First sergeant?" he uttered to the man next to him. The man turned around to face him when another beam came out of Hunter towards his men. This time the Hunter walked the beam from right to left on a squad of Marines on the ditch, they were dead before the heat cooled off. "We need to frag the son-of-a-bitch."
       "Roger," said the first Sergeant. "But we lost the Jackhammers and LSWs in the bombardment on the woods, we only have our frag grenades."
       "Goddamn it," he turned to see the Hunter, on its seemingly fetal position, crouched and cramped with its sparkling shield –by the bullets- up and front. Marcus looked around, the Grunts were all dead and the only thing living on the road was the Hunter, but that troubled the Captain. Hunters worked in pairs, that was why he had ordered the MG team to deploy on the road.
       Something had to be done. "Grenadier!"
       Two men of the heavy weapons section nodded towards the back where the Captain was, turned around, and nodded at their Captain. "You two on me," he backtracked to his orginal position and found Lieutenant Potter barking at his Marines. He knelt next to him and nodded. "Smoke the road," he said catching his breath. "Cross it, I want it to believe that we are going to flank it."
       "Aye sir, but what are we goanna do?"
       "You heard the booms far away?"
       "Yes sir."
       "I'm goanna make it fall on the armor's sights."
       The Lieutenant pulled a smoker from his harness, pulled the pin and lobbed it on the middle of the road. The smoke began to increase rapidly and the Lieutenant shouted, "Go, go, go!"
       A squad of Marines crossed the road, and the Captain turned to his grenadiers. "Now!" both fired their bellow-the-barrel grenade launchers at the beast and two gray explosions erupted on the creatures armor, harmlessly.
       The creature peeked for a second above his shield and saw the Marines attempting to flank him. The hunters were proud creatures, it would not allow filthy beasts to try to sidetrack him.
       It stood tall, and began to run across the road, the Marine's shooting at it harmlessly. Now it was time for Marcus to act. He stood up and shouted, "Now Marines, Marine Line, retreat, retreat, retreat!" The Marines began to stand up making a semi-about face, and ran across the ditch downwards and passed them by and ran across the ditch down. They all thought the retreat was for real, but in Marcus mind it was just a bluff.
       After the Marines retreated one hundred meters he jumped to the middle of the road, aimed his MA5B at the beast and pulled the trigger. Now, his plan was working, the hunter was confused. A flanking run and a fake retreat? Now he had a single vermin engaging him in open combat, he could not allow that to happen.
       He lowered his shield and arm, looked up and lat out a holler that quieted the popping sound of rifles going off.
       He charged the vermin. He ran across the road and what he expected came true. The human cowardly ran away from him.
       Marcus knew the beast would eventually caught up with him, but not that day. Suddenly he heard the shell traveling through the air, cutting the air making it sound like a whiz. He jumped towards the pavement, rolled and watched the sixty millimeter shells struck the hunter several times, the hundreds of APFSDS rounds touring through its armor splashing the rear of the beast with a orange fluid.

The Combat engineers watched the tenacity of the Jarhead as he lured the beast to the exact spot where the entire MFV company could fire on it. "That guy has some balls."
       Magallanes was too amazed, so amazed he had left his MFV, jogged two hundred meters towards the engineering section to see what the hell was the holdup, there a meeting of NCOs was taking place behind the relative protection of the APC.
       "Ten hut," said a random Jarhead making everyone snap into attention.
       "At ease," ordered Magallanes as he entered the circle. "What have you guys been doing that was so important that has my entire Battalion in place."
       "The minefield is a bitch," said Corporal Jeremy. "We have bouncers, heaters and boilers, there is no way we can keep the schedule on time."
       The Major looked at his wristwatch and said, "you have ten minutes, I say we blow up the whole damn thing and get it over, fuck the fancy shit."
       "Sir, with all do respect we could set up the whole field with explosives and it wouldn't do a thing."
       "How so?"
       "Covenant mines are smart, they wont go of unless an actual UNSC vehicle rolls over it."
       "I want solutions, not problems corporal."
       "UNSC has mine clearing gear that would be effective in our current situation but, we don't have the time nor the gear we axly need."
       "Go on."
       The Corporal smiled. "The theory is that one of its means of activation is by vehicles with UNSC transponders, those we use to avoid friendly fire. They have laser triggered mines, pressure triggers and so on." Magallanes remained still. "Sir, aircraft have the same transponders that we have, why not give it a shot with a low flyby?"
       "It could work, sir," said Staff Sergeant Martha Robinson. "We have a worked that theory since Harvest, but it has never been proven, nor tried."
       "Goddamn it!" barked Magallanes. "Great thinking Marine, now lets get the flybloys into the suck."
       "Thank you sir," noted the Marine with a nod. "The problem is that with our communications jammed there is no way we can reach HQ to as for the air."
       Magallanes rubbed his chin. "Yeah and most of the air is tasked out of the atmosphere." He pondered the thought for a second. "OK, you guys earned it, go back to clicks and try to reach HQ, the tanks are inbound."

