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IONCLAD: Prologue
Posted By: Capo Rip<oscar.archer@adelaide.edu.au>
Date: 4 December 2003, 2:56 AM
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-Halo Ternion-
DEPLOYMENT +11:51:20 (SPARTAN-002 Mission Clock), August 6, 2552 (Military Calendar)/
Covenant Intelligence Outpost, Alpha Lyncis III
Against the stillness of the alien night, as if in announcement of its own foreignness, a shadow in a shadow moved. The hard, barky fronds of the small, season-less planet's vegetation remained still as always. The prostrate shadow, a figure, squirmed fluidly beneath the dense plants, and stopped with its head against the remnants of a petrified fallen limb.
This was far enough. The obsidian visor of the figure's helmet raised and peered over the cover at the encampment. Then after a minute, the figure eased the sniper rifle from its back and positioned it in the same direction.
Within the thick helmet and armour, Hideki's brown eyes examined his HUD as the scope, now linked to his suit's tactical systems, magnified his light-amplified view to 10x at a mental command. A fraction of his mind watched the motion detector, set at maximum range, through his peripheral vision. He steadily scanned the scene from right to left, then targeted a foremost building, and zoomed into 30x magnification. It was a tall section of a more extensive structure. There were no entrances at ground level, but ramps and switchbacks lead to doorways high on each of four sides.
It was guarded by eight Elite warriors, a Covenant species only postulated till now, officially, by ONI. Eight that Hideki could see, at stations with widely encompassing fields of fire. Tricky. The huge aliens stood alertly or strutted, the facility's illumination glinting from red and black armour. Hideki activated the scopephone and translation circuit, and adjusted the gain--
"--know anything. These humans," growled the Elite standing with it's throat resting in the cross-hair, "use a thing called 'Cole Protocol'. Manual destruction of navigation and tactical records. Initiated upon detection of our indomitable forces." From outside the direct line of pick-up, another alien snorted contemptuously.
The first sneered back. "Hrmm. This time, they failed. Pathetic humans."
Hideki lowered the rifle, and, after a pause, slung it and shuffled sideways and began a crawling advance. Over the preceding two hours he had reconnoitred the circumference, and this presented the most likely target by far. Eighty metres nearer, and he halted, scanning for new activity via rifle scope, then continued till the next check. Cover gradually grew sparse. Hideki reached a jutting boulder and sat against it, his back to the alien fortifications.
With his rifle over his lap, he disconnected the scope and pointed it backwards over the rock. Shades, unmanned, were widely spaced around the perimeter, and what few Grunts he could see were asleep. A stretch of bunker faced away from the tall building's frontmost ramp. The motion detector showed no activity within the defences.
Hideki reattached the scope then checked the magazine and collapsed barrel of his S6 TX special op rifle, then took final stock of his other equipment. An M6D, its muzzle ending in a fat four centimetre silencer; he eased a round into the chamber and refastened the pistol to the magnetic holster incorporated onto his upper leg armour. Lumpy plasma grenades salvaged from previous battles, much more useful, in Hideki's experience, than the UNSC's equivalent. These used most of his belt storage, leaving a space in the small of his back for a black-stained leather sheath. From it he withdrew the twenty-four centimetre, carbon ceramex blade and sighted down its keen, lasered edge.
Reaching the objective would be no effort. The Covenant, predictably, did not expect infiltration of their own outposts. The serious defences were arrayed in anticipation of aerial assault. The challenge would be dealing with all the Elite warriors fast enough to maintain a gap in the defences adequate to withdraw through. Consequently the first step would be to create enough confusion in the initial attack that arriving reinforcements could not organise efficiently.
"We have superiority on the ground," the Master Chief had said at their last debriefing. "The Covenant have never been able to adapt to the variable nature of our tactics. I think," he had mused, "they might not have the benefit of a past dominated by countless forms of warfare, as human history is. My advice to you all is to rely on your instincts, in the heat of combat. You will know what they will do."
With a flick of his wrist, the Spartan inverted his grip on the knife and sheathed it. In the same motion Hideki fluidly rose to his two hundred eight centimetre suited height, breaking cover, and began his swift, silent assault. He drew his pistol and crouched over it in a rapid jog.
To the left. The Grunt, already half awake. The muzzle sniffed, armour-piercing round exiting invisibly. The red FOF faded from the motion detector. Hideki followed up diligently with headshots for every alien in his sight. He changed clips, careful to stow the empty, as he hurdled the bunker roof and paused beside the ramp, crouching in shadow. Signals from movement further into the complex, but nothing approaching to worry about yet. He ascended to the corner, took a split second to glance around the wall in spite of the motion detector, then continued. Nearly ten metres from the ground, he paused, waiting for his instincts to choose the right moment to begin the diversion.
