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Ekim, Part I: Sunset
Date: 13 May 2007, 2:02 am
Thunder crashed and Marine Ekim's eyes snapped open, darting back and forth in front of him looking for a sign of danger with his AR in hand.
Nothing. Never was, he thought. If anyone ever saw anything in this war they were already dead. Always.
Best to keep moving, he thought as he let his eyes fall upon the grim prefaces of Old Mombassa's streets. The night seemed ever darker as he stood from his resting place along side the road; the images of what had happened only hours earlier began again flashing through his aching head.
There were only twelve marines before it happened. The rest deserted when they saw the ships. So many ships.
"I think they're gonna have a hard time glassing this hunk of rock", Frank had said. It was a shame he died first. He was such a nice guy.
The group decided to set up base camp on the top of a building five stories tall. In a building it would had been easy to be surrounded and out in the street it was too open. The building was perfect. It was the biggest in the area. The inside was gutted so it was a challenge to reach the peak but it did nicely once achieved. Strong frame: half a meter thick to be exact. You could see anything, to be sure, and hopes were up for the squadron. This was our defensive. Time to kill some Covenant.
A "No Signal" indicator blared in Kiloh's eyepiece against the dark, ruined city. In one swift move he tore the device off his ear and threw it to the ground. With a spark, the device shattered.
A crash sounded in the distance and dust rose from where a small building once was on the horizon. Then there was another crash and building. Right in a line aimed at them. Everyone seemed to move at the same time for their respective weapons. Frank practically leaped onto the M247 emplacement gun and MA5B AR's triggers were gripped.
Hall on the sniper and Moore with a SPN'KR. Everyone felt they were better with a certain gun during training. For Ekim this loyalty fell between the MA5B Assault Rifle and any model of a shotgun strapped to his back for close quarters.
A tense feel gripped the air as building fell that were closer and closer and still no indication of the source. Fear started to bind with the tension as the air sounded with crash after crash.
"It's Hunters!" Hall cried peering through his sniper scope. "They're checking the city for resistance, I think", he continued, "My god, they're sprinting. All of them. Demolishing buildings for infantry, probably, and moving in teams of… somewhere around thirty."
"They said in BASIC that they use those huge Scarab things for clearing cities, though" Moore remarked while shoving twin rickets into his launcher.
"Dunno" Hall said still glued to his scope "Maybe they're interested in being a little more careful about what they break this time. Damn Covies."
Less than thirty seconds after this was said the turret blazed into action and the sniper began a barrage aimed between the plates.
The sniper sounded a Bam, bam, Bam, bam audible only to those who could carefully tune out the turret's constant BRRRRRTT. Undeterred, the purple attackers still pounded foreword at remarkable speeds, only scattered with few dead. Suddenly an explosion and boom ended the turret's noise. A hunter arm cannon hit Frank straight through the wall.
Assault Rifles rained bullets on the enemy and Battle Rifles tried the same but neither made headway. Continuing to blaze away wasn't doing any good as more and more of their concrete barrier was blown away by the Hunter's arm cannons along with a couple of Marines. It was like the damage, the destruction, and the confusion didn't even exist to them. Then it dawned upon everyone in the group that there was no surviving this one.
The building moved with a lurch. Then another. The Hunters slammed into the base of concrete and stone with more effectiveness then an entire demolition team. MA5B were all firing at once down as more and more armored menaces slammed through the ground floor.
"Twenty-four rounds gone, seven kills, and a magnum with a grand total of one bullet. I regret nothing!" Hall called to me over the sounds of gunfire.
"No!" Kiloh called as Hall began to raise the magnum to his mouth. But suddenly he didn't need to. A slender blue beam shot across through his head from a stretching distance behind him to the right. I didn't need to be told what that meant. There were snipers and likely Elites and Brutes heading on the ground to clean them up after the fall. There was no hope.
The ground groaned beneath their feet as the building gave way. It collapsed straight down on itself. There was a loud, sickening noise and everything else was lost in blackness and dust.
Awakening from that was the single most painful experience Ekim has ever undergone. The thought pestered him at how in the hell the survived but no answer presented itself. Until he looked down, at least. He was situated nicely on top of a rather charred marine corpse. Frank. Well, that pays up for the twenty dollars he owed me, at least, Ekim thought, as he stood up, glancing around him.
The dust has long since settled revealing a field of corpses surrounded him. But not human. It was most definitely the Covenant. Brutes were scarred with plasma and elites torn with spiker rounds. Grunts, drones, hunters, and jackals seemed to be slaughtered by everything in between.
Nothing moved. Collecting ammo and testing his radio, Ekim found that all that came in was a stark "No Signal". A glance over the battlefield unveiled a sunset the like that only the East African Procreate can produce.
In minutes it would be dark, Ekim thought, and if I can just find a human camp the morning might come a little sooner.