The five officers of the Company, one NCO and two Marines sat in the ditch on the left side of the road that was designated as the choke point of the operation. With the Hunter down, Marcus had taken the opportunity to deploy his men on a more defensible position, a triangular shaped perimeter. Two platoon on either side of the road while the first platoon, the Heavy Weapons section and the MG teams covered the turn where the beast had appeared. "That was close, they underestimated us but we did it right."
       "Great job Skipper," said Lieutenant Potter.
       "They underestimated us," Marcus noted in disbelief. "So now they will come in full gear."
       "What do we do?" asked the first sergeant.
       "We wait, adjust and…"
       "Kick ass," bellowed the three platoon commanders at unison.
       "I have taught you-" suddenly several machineguns barked at unison, far, far away. "That was certainly not incoming."
       "That was far away, a dozen MA5Bs, two clicks or so away."
       "How do you know that first sergeant?"
       "Twenty years in the corps, I think I know a thing or two."

Tin Cans: They Stand Alone
Date: 29 September 2006, 9:38 am

Thirty Minutes Earlier

Lieutenant Gustav was down, boiled alive in the turret of his APC. There were only a bunch of Marines left, if any, and the enemy seemed an endless horde. They were deep in the suck, no matter what they did to them Covenants, it was utter chaos. The sound of battle could be heard everywhere and his heart rate was to the roof. "What do we do, what do we do, what do we do?"
       "Calm down Chuck," said the Corporal to the Marine next to him. Both where back to back behind a tree, in the opposite tree line was the second squad, the only thing keeping the Jackal Phalanx on the road on check, pinned down by small the few small arms that remained from second squad, who had dodged to the left side of the road once the APC was taken out.
       The animals had formed a shielded husk of plasma shields that prevented the bullets of the Marines to hit the beasts. Still, they could not move, as any slipup on the formation of the shields could make a small gap between shield, and thus, a bullet trap.
       "How the fuck can I remained calm Clark?"
       "I don't know," he turned his face to his right shoulder and said. "Stop being a pussy I guess."
       The Marine next to him laughed. "Roger that," he noted. "But who is in charge?"
       He popped six rounds in two bursts into the Phalanx and then reached for the transmitter on his neck, "this is India-seven-three, anyone copy?"". There was no reply, yet he knew someone was alive. Between them and second squad was the burning hull of the APC, they had to retreat at least six meters to have a them in their line of sight. "OK, this is what we do," he told his mate. "You are goanna crawl six feet, to that second tree, there you will hold and cover me, we do that till we see second platoon."
       Chuck nodded, his eyes filled with fear. "OK, on your mark."
       "What the fuck do you think this is, a movie, when I star shooting the crap out the bastards that's when you move."
       "Bastard," he said as the MA5B let out twenty rounds towards the enemy, the traced rounds striking the shield, deflecting harmlessly of the Phalanx. Chuck reached the tree and turned around, rifle shouldered and knelt. "Go!"
       Clark stood up and that was the end for him. The Phalanx commander had seen the movement, had opened a gap between his shield and the others, so it could get a clear line of fire on the Jackals, it put six pistol rounds on the Marine in two seconds, the plasma causing a large puff of smoke and a flame on his buddy's back.
       "No!" said Chuck, his hand extended as far as he could towards his friend. "Damn it," though he and chuck went back, a while back he had to get his shit together. He bounced back immediately from his emotional bottom, just as he was trained to do, and popped a full magazine into the Hoplite.
       He turned around and ran five full feet, his back slightly crouched, and then dropped prone. He saw on the opposite side a Marine aiming a SMG at him, the Jarhead realized he was friendly by nodding and giving a thumbs up.
       "Who do you have left?" he shouted, his face turning read by the effort of getting through the machinegun fire and plasma screeches.
       "Six plus sergeant Evans!"
       "OK, then he is in charge!"
       "He is in bad shape, its you Lance Corporal," he heard, shitless.
       He regrouped again, barely. "OK then, wait for me there!"