Momentarily it came, and without further hesitation Hideki twisted a plasma grenade and pitched it along a chord in the compound's perimeter. His aim and range were never in doubt as the pulsing, streaming projectile flew the better part of four hundred metres; nor was his judgement as it arced down into a cluster of heavily-armed Grunts. After a beat a chain reaction sent debris flying and lit the area in an eerie blue glow. A twisted shade fell back to ground with a smash. A clipped, bass-heavy siren began.
Hideki sprinted up and around the ramp, and switched back. The next grenade in one hand, his M6D in the other. Red FOFs broiled on the motion readout. The balls of his metal-clad feet barely touched the ramp surface. He rounded the final corner without slowing.
The switchback terminated on an outward-facing corner of an expansive platform. A squat enclosed structure filled the centre but left room for banshee landing areas. The substantial guard detail now lined the opposite edge, goggling at the chaos surrounding the distant perimeter breach. Hideki leapt the remaining four metres of ramp and angled for the cover of the structure's wall. His hurled grenade struck the third Elite along, square in the back, with such force that it lost balance and teetered over the platform's lip for a moment, howling briefly.
The fizzing adhesive device exploded, rocketing the shrieking alien off of the building. The six Elites immediately around it crouched or fell, the shields of their shiny armour falling with telltale flashes. Two of them, stunned on the deck, died as single 12.7 mm explosive core slugs cracked their helmets open in quick succession. A third levered itself up before purple fluid bloomed from holes in its chest and neck.
The fourth Elite unleashed a barrage of plasma bolts, its yellow jaws flapping wide with rage. By this time Hideki was behind cover. The shots burnt the air centimetres for his helmet and splashed off the solid wall. He dropped to his knees and rolled sideways back into the open, firing deliberately. Blood fountained from the berserk creature's arm before it was severed at the shoulder. The third blew through the back of its gaping maw, silencing its agony.
The other two Elites had regrouped and plasma fire began slicing at Hideki's ablative armour panels. The Spartan charged the closest, firing again at both weapon arm and vital areas, eliciting pained Grunts from the Elite. He reached the dripping corpse before it collapsed and propped it up to absorb the sustained fire of its colleague. Sizzling armour shards and cauterised flesh spat to the sides and Hideki rushed in, stepping around his impromptu cover to ram the pistol's muzzle into the alien's leathery neck and unload its final round. To its credit, the gurgling Elite swung clawing hands at the Spartan, staggering forward, before Hideki reversed his grip on the sidearm and brought it sharply into the side of its head.
"GROOOWL!"
As the spent magazine ejected at his peripheral mental signal a sudden stream of plasma glanced off his armour, forming lingering hot spots. The final red Elite, its defences at full power, had charged from its cover at the building's other end and now began circling. Hideki's arm was reaching for a third clip as he decided on a better approach. His armour began absorbing and ablating the strobing pulses and his reflexes, accelerated through the suit, hurled him aside. Damage warning tones sang in his ears. Out-stretched to brace against the fall, his hand slipped around the alien grip of a fallen plasma rifle.
The Spartan rolled on his back as the Elite continued its automatic barrage. He tucked his legs up, and as he came to his feet, he abruptly sprang into the air. Climbing to apogee, Hideki unleashed the gun's energies, carefully aimed, the alien's shields rapidly sundered before plasma started eating into its flesh. The weapon over-heated and Hideki landed, discarding it; the Elite sagged to one knee. He wrapped an arm around its thick neck and lifted as his singing knife met the creature's throat and released a stream of violet, before hurling it twitching from the platform's edge.
Activity along the base's perimeter was increasing. Hideki thought he could hear the engine of a Banshee warming up as he retrieved his M6D sidearm and reloaded. He ran back to the building, round the corner and through the tall doorway.
Within was pink and purple, the odd curves and bulges of the alien architecture. A large cube of luminous force sat in the middle; imprisoned here were four dishevelled UNSC officers. One looked up then levered himself to his feet as Hideki strode around what was obviously the control panel.
"It's a Spartan!"
"What!?" said another as the prison field fell.
The others stood, eyes wide in amazement. Hideki stepped forward and saluted. "Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-002, sirs. Per the Cole Protocol, I'm here to retrieve you. We must leave now," he added, as one of the bruised ensigns tried to splutter a question. The towering soldier moved out quickly. "Arm yourselves," he suggested, and knelt at the platform's edge.