Two hours later, walking away from the spot where his eyepiece lay broken, the fatigue started to hit him harder than the original fall. AR on back and shotgun in hand, Ekim worked his way down the Old Mombassa streets. His training had taught him to check every major room he passed. It seemed like a bad habit at this point but it had saved him once or twice in training. So chances are he might get lucky and spot an ambush from one of the dark rooms that lined the street. The hard and unnerving work might just pay off after all, he thought to himself.
Still, the darkness encroached from every corner and every few moments something seemed to move but was gone when the flashlight's beam set upon it. There was something there. He just couldn't shake the feeling that he was at someone else's mercy and at any moment their-- it's… whatever's patience might run out and he would follow the same fate as his squad.
There had been no corpses for the last two miles or so that he had walked. Just blood trails. They were shaped like the dead had fought, died, been dragged a ways and got back up. Chilling thoughts rasped his mind as he started to desperately need sleep and medical attention. A precursory glance to the street finally made his day. Light in the street, just around a curve.
His heart racing, Ekim sprinted towards the light. Light means electricity or fire. He never saw any smoke against the sky so this fire was no accident. Just as he crossed the threshold of the doorway, he was grabbed.
A large, inhuman hand gripped his throat stifling his air. The three-fingered hand gripped even more tightly and lifted him into the air. His legs were kicking and hands prying at the creature's grip to no avail as his AR fell to the ground. Gasping for air, he twisted his head around to look straight into the black eyes of an elite. As the blood rushed to his head Ekim could hear his own heartbeat. It was pounding.
"Friend or foe?" the creature growled. Ekim furiously nodded his head, without thinking of either one. The monstrous elite threw him like a rag doll into a wall across the street with a crash.
He roared as he reached to his thigh and gripped a small metal handle. In one movement- one instant later the elite was holding a shining bade made of a solid white-blue light. He pulled back his forearm while moving over the last few feet to his target that still gasped for breath.
"Friend!" Ekim sputtered, holding one hand out to stop the attacker in what he hoped was a universal plea for mercy. A gloved hand moved in front of the chest of the attacker, and with a grunt and a peeved glare he moved away from the scene drawing back in his sword.
"Ya ok?" a voice said from above offering a hand to help Ekim stand. He stood and looked at the camp he had arrived at as the man continued. There was a trashcan fire in the center and a circle of barricades made out of wreckage from the war-destroyed city surrounding all sides. It was the only thing that could be seen clearly in the darkness with only a handful of ODSTs and Elites numbering less than fifteen.
"Where's the rest of your platoon? You a deserter?" he demanded.
Ekim looked at glared strangely at him telling all he needed to know but spoke anyway.
"They're all dead. I'm the only one left. We were right in the path of a full assault a couple of miles back."
"That's too bad. We could use some more men. Glad you made it out, though. The name's Frickie. We encountered this Elite group in a firefight with some Brutes some twenty miles north while moving in a couple of 'hogs. We intervened, trying not to ask questions but we got hit hard by a phantom and pinned down with them."
Pulling off his helmet, Ekim said "So you just kissed and made up?"
"We had to try to escape and together were the only way we could survive. And besides, they said there was something else here, far more dangerous than the Prophets. They call it 'the parasite.'" Frickie remarked "They probably would have turned on us later if there wasn't a phantom still at our tails."
"It that phantom dead, then?"
"No. But it stopped pursuing and that's good enough for us. Maybe someone else got it. No idea what really could take down that thing around here. But I guess it doesn't matter. We're still alive."
It was true. All communication was out. There was no way to contact command for support. You were lucky if you were alive and if you managed to make it out a firefight without a bullet in you, then you didn't ask why. Asking why has a habit of killing people.
The group slept in shifts and after hearing of his ordeal Ekim was granted first shift to sleep. After all, he needed it, but just before falling asleep he remembered the old Earth phrase "You'll feel it the morning" and suddenly regretted falling asleep.
Ekim, Part II: Night Combat
Date: 13 May 2007, 2:13 am
Ekim woke with a start. Well, actually he woke with the sound of ARs and plasma riles firing filling his ears. His hand already resting on the MA5B, he jumped to his feet. The Marines and elites were lining one wall of the barricade as their rounds lit an apparently empty street.
"Hold! The Flood are upon us!" an elite barked to those who were awakening with Ekim.
Then he saw it. One dark, misshaped figure jumping through the air farther than any man could be thrown. It was going right down the street without taking cover. A mindless mistake. It was hit several times before touching the ground and it collapsed when it did. It lied still for several seconds as the group thinned out and relaxed.
As Ekim turned his back, he heard a loud pain-filled groan. How it had enough strength to speak, nonetheless that loudly, intrigued him. He turned back to look once more at the corpse and saw that the pale-green, rotting creature was right in front of him in a dead sprint.
He didn't need to aim. He was that close. He pulled the trigger down and both of them were enveloped in a bright light from the end of his gun. He emptied his whole clip in its chest. The moment was lost in the loud BBBBRRRTT and deadly light and seemed to last forever. Click. The clip was out. That thing wasn't getting back up. It fell limply to the ground.