Gunnery Sergeant Neil Atwood wiped his hands with a white handkerchief, shoved it into his jacket pocket and closed the hatch. "There is nothing wrong with the engine," he told the pair of Marines standing guard at the gate. He removed the straps of the long bench that troops used to sit down on the troop compartment. "It has to be ignition, the FRG must had fried the connections and wires, damn it."
       "So what do you think we should do?"
       "I have to get under the hood," noted the Gunny.
       "What the fuck Gunny?"
       "Out of vehicle, between the tracks beneath the hull," uttered the Gunnery Sergeant. "That's the only way I'm goanna get this can rolling."
       "But with that maniac out there you will be exposed to him."
       "It," said Perez, "they are beasts not people," the Marine added. In previous wars men faced men, there was a sense of certain pity when killing a human enemy, for whatever reason. Now the Marines were fed with the anger of billions of souls taken away by the endless onslaught.
       "Corporal Wellington, man the minigun, my life is on your hands."
       "Aye sir," said the Marine as he left the semi opened ramp towards the bubble turret.
       "I'm going out."

Captain Regatta had two problems, first was the recent reconnaissance flight by the Banshee and second was the unbelievable harsh battle taking place somewhere on his left flank. "What do you think, sir?" asked the RTO.
       "FUBAR, always FUBAR."
       "What do we do."
       Marcus shook his head and took a sip from his canteen, then took a deep breath. "You know, I don't even know your name."
       "Logan sir, Private First Class Logan Dorian sir."
       "I used to be on the reserves, once a year I would join the corps in a space ship of some kind and train with them."
       "Sir, what do we do?"
       "I never thought I'd be in the suck, not like this."
       "Sir," said Logan. "Please tell me what to do."
       "I want you to find me ten volunteers," ordered the Captain. "Then bring them to me."
       The RTO smiled in relief, "Yes sir."

Gunny Atwood cranked the engine on an a small whiz began to be heard inside the vehicle, he closed the underhood of the APC and grabbed the MA5B on his right side, rolled to his belly and began to crawl outside the underneath of the vehicle.
       "Corporal Wellington?"
       "All clear sir!"
       The Gunnery Sergeant elbowed his way out and looked to both sides. Indeed it was all clear. He knelt and pounded on the ramp twice. It dropped open to see a Marine aiming a rifle at him. "Never can be too careful."
       "Afraid you are right private," said the Gunny. He entered the APC and closed the ramp behind him. "Now where do we go?"
       "I don't even know where we are."
       "Wellington, about face," the corporal stepped on the right pedal and the right track began to roll to the starboard side, ninety degrees and then stopped. "Fucking A, give me a system's check."
       "Electronics are all fried," he said covering half the systems in the vehicle, from Navigations to fire control. "But the vehicle is operable, the turret is half assed, we are going to have to make it turn manually."
       "Roger that, Gunny."
       "Where do we go?" asked Perez.
       "Well you guys say that the rest of the squad dodged, right?"
       "Affirmative," noted Wellington.
       "Lets go there then."

"Fuck," yielded Chuck as another explosion rocked the earth next to him. He was covered only by a thin tree and its small branches. "Fucking fuck."
       Second squad had retreated five feet then all hell had broke loose. The Covenant had made a push on his flank, the right side of the road, to try to break his back. Now he was pinned down by five Grunts and an Elite, which he knew, were toying with him. They could easily maul him, bad, yet somehow they stood their ground. Firing their weapons at him and lighting on fire everything that surrounded him. "Second squad?" There was no reply, he was on his own.
       He pulled a cylinder from his harness and pulled the pin and rolled it next to him. Chuck waited for the smoke to form and then knelt, pulled the trigger of his rifle till the arming lever snapped forward and then up. Then turned around, crouched, and began to sprint towards the rear. Suddenly a false sense of safety enveloped him, it was ended by a burning sensation on his right but cheek.
       He fell on the Ground in time to hear the soar laugh of an Elite standing just a feet away from him. He turned around in time to see the seven feet figure standing in front of him, it's four jaws clenched in a semi-smile. It was his end. He knew it, and wouldn't run from it. The beast gazed at him for a second, wondering what to do with him.
       It all ended swiftly, there was no time for a "life before your eyes" moment. It ended in a bright blue light.

