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The battle of lushoto: Part 2
Posted By: Kiefer Inson<kgi7@email.vccs.edu>
Date: 19 October 2006, 6:43 pm
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"Are you ready?"
Sergeant Thomas was covered in marine issued armor, which was half hidden behind an assortment of weapons. With a battle rifle slung across his chest, he carried a rocket launcher on his back. He was the one who asked me the question. I had no idea if I was ready or not. The only protection I had on was a chest plate. That was all they could spare. It looked funny overtop my black suit. I had a hip holster, which held the pistol that I was given at the pawnshop. Lieutenant Gregory, the commanding officer, had one of his privates hand me a SMG. I was comfortable with pistols, but machine guns were a different story.
"Carl? Are you ready?"
I saw major fatigue in Sergeant Thomas' eyes.
"Yeah." I said with a tired smile. Over the past twenty-five hours, Thomas and I became somewhat friends…somewhat.
The covenant were on their way to destroy Nabotuk Hospital, which was just in their way. We were the nearest army. Probably the last soldiers in Lushoto. As I looked at the other men, I counted off our numbers. Our group was composed of fifteen marines, including the sergeant and the lieutenant, and ten armed civilians. Twenty-five walking corpses.
Our group moved as fast as we could to the hospital, without any delays. When we arrived, I saw five more marines positioned outside the building. They looked exhausted. The hospital was positioned in the middle of a courtyard surrounded by smaller buildings. It was a circle where the covenant could approach from anywhere. The building had taken a beating. Half of the roof was blown off. The surrounding yard was covered in craters and flaming vehicles. I could see doctors and nurses running in and out of the front door, moving occupied gurneys to working cars and trucks. Lieutenant Gregory spoke with the guarding marines, trying to get a progress report. Apparently, only half the hospital was emptied. I entered the hospital, almost slipping on the blood-covered floor. The stench inside the hospital overwhelmed me. Burn marks covered the walls. Windows no longer had glass in them. The whole place had been hit pretty badly. Doctors were moving as fast as they could to evacuate all the patients. A gurney past me, carrying a civilian with half of his skin melted off. I found a trashcan and vomited in it.
My group found an empty room to plan a strategy. Lieutenant Gregory did most of the talking. He walked up to a blood-covered table in the center of the room and drew a circle in the blood. He then drew a criss-cross in the circle and placed a box in the center.
"Okay, the box in the center is the hospital. The four lines coming out of the box indicate the four roads: North, South, East and West. Now, these roads are the only access ways into this courtyard…unless they have drop ships. We should be able to create a bottleneck in these roads if we can hold them there. Trevor, I want you to take two men and position yourself in that flower shop southern part of the courtyard. Take a rocket launcher with you and plenty of ammo. Mickals, I want you to do the same. You go to the yellow building to the north. The rest of us will make a perimeter around the hospital and dig in. Any questions."
Silence.
"Lets get it done."
I was paired off with a private named Hozaro. We both dug a decent sized foxhole that could hold us both. All around me, soldiers we running around making sure everyone had enough ammo or if a group needed help digging. Some of the men were setting up a chain gun in one of the hospital windows. I could see Mickals group positioned in the second story of the yellow building. A rocket launcher was poking out of one of the windows. Before everyone was ready and under cover, the banshees came into view. Three of them flew at max speed over the hospital. Everyone dove under trucks and into impact craters. Thirty-three weapons cocked and pointed at the sky.
"Hold your fire! They are just doing some recon! Save your ammo for the main attack!"
I started to pray.
I could feel the rumbling in my bones. The low hum of the tanks could be heard now. The marines were solitary. Each one hugged the ground inside of their foxhole. Rifles were checked again and again. I checked my SMG about eight times to make sure it had bullets. Sweat started to trickle down my forehead, but I could not wipe it away. I could not move. Sergeant Thomas was in the foxhole next to mine. He gripped his weapon with a passion. The low hum had become stronger, more intense. Squad leaders made quick hand motions to their subordinates. No talking from anybody. The tanks were the only thing cutting the silence. The sound grew.
The first tank turned peered around a corner at the east side of the courtyard. I was on the west side of the courtyard, so the hospital was blocking my view. That was when the Nabotuk massacre started. Gunfire erupted. I could hear and see explosions. However, I didn't have time to focus on that part of the battle, because the next tank was about to enter the west side of the courtyard. My side. The shiny blue front of the vehicle turned the corner, showing itself to our gun barrels. I could see moving figures behind the hulking mass of metal. Elites, jackals and grunts walked behind the tank, protecting themselves from our weapons. However, that did not protect them from rockets.
"Open them up!"
