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Price of Glory Pt. 1
Posted By: loserman<mrakitis@aol.com>
Date: 20 June 2003, 5:18 AM
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Chamber of the Divine Council
Covenant Homeworld, location unknown
25 September 2552
The Prophet slumped in his grav chair, blindsided by his aide's grim news. He felt his energy drain out of him, as if it were running down his legs and dripping onto the floor. The report had to be wrong...the situation had been stabilizing...coherent speech proved to be a major effort: "Halo...destroyed? How...how can that be? Are you certain?"
His aide, a smaller-than-average Elite by the name of Borsa Gunomee, cleared his throat. "Yes, your Excellency...I've seen footage. There is no doubt."
The Prophet's shock gradually turned into a cold, burning rage. "How?"
Gunomee cleared his throat again. "One of the human cyborgs, your Highness. The power plant on the wrecked human ship survived the crash...the cyborg fought his way back onto the ship and somehow sabotaged the reactor to go critical. The resulting catastrophic explosion sundered the ring, causing a loss of structural integrity. Unable to withstand the rotational stress, Halo fragmented. Casualties are...severe."
"How severe?"
Gunomee's voice dropped to a whisper. "At least 10,000 troops were still on the ring at the time of the explosion."
"TEN THOUSAND TROOPS!?!?" The Prophet's mouth flopped open. He fluctuated between shock and outrage, shock and outrage..."What of the Templar Gaurd?"
"Half of it is gone."
The Prophet roared as if he had been wounded. For a creature of his seeming frailty, it was surprisingly loud and ferocious...Gunomee shivered. Long, tense moments passed as the Prophet stared at the ground, thinking, enraged...
He slowly raised his head. "This atrocity shall not pass."
"No, your Holiness, it shall not."
"The humans will pay."
"They will pay most dearly."
The Prophet once again sunk deep into thought. He then spoke slowly, in a calm, measured tone: "Operation Divine Wrath is to be put into effect immediately."
Gunomee blanched. This was the order he had dreaded. "Your Holiness...I tremble in fear to contradict you....but many of the units earmarked for Operation Divine Wrath were lost on Halo."
The Prophets eyes glowed a blazing scarlet. "I do not care! Whatever is left will begin the offensive immediately! IMMEDIATELY!"
Gunomee nodded. "Yes...Yes, your Holiness. At once." Gunomee dashed from the room at a full sprint. His subsequent actions set into motion dozens of warships and thousands of the Covenant's best troops.
Marantha Mountains, Grid 73x29
Human Outer Colony Rashear IV
6 October 2552
Staff Sergeant Jacob Carlyle peered through his standard issue binoculars, observing the flat plateau he and his fire team had been guarding for the past five hours. Still all quiet...
"Hey, Sarge, why do we always get stuck watching the back door?"
"Because we're dependable, Lyle."
"Aw...sucks being dependable, man." Private Lyle Lanski, the team's primary griper, wrenched off another piece of beef jerky from his ever-present stick and chewed thoughtfully. "Why the hell are we even up here, anyway?"
"Because Major Keeler says they'll be landing right there on that plateau, so we have to guard it...whether or not you want to," Carlyle responded. Lanski muttered obscenities under his breath.
The storm had broken only a few days ago. The leadership said that in terms of scope, it was the largest Covenant offensive ever. Simultaneous invasions of Rashear IV, Quingliu, St. Vith, Wotan, and several other outer colonies...the Covies were pissed off, no doubts about that. Sergeant Carlyle and his Fire Team Papa were paired with a tank platoon from the 3rd Armored and dropped deep in the red-tinged Marantha Mountains, with orders to cover a plateau ringed by steep cliffs. Carlyle and his comrades were entrenched up there in one of those cliffs, twiddling their thumbs and listening to other units mix it up over the radio.
"Hey, Kiowa, you asleep over there?"
Specialist Frederick "Kiowa" Ironhorse, the team sniper, looked up over the butt of his S2 AM sniper rifle and grinned. "Almost." Kiowa had a reputation as the best gun around, which Carlyle wholeheartedly believed. He'd seen the guy make shots that even a Spartan would find challenging. Most of the guys jokingly attributed Kiowa's skills to some sort of Native American "magic". He always kept two eagle feathers tied to the S2's butt, and put two flecks of anti-glare under each eye. With that big rifle and "warpaint", he looked like Custer's worst nightmare come to life.