Grunts, dozens of them, were slowly working their way round the perimeter, but Hideki's immediate targets were three Ghost-mounted Elites, gliding around to find the point of infiltration. He rolled his rifle fluidly into his grip and telescoped the barrel to full-length, sighted, and the first report echoed suddenly through the installation. The lead vehicle promptly exploded, its dead, less-than-intact pilot toppling out. Its comrades began to swerve but were forcibly dismounted by further successive shots. The tight strings of the custom sub-18.1mm silicon-tungsten kinetic energy round vapour trails glowed in his light-amplified view.
He exchanged the rifle for his pistol. "Follow me."
They hurried down the spiral ramp. The former prisoners did their best to ignore their various injuries and keep up with the Spartan, for whom the pace seemed dangerously slow. He contracted the gain of his suit's motion sensor, better for detecting imminent ambush. From the top of the final ramp he signalled a halt, then dropped the rest of the way to the dirt.
Movement in the bunker - Hideki heard the frantic barks and squeaks of several Grunts. The alien infantry must have entered from underground. He was about to signal 'advance' and bounce a grenade into the bunker when he noticed a green FOF at the bottom of his sensor, immediately followed by a grunt of pain from behind him.
One of the humans, a UNMC Lieutenant Colonel according to the insignia stubbornly clinging to his tattered uniform, looked up at Hideki from an awkward squat. The man's action almost made Hideki pause in irritation. He instead took one long step, shoved the marine flat to the ground, turned and knelt; the Grunts, who had heard the man's landing through the bunkers earthy walls growled and spat and began firing. The Spartan's M6D was already in his hands, drilling AP rounds through every visible alien head.
The incoming fire halted, but Hideki now had to assume the Covenant knew their exact position. "Get up, sir," he said flatly, hauling the officer to his feet. He motioned for the others to come down the ramp. They met at ground level and fell in behind the Spartan, who set a rapid pace and re-extended his motion sensor range. They were nearly half a kilometre clear of the compound when an ominous howl filled the air and started growing louder.
"Banshees!" gulped one of the younger-looking escapees, glancing nervously upwards.
"Continue in this direction," said Hideki. "I'll meet you in the foothills." Again, he unslung his rifle.
The officer who had followed him off of the ramp regarded the Spartan. "You better know what you're doing," he said in irritation.
"They will not reach you," Hideki replied without looking up from his weapon. He then halted, about-faced and knelt.
There were six Banshees, all almost within canon range. For a moment the Spartan let the tiny cross-hairs rest upon the lead flyers antigrav pod, tracking it, then he pulled the trigger. The pod exploded from the wing in a hail of blue sparks, and the Banshee spiralled swiftly into the ground with a rumbling detonation. Hideki took down a further three in the same fashion, preparing on the fourth to reload as fast as possible. He was just ejecting the empty magazine when the remaining vehicles banked abruptly, and very sensibly retreated back to their base.
Hideki scooped up and stowed the empty, finished reloading then set the safety and looped the rifle's strap over his shoulder again. The humans had left a clear trail of scuffed boot prints in the sandy dirt and he followed them for a few minutes through dry and twiggy foliage that grew higher and more dense. The tracks ended as the terrain became markedly inclined and gave way to a steep, broad, broken escarpment of rock. The far more robust vegetation grew out of weathered cracks, forming a canopy that shadowed Hideki's descent into a shallow, widening fissure; as he entered he armed his periphery counter-measures with a via his neural circuit. Pale FOFs blinked in his motion detector, directly in front of him in the darkness.
"Are there any injuries?" he asked the black shapes.
"Lieutenant Commander Atchison, petty officer," introduced one of them: a tall man with the bearing of a seasoned officer. "Since we were captured the Covenant have repeatedly singled out one of my ensigns, Huang, for torture, despite an apparent understanding of our ranking."
The young man in question, with extensive bruising on all his visible skin, was being supported by the other ensign, who did not look too spritely himself, and who said, "The run over here took it out of him."
"I'll be fine," said Huang weakly.
"No, you won't. He needs immediate medical attention." The voice belonged to the other command officer, the Lieutenant Colonel. With a mental command, the mission intelligence stored in Hideki's neural interface identified him: J.C. Paech, Lt. Col. Now out of combat, he took a few seconds to review Section Three's file. There were references to several less-than-scrupulous incidents involving the upper echelons of fleet command as well as Colonel Ackerson's black ops. Paech's most recent activity of interest had been the sudden pulling of several strings in ONI, securing a berth aboard the Essex as it began the round trip from Reach to the inner colony of Solstice.