Everyone fired their weapons, picking their targets. The covenant soldiers slipped out from behind the tank to wreak havoc. Plasma and bullets filled the air. I picked a small group of grunts and squeezed the trigger. Three out of the five grunts fell to the ground before my clip ran out. I was reloading when a rush of intense heat rushed over my head, followed by an explosion. A huge glob of plasma had flown right over my foxhole. The tank was hitting the hospital with its mortar rounds, trying to bring the building down. The plasma created a lot of damage. After the lob struck its target, the tank followed it with another round. All I could do was to focus on the ground forces. While I was aiming for an elite, the tank suddenly burst into flames. Half of the vehicle's body had been blown off. Mickal's team had hit it with a rocket. However, the tank was still operational. It could not fire anymore, but it must have been stuck on the throttle. Covenant moved out of its way as it glided towards a small clay building. The tank crashed into it, almost bring the whole structure down. Of course, I could not see this real clearly, because I was pinned down by plasma fire.
Without the tank, the covenant on the west side of the courtyard had no heavy support. Or, at least, that's what we thought. The squadron of banshees came in for a strafing run. It's fuel rod cannon powered up and sent a devastating bomb down towards the earth. The plasma hit directly in the middle of an occupied foxhole. When it hit, I saw dirt and body parts fly up into the air, only to be brought down by gravity. Soldiers started to concentrate their fire on this new enemy. The banshees moved fast, though. It was difficult to hit them at the speed they were going. Taking this as an advantage, the covenant ground forces pushed forward harder. The third tank entered through the northern part of the courtyard, barraging the human soldiers with artillery. Everywhere I looked, men would get splashed with plasma, burning their skin off. But still, we fought. I had managed to kill three elites and a squad or so of grunts before my partner, private Hozaro, was struck in the face with a plasma grenade. I had no time to think. I jumped out of the foxhole. The grenade went off and Hozaro's face erupted. I was pushed away by the blast. It took me a minuet to regain my bearings. All I wanted to do was to lie there on the ground and never get up.
I lifted my head up slightly. I watched as a plasma mortar hit the building occupied by Mickal's group. The whole structure exploded. I watched as Sergeant Thomas was hit in the face by a plasma bolt. I watched as a smoking banshee collided into the ground, killing four marines. I watched as the remaining soldiers tried to retreat into the hospital, as the last remaining tank managed to collapse half of the building into burning rubble. A massive dust cloud ejected from the building. I could barely see the last tank through the fog.
The last tank. My SMG wasn't going to be much help. There were no more rockets either. I rolled onto my back so I could see the sky. Then I sat up. A car was in front of me.
A car.
I slowly got up and entered the passenger side of the vehicle. Either the covenant did not see me, or they were more concerned with the last of the marines. Either way, the covenant were not bothering me. Lucky me, the keys were still in the ignition. It took a couple of tries to start the vehicle up. When it did start up, it gave out a sickly noise. I thought it was going to stall, but it kept running. I put it into drive and slammed my foot into the gas pedal.
I pointed the car in the direction of the tank. The dust cloud was now drifting away from the battle, so I could see the menacing hulk clearly. Flying at sixty miles per hour, I ran over four grunts. Blue blood splattered against the front window. I turned on the windshield cleaners. The tank was approaching fast. I gripped the wheel. I pressed harder on the pedal. Seventy miles per hour. I opened the driver side door slightly. Eighty miles per hour. The tank filled the window. I jumped out, hitting the ground rolling. Searing pain shot up my leg. I stopped rolling and managed to see my handy work. The car hit the tank dead on. The vehicle must have hit a gas line, because the whole tank was engulfed in a blue fireball. The last tank was done.
After the explosion, I examined my leg. A large steel rod had managed to go through my left leg, pouring out blood. I could not feel any pain, though. That was not my main concern. What did concern me was that there was no more noise. Absolute silence. No machine gun fire. No more explosions. Only the crackling of fire could be heard. I slowly sat up. Looking through the haze of smoke and dust, I saw groups of aliens standing around…staring.
Staring at me.
They made a big circle around me. I could hear the charging up of weapons. All of the marines had been killed. I was the last one alive…and there was nothing I could have done to stay alive.
After removing the chest plate from my body, I raised myself to my feet, trying to ignore the sharp pain in my leg. I became dizzy from that excruciating feat. My body wobbled around for a moment. Keeping eye contact with my enemy, I straitened my tie with both my hands. Then, I ran my hands down my suit jacket, brushing off dust and rubble. I never broke eye contact. I turned my head slightly to spit out the copper tasting fluid in my mouth, only to realize that it was my own blood. One of the elites looked like he was enjoying this show. His mouth curved up into a smile. He brought out a small device, in which he activated it. A sword was produced. He walked towards me, still smiling. I did the only thing I could do. I smiled back, showing my bloodstained teeth. The elite stopped in front of me. He was at least three feet taller than me. We stood there, staring at each other.
Until…
I didn't feel the blade as it made a clean cut through my neck.
In a matter of two days, the covenant had captured the surrounding cities of Mombasa, making a defensive perimeter around the major city. The battle of Lushoto was barely a battle. Out of the 1.2 million people who lived in Lushoto, only 150,000 people managed to escape. 500 doctors and patients left from Nabotuk hospital. Only 174 escaped the city. Lieutenant Gregory had 33 men under his command, including civilians. Not one soldier survived.
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