"Sergeant! HQ says we got three Covie dropships inbound, ETA two minutes! They just popped up, sir!"
That was Clay, the radioman. Good kid, always stuck by your side in a firefight. "Alright, boys, company's coming, let's give 'em a warm welcome! You got us covered, Lieutenant?"
The commander of the tank platoon radioed back, "Roger. Hold fire until we open up. We'll wait till they commit to a landing, understood?"
"Understood. Papa Leader out." Carlyle checked his weapons one last time: clicked off the safety on the MA5B assault rifle, aligned the scope on the M6D sidearm, touched each one of his four frag grenades.
"Sir?" McCall, the Heavy Weapons Specialist.
"Yeah?"
"Requesting permission to give our new friends a rocket in the teeth."
"Negative, let the tanks handle the heavy work...we might need those rockets later."
"Yes sir."
Now they could all hear a low, droning hum - the dropships were close. Abruptly they soared up over the cliffs and halted over the plateau. Covenant dropships were ass-ugly monstrosities, looking for all the world like stubby, metallic-purple tuning forks flying through the air.
One of them opened its troop doors and slowly descended. A thunderclap sounded as one of the Scorpions opened fire with its 90 mm cannon. The round struck in one of the open troop compartments, shattering the thinly plated inner bulkhead and cracking the anti-gravity drive. The shimmering blue field between the tines flickered, then vanished completely. The dropship corkscrewed into the ground, rolling over and breaking in half. A glut of cobalt plasma flame consumed the downed ship and all of its occupants. Too bad, so sad, Carlyle thought.
One of the craft grounded hard and dropped its doors. Another Scorpion fired, wiping out half of the Covenant in the left-side compartment. The third and final Scorpion eliminated the rest in a flash of orange and red.
"Let 'em have it!" Carlyle bellowed. His marines opened up, dropping several Grunts and a Jackal in a withering hail of depleted-uranium bullets. Carlyle took aim with his sidearm and dropped three Grunts with seven shots. They all went down hard, methane spraying from their support suits. A Jackal ran on a slant towards him, wildly firing with its plasma pistol. Several shots hit near the Sergeant, boiling the red rocks into glowing orange slag. He took careful aim...BLAT! The round tore into the Jackal's ankle, and it fell flat on its face. Several other marines shot at it and the thing simply disintegrated in a purple haze. BAROOM! BAROOM! Carlyle shuddered and covered his head. God, he forgot the tanks were so close. Those last two shots annihilated the rest of the Covenant forces on the plateau. The remaining two dropships climbed up and away, one of them taking a severe list and trailing thick black smoke. It probably wouldn't make it back into orbit; chalk it up as half a kill for the tankers.
"Sir! Sir!" Clay's voice had a trace of panic in it. "Fire Team Tango got hit hard! Six dropships came down right on top of them, their tanks are gone, they're about to be overrun!"
Carlyle didn't hesitate. "Lieutenant, Fire Team Tango is 1.2 klicks north of here! If you hurry you can help them! We can handle things here!"
The Lieutenant didn't skip a beat either. "Alright. We're on our way. Good luck." The Scorpions' powerful engines sputtered and roared, and the massive 66-ton backed out of their revetments and clawed their way north. Carlyle watched as their treads threw up geysers of vermilion dirt. They ducked into a narrow ravine and were gone. Fire Team Papa was alone.
"Thanks, Sergeant, you just gave away like half our firepower."
"Lanski, shut the hell up."
Silence abounded as the marines reloaded their weapons and waited. Would the Covenant come again? How many would there be? When would they come?
"Um, sir? HQ says we've got three more incoming bogies! ETA one minute!" Now Clay was definitely panicked. "They must have found a dead zone in our sensors, sir!"
"Yeah," Carlyle muttered. Damn Covies were getting smarter by the day...
Three more tuning forks soared up over the cliffs and hovered, then started a slow descent. "Armor's gone, people! Kiowa! McCall! This one's all you!"
Both specialists nodded and went to work...
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