Upon further examination Ekim found that that thing—that monster was human. Was is easily the key word in his mind. This thing was a Marine and was still wearing the uniform where he didn't have holes blown clear through. But is seemed to be mutated and have something inside it. There was a large hole in the chest where something had crawled and stayed. But now there was little left of its chest and little to see.
Ekim finally decided he wait to sleep because he had a nagging felling that these things were coming back but in bigger numbers. He gripped his shotgun tightly, loading it, as he sat by the fire and talked with the ODSTs.
"What was that thing?" Bennett said.
"Don't know. But it didn't seem hard to kill" Case responded. Those two marines apparently knew each other since Preschool, were best friends, and decided to sign up together. They somehow ended up in the same squadron and worked well together. Regardless, the acted like a married couple.
"Speak for yourself" Ekim muttered under his breath.
"Dude, I don't think so" a Marine named Taber said, not hearing what Ekim had said "It got back up after we opened up on it. Nothing could have survived that. And I heard somewhere that there were things like that on Reach with the Covenant."
"No" said a blue armored Elite that was passing by "The Parasite is the enemy of the Prophets. It deserves no mercy and shall receive none. We shall burn all in our path."
Something about how viciously he said it quieted the group entirely. An awkward silence overtook the air.
Just then Ekim saw something he didn't expect. Through the dark night's air, the fire's light, and the conversation's tension he saw a small raindrop hit his M90 shotgun and trail down like a teardrop. It was going to be one hell of a night.
With a boom, thunder crashed again and again. What little shade there was happened to be away from the fire, so there was no getting comfortable. Ekim found himself pressed against a wall of the barricade with a small overhang along with Frickie.
YYYAAARRKKKK! A thousand voices screeched at the same time and the echo sounded like it came from everywhere. A surge of terror swept the listeners and everyone's', even the Elites', blood ran cold. In seconds the small amount of shelter everyone shared was gone. The defenders ran into the rain to get behind any wall of the barricade that they could and it was not long until this small band of fighters covered all sides. Time to fight. Flashlights showed through the dense rain as only white beams of water that could cast only a few feet.
Buckets continued to pour on top the make-shift alliance but their lives came before comfort. Elites and humans were both taught that. Ekim found it difficult to hold his gun straight as he was soaked to the bone and shivering wildly. But still no sign of the attackers. But they heard it this time. He was sure.
Far to his right a Battle Rifle started a three round burst and the group moved with a jump. Plod, plod, plod, plod. Footsteps moved right towards Ekim who cocked his M90 shotgun awaiting an easy up-close kill. He looked right down the sights as the gruesome target fell into view. But suddenly AR rounds skimmed past his head and others hit the barricade into a shower of sparks. It wasn't a Marine or Covenant for that matter; it was the flood he was looking at.
"No one told me they had guns!" Ekim yelled over the rain to Case who was standing only a few feet to his right blazing away with a SMG.
"Did you ask?" he replied when he bent down to reload his clip.
Ekim popped his head up again and saw something he never wanted to see in his life. There were at least thirty combat forms, Covenant and Human either jumping, running, or shooting down the street. Confusion once again overtook the air as the menace drew ever closer taking everything that flew at it. Bullets, plasma. No matter. The only light illuminating the scene was from the plasma firing, roaring ARs, and the occasional flamethrower.
Ekim took a quick glance to his left while ducking down and reloading his MA5B AR. He caught one glance of Case. He was firing his SMGs high at an angle and in a flash, a flood landed feet from him hitting the ground running. A lash of a long, tentacle-whip arm hit Case square in the chest which such force that it sent him flying backwards into a solid brick wall.
From there everything went badly. Most everyone turned to help their injured comrade but, in turn, left their stations for but a brief moment. From the darkness, the parasites moved with sudden and disarming attacks that the barriers were useless.
To, Ekim, everyone was lost in a wall of decaying flesh and mutated limbs the surrounded him on all sides. There was a full clip on his M90 shotgun and plenty of targets. Boom, click click, Boom, click click. The bastards fell one after another, bursting into a plume of some kind of spore with each kill.
His shotgun fired again and again until a damning Click sounded when he pulled the trigger. No time to reload and at any moment a flood would jump towards him and everything would be over. He started walking backwards. They were still survivors somewhere in the crowd but at this point it didn't matter. Ekim slipped his shotgun on his back next to his AR and moved to grip his FRAG grenades.
But then the parasites stood still. Ekim's finger froze in place on the pin looking for movement. All of the Flood had stopped in place; feelers had just stopped wiggling like there was something in the air that no human would ever sense.
They turned in one direction (Ekim's right) and sprinted away. Soundlessly, and command less they retreated only moments from winning. Time for another wave.
UNSC and Elites that had survived stood up and glanced around, shaken and beaten. There lay in front of them a field of scattered corpses, most Flood, but others were brothers, friends. The group numbered only seven. There was Frickie, Bennett, Taber, a Marine named Wandling, and three Elites.