June 9, 2552, Solstice became the first inner colony to fall to Covenant attack, and the Essex was among thirty four UNSC ships to go down fighting.
Thanks to the paranoia upon which ONI operated, the fact that this time prisoners were taken did not go unobserved. Scenarios were envisioned, probabilities were plotted; Naval Intelligence's AIs advised that it was necessary to send no less than a Spartan to recover any and all prisoners.
"That is not possible until retrieval, sir," replied Hideki.
"And when is that?" Paech demanded.
"We are thirteen hundred metres from the pulse beacon, which I must activate in exactly fifty one minutes, sir. I suggest that we keep moving. If the retrieval corvette has made the jump into this system and if it reaches the el-zee then adequate medical facilities will be available within two hours."
"'If'?" growled Paech, as the Spartan strode past him. The officer walked fast to keep abreast of him, while trying to keep his gait natural.
"Sir, if retrieval fails, we should secure our own transportation." Turning to the Commander, Hideki asked, "Sir, I observed a number of small vessels at rest over the landing field past the compound. Are there slip-space capable ships among them?"
Atchison thought for a moment. "The ship we were brought here in landed, and I'm fairly sure none have left since then, though another did land afterwards - before our interrogation began." He grimaced. "I believe that one brought some particularly high-ranking Elites... who interrogated us."
"Thank you, sir," said Hideki. "If it comes to that, I also have a secondary mission objective: destroy the enemy installation. This will additionally provide a distraction as we capture the vessel we need."
The narrow terrain turned upwards. Huang was keeping up with assistance from the other Ensign, Lowry. His stifled breathing echoed faintly in the dark.
Paech shook his head. "And how are you going to do that, exactly?"
"The specifics are classified," Hideki answered, glancing at the marine, "but I will need to infiltrate--"
"'Classified'?" Paech hissed, interrupting. "Listen, Petty Officer, you might be wearing the fancy armour but I'm the ranking officer here. We're going to keep going to the el-zee and we're going to get off this rock, and you can leave any destruction up to a properly armed and prepped company of ODSTs."
"Sir," said the Spartan slowly, "we have ample time to reach and man the beacon. Our priority is not to stop in one place before then, as roughly half of the local Covenant force should begin an intensive search for us within two minutes - if our tactical analysis is reliable."
"You do know how many personnel that base has?"
"Estimated six hundred and twenty, post extraction."
Paech nearly sounded amused, saying, "Well, I withdraw my earlier comment, because you obviously don't know what you're doing!"
"Colonel," called the Lieutenant Commander, "neither you or I or anyone here has purview over this man's rescue mission, nor are we part of the official chain of command until we debrief at Reach. You know that. Give him credit," he quickly continued, "he got us out rather successfully, after all."
"Any soldier can infiltrate the enemy installation with surprise on his side," Paech countered disdainfully. "But he's left us with no way to make retrieval. Classic god-damn ONI op!"
A dim rumble filled the air, then a sudden distant concussion rolled across the rock above and dust sprinkled down.
"I told you!" shouted Paech. "They'll just carpet bomb us--"
Hideki spun and Paech was abruptly prostrate on the ground, unconscious. The Spartan lowered his gauntleted hand and crouched as the others halted in surprise. The Lieutenant Commander looked down into the soldier's dark visor for a moment, then nodded his understanding.
"Jackal patrols can move fast," Hideki said whilst hoisting the Lieutenant Colonel onto his shoulder. "Exceptional hearing."
"Are they really trying to bomb us?" asked Lowry. The humans resumed at a steady pace.
"No," said the Spartan, "they found the decoy beacon. There was also an enhanced-EMP Avalanche tactical weapon beneath it. Now we have a new advantage: all the Covenant's power is knocked out."
Atchison's brow furrowed and he asked, "Just how were you deployed for this mission, Petty Officer?"
"A Flint-class stealth ship jumped in-system inside this planet's orbit and jumped out within one minute on a randomised vector. My HEV was deployed at the closest approach."
"And you rode it with a micro-nuke?" blurted Huang.
"Along with the rest of my equipment," he answered levelly.
Lieutenant Commander Atchison looked through the night at the slack face of the marine officer, limply hanging in front of him from the Spartan's shoulder, and idly remembered that he still did not know why Paech had wrangled his way aboard the Essex to begin with. I wish you had heard that, he thought with a certain satisfaction. I bet your Helljumpers would never have done that.
To Be Continued
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