The perfect shot. "The pink mist", when the high velocity round hits the target, the blood of the victim splashes out in small portions making the effect of a small piece of mist. In this case, however, it was a purple mist.
       "Fire, fire," there was a single second pause that seemed an eternity, the sniper took a deep breath and closed his left eye, the red dot of his crosshairs on the center of silhouette of the target, "fire," said the worn out spotter.
       Without thought, remorse or pity Corporal David Evans pulled the trigger out of his long .45 cal rifle, the recoil stopped cold at his feet as his body absorbed the impact. ONI was many things, most awful but some good. One of the good things was a detailed report of the Elite's personal shield, it described exactly its weak spot, the waist, just bellow what a Human would call a bellybutton.
       The bullet found the weak spot perfectly and penetrated the shield of the blue Elite without any delay, destroying its inner cavity and it only stopped only on the back shield. The pelvis was shattered expelling blood and gut in every direction. "Too late," Evan whispered as he thumbed the safety on.
       "Yeah, poor guy," the spotter turned around, faced the ten men and gave an OK sing.
       "Go," said the sergeant leading them. Two Marines got up from behind the hedge, rifles shouldered muzzles pointing forward and moved towards the downed the Marine. They were followed in the same file by the rest of the Jarheads.
       They reached the limp body of the Marine and checked for an absent pulse. "Anyone alive?"
       They all opened fire at the same time. The Zealot appeared out of the smoke of the grenade of the fallen Marine, their bullets sparkled harmlessly out of the invisible shield. David thumbed the safety off and pulled two on the Golden Elite.
       The Marines dropped their empty magazines at unison and open jawed stared at the beast in front of them. The beast had taken over two hundred bullets and it remained still, walking slowly, each step bringing it closer to the Marines. It was sudden, unexpected and border lining a miracle, the beast torso was cut in half, and they all heard it at the same time, it was a minigun, 7.62mm and a powerful diesel engine.

"Medic!" shouted someone along the perimeter.
       "Damn, they sure came in hard this time," said Marcus as he adjusted his helmet, "I heard some shots this time."
       "Me too," noted the RTO.
       "Those guys are as good as dead." Captain Marcus Regatta had changed. Dorian knew the Captain little, but he knew the war had affected him somehow, all the death and destruction had finally caught up with him.
       "Why?" said Dorian.
       "Those Banshees have a IR sensors, they surely picked up something this time," the Captain reported with no particular feeling in his speech, only in his facial expressions. "From the damned muzzle blasts."
       "Do you want me to-"
       "Shh," ordered the Captain. The three birds flew by low this time their plasma cannons centered on the ground they passed right above the treetops, dirt plumes rising ten feet into the air. They went vertical and disappeared in the sky. That was the cue.
       "Damn it," noted RTO. "The Jamming is getting stronger."
       "That's the trigger, they are coming," said Marcus, immediately shaking off any unnecessary attitude. "OK," he turned to face Dorian, "first platoon is goanna be the first to be hit, they have the MG team, they'll be OK, and we'll be OK as long as they hold that particular stretch of road." Marcus was thinking out loud.
       "Your orders sir," asked Dorian.
       "Go to first platoon, tell them to hold the perimeter at all cost," he grabbed the shoulder of the Marine before he left. "At any cost. Zero retreat."
       Immediately a illumination flare went up on the perimeter, friendly as far as he could tell, an everything went back to the suck. Immediately the blasts in the two-four-seven's chambers could be heard towards the north, where first platoon was. "Party time."
       He stood up from his position inside the road ditch and crouch-walked to the shoulder of the road, he turned around forty five degrees to his left and stared at the long stretch of pavement. He had to reach second platoon, if not, they would have no idea of what to do. Normally he would lead his troops from a fortified CP, with radio, digital maps and good XO and NCOs to advise and follow him.
       The Captain had lost his XO the first day of battle, he was inside his vehicle when a Covenant wraith shot struck it. His Company first sergeant was god-knows-where, and his gear was all fucked up. As marines called it was FUBAR, or Fucked Up Beyond Repair. No, he had to fix this, the whole damn thing. But first he had to reach second platoon.
       He had been shot twice, once on the job as a police man and once accidentally by a nervous Shore patrolman. It felt like if a bat was rammed into you by a two hundred and twenty pound men and then a sting, a deep sharp sting.
       This time however there was a small heatwave and then, a simple drop on his knees and a burning sensation on his shoulder. He collapsed completely. The last thing he heard was "corpsman".

Corporal David Evans had a particular skill only common of snipers. He had a six sense, a particular feeler in his brain and senses. It had tingled when he got the order from the Gunnery Sergeant to enter the M1116. Something on his back, moving. He immediately turned to face the source of the movement, he was next to the APC's ramp, rifle pointed and ready to fire.
       "What is it Evans?" asked the spotter who immediately went prone after seeing his shooter move to a tactical stand. "There is something on the woods."
       "You sure?" asked the Sergeant in command of the ten Marines.
       "Yes sergeant," he said, still staring at the woods.
       The sergeant pointed at two Marines and then pointed his right palm to his right, silently ordering both Marines to run to the ditch. The two Jarheads ran across the road, passed the shoulder of it and jumped inside the ditch, they crawled to the top of the ditch and aimed their rifles towards the forest. Then, unexpectedly raised their rifles.
       "Friendlies!"

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