Silence covered the misted area of wreckage. Those who lived only stood a few feeble feet above the dead. Frickie had a large cut above his right eye that bled down his face. Everyone else had their battle-scar trophies but the thing about Frickie was that he still stood straight up and rose above the battle weary group.
"Bennett, Ekim, get the flamethrower and burn these bodies. Make sure none of them get back up! Taber, Wandling, refortify this position and barricade. Ikst 'Nomatee, get your remaining men and search for any type of workable or fixable vehicle. We're gonna need to retreat." Frickie commanded. Suddenly there was hope and there was a leader. Complete cooperation.
As the group got to working the thought that the previous battle instilled in people's minds was this: We cannot continue surviving like this. We have one more shot or we will die.
One more thing happened while the group labored on: the rain stopped. From torrential, to raindrops, to nothing. But the sun still didn't show itself and it seemed that the night would not let them escape alive.
Everyone knew that Earth was being invaded and nothing human would emerge in its wake. Now, even, the military was being crippled, friends were dieing right in front of you, and your families were dead back home. Survival and revenge. That's all that was left for Ekim.
Ekim, Part III: Evac
Date: 13 May 2007, 2:39 am
Ekim loaded as many weapons as he could on him. Two pistols on his left thigh, a magnum on his right, his MA5B AR on his back with a convenient strap, his M90 Shotgun gripped in his hands, and every grenade he could lay his hands on strapped on his belt and filling most of his pockets. Time for some overtime.
The fire can was long since dead and there was almost no gasoline left. So the entire group prepared and worked in the darkness of the night, with only the stars as their guides.
He got to work burning every body he could using a small amount of gasoline and a torch allowing Bennett to have some fun with the flamethrower. But still the night loomed on as if it would last forever and the only light that would help the duo see their task was the embers coming off of the previous bodies. Ekim crouched to douse a Flood with gasoline when out of the corner of his eye he saw movement.
It was not a figure moving, in fact, it was a black, wiggling thing in a shadowed corner of a destroyed building. Ekim cocked his M90 and kept his eyes locked on the small spot as he dropped a match on the body behind him which caught ablaze.
The area was instantly bathed in a red light revealing a green creature, less than a foot high, like a blob on top and with tentacles on its bottom. One glance could tell that it was Flood in origin. It was scurrying around in front of a small hole in the wall as if excited that it had been seen. Ekim pulled the trigger of his shotgun and, with a boom, the thing was gone. A green mist of spores replaced it along with bits of its tentacles.
"What's up?" Bennett said having arrived at Ekim's side. "I heard a shotgun fire."
Ekim opened his mouth to speak but looked to see the hole that lay behind the decaying matter suddenly erupted with hundreds of the parasites. They were just pouring out of one spot as fast as they could crawl out. He pulled the pin on a FRAG grenade and tossed it into the impending mob. It landed with a tink, tink, and Boom. But still the monsters kept coming.
"That's what. Run, get back to base." Ekim said cocking his shotgun. They turned and began to sprint as Flood began to come from more and more holes in the destroyed landscape. The parasites made a slight squishing sound as they moved and in seconds this sound grew unbearable. There were thousands of them covering the ground, and moving on all sides of buildings and all of them moved at once closing in right in on the two running humans.
There was no need to radio in because they were still in sight of the camp. But in a dead sprint, they still couldn't escape the wave of green death that pursued them. Ekim started yelling for help as they ran. Ekim glanced to his right to see Bennett running and firing his BR behind him. Then a look of pure of terror came into the eyes of Bennett as he dropped from eye level. His foot had caught in a pothole and he tripped. The last Ekim ever saw of Bennett was him disappearing into a mound of parasites.
Though it was only twelve seconds of running it seemed like a lifetime. Two heads popped above the barricade and raised weapons. The pops of the flood signaled that the Marines were picking off the ones on their tails. Ekim practically flew over the barricade as rounds from his allies flew past him every moment.
Pop, pop, pop. The flood numbered in the thousands while creating a carpet of parasites over the entire street. Ekim stood up, still shaken, and caught sight of an Elite standing on the edge of the firing line as the flood overcame the barricade in front of him. A green mass of tentacles jumped towards the Elite and began popping on his shield. Lucky him.
Ekim whipped out his AR and started scanning the street for enemies. At first he didn't see any but standing up he saw what everyone was firing at. There was a mass invasion of flood at the ground near them. He pointed his gun down and started firing off rounds downwards at an angle. He was bound to hit something.
But they didn't seem to slow or dwindle. It was like the last assault had been canceled to make way for this wave. The things just kept coming.
A couple of minutes in to the fighting Ekim jumped when an explosion went off a couple of meters to his right. An elite shrieked and charred corpse flew backwards. Lesson learned: Plasma grenade on a parasite jumping at you = dead Elite. No one paused to help. The death, the pounding of bullets, and every aspect of war became more evident to everyone over time. This was battle. You can pay your respects when the enemies are all dead but not until then. Click, click. Another empty clip.
"Reloading! Cover!" Ekim shouted to men standing nearest to him. He padded his pockets for extra clips and only felt two AR clips. Ekim moved his AR onto his back, pulled out two pistols, and started firing. Each shot emitted a small flare that illuminated the carpet of blobs that still pounced to kill.
Out of the corner of Ekim's eye, there stood Frickie calling for kills and yelling commands. One blob, just one, rose from the ranks to jump on his Frickie's head. He gripped the parasite less than a foot from his face. Its tentacles lashed back and forth cutting at his skin as he screamed.
As Ekim watched he raised a pistol and hesitated. There were few people he wanted to survive more than his leader. But watching his friend twist and try to shake off the Flood a thought dawned on him: there are always worse things than death. He sighted his pistol fired one shot hoping that the bullet didn't finding the friendly target.
The round echoed with a pop from the parasite's death and Frickie fell to the ground.
"Are you okay?" Ekim shouted over numerous guns being fired.
"Now would be—"he coughed up what appeared to be blood at this point" a very good time to retreat…" Frickie said, not looking up.
Ekim turned to an Elite firing madly on a pair of plasma rifles"What vehicles have you found?" The Elite growled and fired another blast, finishing his kill.
He turned to Ekim and uttered "There was one of your Warthogs with a broken engine and two Specters, mostly functional."
"Good." he shouted "Tether the 'hog between the Specters and make sure can get pulled correctly behind." Here Ekim moved away from the two Elites, who moved to do their duty, to the silhouettes of the two marines against the darkness of the night. Taber and Wandling were waving their ARs over the barricade firing and trying to kill anything they could.
"Move back" Ekim cried "Protect the wounded!" The two obeyed and seconds later the three were enclosed in a tight circle around their leader. Two clips will have to do, Ekim thought to himself, lowering his gaze from the wall, he turned to his guns.
When he finally looked back up his eyes met the sight of the parasites began to overrun the abandoned wall and crawled over it like a jungle gym. Ekim squeezed the trigger in sync with his allies and in seconds AR rounds filled through the air.
In minutes the tired group was running out of ammo while dancing around each other and crying for cover as they reload. Now they saw the true horror of this invasion: ammo supplies are always limited. This dawned on Ekim as his Assault Rifle clicked without ammo for the last time.
He hurled his gun at the approaching wave as he tore out his M90 Shotgun to start a follow-up. With each Boom from the shotgun the Flood were lit up for a moment as Ekim reassessed his targets. This seemed to last forever as combat fatigue wore on the group and night turned into hell.
The amount of parasites dwindled and eventually stopped. An eerie silence filled the air that was now surprisingly lacked the sound of gunfire. Ekim, Wandling, and Taber shoved new clips into their respective guns and watched for any sigh of flood. They will still be coming. It's only a matter of time.
Then, towards the back of the visible street, a new creature stumbled foreword. Like a blob with legs, Ekim thought when he noticed it. It was just like one of the now gone parasites but with the size of an elite and legs. In seconds it was joined by many more. Four or five of them were coming in the distance.
Ekim scooped up an abandoned BR and filled the nearest one with bursts. It fell face first onto the concrete and exploded. The ground gave a small quake and four small parasites rushed out of the place where the blob once stood. Then it hit him: these things were carriers.
Taber raised twin SMGs and dispatched the parasites in seconds. He released one of the guns from his hands and griped a FRAG. He pulled the pin and hurled it at the rest of the Carriers. They didn't last more than a few seconds. However, those seconds were spent flying through the air.
Ekim saw the grenade land nicely a few feet behind the group. But when the boom entered the air, he literally ducked backwards finishing his clip at the two that flew over the three humans and popped behind them.
These carriers began to fill the street beyond the barricade as combat forms jumped out of windows and off of rooftops and sprinted towards the barricade. It seemed everything wanted a piece of this fight.
Grenades flew through the air as the Flood were too primitive to use any real tactics, however, they kept moving with sudden, yet alarming attacks. The 'nades worked like a charm to dispatch a few in the crowd. Ekim pumped his Shotgun and kept firing at anything that moved while always keeping sight behind him, where he hoped his evacuation would arrive with the Elites.
He was dodging bullets and hoping the stim-packs he took every hour would help keep him on his toes. Ekim kept thinking there was no way to win but only a few paths he could take to postpone the end. His muscles felt like they were fighting him to stop moving and release his gun. Each shot took more and more effort to keep his gun steady and to keep pushing rounds out.
Like a call from an angel, an Elite's growl reminded them of what they were really stalling for. "Now! It is ready."
Ekim peered out of the corner of his eye to see three hunks of machine sitting in the street almost twenty meters away. Two of the vehicles, the ones in front, were glowing.
Ekim moved to Frickie's right arm and began to pull. Taber was pulling on the left and Wandling was firing an AR in each hand, barely gripping for the recoil. Ironically, Ekim was putting all his strength into moving toward a covenant vehicle mounted with Elites when every other combat experience before told him he should do the opposite.
The condition of the escape vehicles was terrible. The hog had no turret and neither specter had workable side seats. The specters and hog were riddled with bullet holes and plasma that seemed to burn through the armor.
Ekim helped toss Frickie on the hog's back platform. He seemed to be in trouble. Frickie had taken a plasma round to his arm, and the cuts on his face were not only deep, but also appeared to have become infected immediately from the spores.
The Flood were everywhere and covering everything. They were right after them and the combat forms were chasing them to the vehicles. The flood moved in an unorganized wave across the camp. From the masses bullets and plasma tore through the wind. The two lead vehicles started suddenly as soon as everyone had boarded.
With a lurch, everyone gripped to the seat they were in. Wandling and Ekim were in plasma turrets and Taber manned the 'hog's wheel while the Elites drove the specters in front. There were at least forty combat forms that sprinted after them and more joined as the convoy passed more buildings.
Ekim steadied his turret sights on the combat forms that chased the convoy. With an unearth-like wisp the gun emitted blue trails of light that streaked through the night. Each one of them were easy targets. He held down the alien trigger and focused on one at a time until it dropped and moved to the next. Many got back up later but couldn't run fast enough to catch the specters even though they were carrying the extra 'hog.
Before long, any pressures were all gone, either lost in the dust behind them or turned into confetti by one of the two turrets. Ekim glanced at the sky that had so long become dark to his eyes, and saw something new: the first rays of dawn streaking over the horizon. The trip continued for another five minutes until there was somewhat light once again.
As Ekim started to relax, he noticed something. Every few seconds there was something like a green haze covering the distance. The spores, he thought to himself, this is how they want to kill us. Terraforming.
Ekim's train of thought suddenly ended as the side of a building almost fifty meters in front of the convoy collapsed. Bricks and smoke filled the air as the convoy slowed to a stop. A familiar screech howled around the group as they realized what was happening.
"Ambush!" Taber screamed as a large amount of combat forms emerged from the smoke, firing their weapons.
Everyone ditched the turrets and driver's seats because they were out gunned and couldn't turn around. Ekim crouched behind the hog, which had wheeled in front.
Wandling moved Frickie to the back, as bullets whizzed through the air. One or two of the twenty of so that stood around the wreckage finally fell, but as they did, a Pelican approached and hovered over the wreckage.
It was just hovering over the rooftops and slowly began to spin around. The pelican was slightly damaged, as if it had little resistance in the battles. When its back was finally facing the pinned-down group, the small, almost unnoticeable turret mounted there, opened fire.
Ekim fired his Magnum at the menace when the bullets swept to a specter, but in a only second they were back at him. Ekim couldn't do as much as stick his head out from behind the metal barrier and he knew any second one of the clumsy bullets would be enough to detonate his 'hog by hitting the gas tank. Moments of fear and dread escaped through cheap blind shot that were guaranteed to hit nothing.
He glanced up at the Pelican and his eye caught on a small red beam, not unlike a laser sight, focused on the side of the craft from above. Ekim ducked when he began to see the spectacle.
A large red beam of light tore through the ship and caused the entire Pelican explode in a fiery death. It crashed in the wreckage of the destroyed building and annihilated any flood that still stood there.
Spinning around, Ekim saw that only two vehicles remained and both elites were gone. It seemed as if they had taken a specter and ran. Well, if they did, Ekim thought, they were dead already. No two soldiers can survive this place alone. But then, a dreaded thought reached out to him: they numbered only three active and one critically wounded.
Ekim looked around and wondered what in god's name happened to the attackers. Then, over the remaining rooftop on that side of the street, another, more badly damaged, Pelican flew down as silently as the first one and came within feet of lading in front of the hammered convoy. He stood his ground and raised his BR as this craft spun around.
The passenger area at the rear met the eyes of Ekim and the marines when it finally spun into view. Human guns clicked on both sides and barrels centered on each other's heads from only feet away. There was a moment of what can be described as an awkward silence with guns as people on both sides absorbed what was happening.
This drop ship was still in human hands and there were about ten marines in the craft in total. There was a Galilean class laser in the hands of one of the marines who put a hand out to his side to call off everyone else on the Pelican who still pointed a weapon at the survivors. The three standing human survivors lowered their weapons and so did those in the Pelican.
One marine hopped foreword out of the Pelican looked at Ekim and said "Sergeant Graves, at your service. Need a lift?"
Ekim, Part IV: Twenty Kilos and Counting
Date: 3 June 2007, 12:09 am
Ekim's arms ached with each movement as he lifted the last of the group's equipment onto the hovering pelican.
"This it?" another Marine asked, taking the crate of ammunition from Ekim's hands.
"Yeah, but give us a few more minutes. I gotta wrap one more thing up." Ekim said, not realizing that there was a hint of sadness in his voice. He turned around, avoiding the gaze coming from behind the Marine's visor, and looked towards Wandling and Taber who stood around the badly damaged warthog.
Ekim dashed to the pair and saw Taber tossing a red can casually away behind him as he arrived. He slowed his pace when he saw that the hog was glistening with a clear liquid of some sort and that Frickie wasn't moving.
"How's he doing?" Ekim asked, turning to Wandling. But before he heard a response he noticed three clean holes in Frickie's chest and a couple others on his limbs.
"He isn't." Wandling said keeping his vision focused on the body. "These shots were made by the dropship but… he didn't bleed when he was shot. So we do know is that he was dead sometime while we were escaping the camp. It's a shame, really. He said something about his kid just entering kindergarten. That and we've been trying to ferry a dead body around for a couple of hours."
"Grab his tags" he said, finally turning to Ekim
Ekim bent over the body, reached for the chain on its neck, and pulled it off in one movement. Pulling the shiny metal away from the corpse and putting it in his pocket, a particular small filled his nose: Gasoline.
"Let's go" Taber said, ushering the group to the awaiting ship. He turned as the other two began to jog towards the Pelican and pulled something out of his pocket. Ekim sat on the edge of the pelican floor with his legs hanging off the edge when he caught sight of Taber standing alone in the street. Taber continued to fiddle with something that was too small to see from the distance Ekim was at, as the engines revved to begin the accent.
Taber threw a glint of flame at the 'hog. It was just a flame on the end of a match. but in the blink of an eye the top of the warthog was ignited with a whoosh. The intense red fire obscured any view of the body that rested in it.
As Taber rushed to the ship Wandling looked at Ekim and said in a depressed tone "There are worse things then death, you know. Like those things. That Flood. I don't know if you can feel when they're controlling you but I'm sure as hell wouldn't Frickie want to find out. Anyway there's no sense in leaving a body around for when they come here."
Taber hopped onto the Pelican and it without hesitance lifted off. Ekim watched as the flames grew farther and farther from his eyes as a bigger view of the city filled in around it. Then suddenly, the flames jumped outward and doubled in size as smoke billowed out of it even faster. Over the groaning of the engines, half a second later, a distant, quiet boom reached Ekim's ears. The 'hog had exploded when the flames reached the gas tank.
"Now that's what I call cremation" Taber said laughing, suddenly with a smile on his face. Ekim grudgingly joined the waves of laughter with a sick feeling boiling in his stomach: that he actually had the dog tags of a man, a friend, their former leader, that had died in combat, and been blown up, sitting in his pocket.
The craft flew on over an ever more dark and apocalyptic landscape that was formerly the city of Old Mombassa as the passengers began a debriefing.
"Privates Taber, Ekim, and Wandling, is it?" Ed Graves began. The trio nodded as he continued "I'm afraid I've got some bad news. As you know this is the second invasion of Earth, by the covenant, however they came in full force this time. After the flag ship left New Mombassa and destroyed most of the city, we found something. Something massive was unearthed right under the city. Our best scientists were trying to figure it out when the covenant came back. We didn't stand a chance—"
Another Marine cut him off, Ekim could clearly see a dog tag with the name "Mohr" gleaming in the sun hanging down from his neck. "They blasted our ships out of the sky in less than a day. Once they had every last one of our men in the sky--" he hesitated and gulped, Ekim could see he was sweating "slaughtered they started a partial glass of America. I can still taste the ashes."
Mohr closed his eyes tight and began to let a few difficultly suppressed sobs. The sound of the groaning engines once again overtook the air.
"Let me say this" another Marine chimed in; minutes later "You were lucky to survive at all. The planet was overrun before that flood thing came into play. The commander who planned the defense of the New Mombassa area called for the first wave, that'd be you, to be bullet fodder. Apparently it was to exhaust the covie's recourses, so the three of you were already wrote into the causality list before they made landfall. Nobody could stop it, and anyone that could called it a part of the bigger battle plan."
"Be that as it may, Stone" Graves continued "what's done is done. We're planning to regroup to a safe zone under Paris. We are to rendezvous with a shortsword fighter to help transport this squad as well as all the survivors that we've found. The latter accounts for the three of you."
"Also there seems to have been a switch in the covenant ground troops since the last invasion." Graves said, now looking down at a small handheld device that he occasionally had hit a button on. "The elites have been moved down in rank and have been replaced with the brutes. So many of the Elites are fighting against the rest of the covies but are getting gunned down pretty quick."
"Yeah. We know." Wandling said shoving a clip into his Battle Rifle and avoiding any glances that happened by his way.
"Ok" a voice called from the pilot's section of the craft "We're approaching rendezvous. Twenty kilos and count—"boom.
The ground on which Ekim stood shook like there was an earthquake as an explosion sounded. He saw everything swerve as he fell down in unison with a few other boxes and cans. For a part of an instant Ekim's eyes caught a fleeting glance out of the open back of the Pelican, of a machine with shields in the front of it flying by. A grinding noise of the engines rang in everyone's ears making it hard to hear the screams of confusion.
More explosions sounded from the top and left sides of the compartment as smoke finally poured out from the machine's engine, filling the air around the Marines in a black shroud. Everything else was a series of sounds.
A few more explosions led to the grinding noise overtaking the air once more. In seconds even that ended and there was a few seconds of a shocked silence as no one knew what was coming next. Then an obtrusive smash coupled with the stop from eighty miles an hour brought a silence as quiet as death and darkness thicker than the smoke could ever get.
Ekim shuttered to life with a harsh series of coughs. He opened his eyes to see yet another concrete floor of a building. There were no signs of life, save the embers and the occasional flame. Every muscle in his body ached and something in his head started yelling "Not Again!" as he threw himself to a sitting position, glancing around.
Two small holes in the wall to his right showed him that, indeed, he was in another building, stories up. A glance to his left showed the tip of the Pelican half-sunk in the now cracked concrete. He flipped around, being caught by surprise that the steel behemoth that he was sitting in for the last two hours was sitting in the same floor as he was. Then it occurred to him: how is he outside the wreck? This train of thought was caught mid-rail as a few sudden beeps sounded right behind his head.
A peculiar floating machine with a glowing dot in the middle sped at Ekim as he caught sight of it. His hand reached for a pistol but to no avail. He had lost it in the crash.
The robot stopped for a moment as if examining the Marine as its eye lit more brightly. Then a thin beam of red light shot out from the center of the machine to Ekim's left and began a sweep across Ekim.
As Ekim saw the heated red beam fly across near him he put all his strength into a jump backwards. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth and felt nothing for a second. Then, like a cut from a sword, the pain hit him in his left arm. He looked up and saw the rest of the beam burn the air place where he once stood.
Ekim looked around desperately and saw nothing of any aid. He turned his attention back to the machine that once again lit up his center eye for another assault. Then an angel's call was revealed with the sound of AR fire and sparks from behind even the robot.
Chunks of metal and wire fell from the robot as more rounds hit it sending more sparks from the newly punched holes. The barrage of rounds was wrapped up in a finale of a small explosion as the machine began to fall out of the sky. It landed with another boom and left only a few small chunks of metal and a stream of smoke.
He looked through the thin layer smoke as a figure in a Marine outfit sprinted to him. Ekim started to stand up as a blow from a standard issue Marine's boot hit him squarely in the chest. The AR clicked off it's safety as Ekim looked around the leg that pinned him to the ground and the gun pointed at his head, into the face of Private Mohr.
"Mohr!" Ekim choked out at gun point.
"Is that you Ekim? I thought you were dead in the crash."
"In the flesh. Was the kick really necessary?"
"It was if you were flood. I didn't think anyone else made it out. Then these things attacked." He motioned his head towards the hunk of metal behind him. "The handheld I swiped off of Graves calls them the Sentinels."
Ekim attention was slightly divided between Mohr and his face. It wasn't oddly shaped or proportioned but just resembled the Private Mohr in his own squad. It wasn't a popular name and the resemblance was uncanny.
"Alright, we have to check for survivors and get some ammunition from the ship. We're walking." Ekim said, pretending like everything that was just said had sunk in.
"Yeah, whatever. But I'm not going into that thing. It bound to fall any second." Mohr said sharply.
"Really? What about 'Leave No Man Behind?'" Ekim replied, desperate for some help as his muscled still screamed from the crash.
"I saved your ass by myself and you'd better be thankful!" Mohr yelled rising right to Ekim's face." Then he added with a dark tone "I'm not in this war to save people."
"Then why? I thought every person here was fighting for survival. What's your story?"
Mohr sighed sat down, beginning to speak "My little had girl just turned four the week America was glassed. My wife was with her in Chicago and I was off in England wishing my brother luck before he shipped out. Then the Covenant came out of slipspace and all non-military transport was shut down. So asked my bro's commander if they had some extra body armor and a gun and they sent me off in a transport with Graves and some other men. I think my brother went somewhere in the Old Mombassa sector."
"About your brother…" Ekim said, digging in his pocket for the right dog tag.
"Just before we went our separate ways my brother told me to see him after the war to buy me a beer." Mohr continued without pause. "He never was a pessimist."
Ekim peered down his pocket where he saw the gleaming piece of metal with the name Hunter Mohr engraved in it resting in his hand. He decided not to say anything and tossed it to the kin as he turned to the drop ship without looking back. Mohr was silent for what can only be described as the process by which one looses his heart in depression and anger.
As Ekim fell out of Morh's sight he leaned against a wall and pulled out a small, red cloth. Be began to tighten it around his arm and winced with pain as he tightened it over the wound.
Minutes later, Ekim stooped to enter the burned and smashed Pelican. Looking around with the dim rays that came from his small entryway, tracing in the dust, he saw the meaning of death. Everyone that had been in the rear of the pelican, except Ekim and Mohr was sitting in front of him, dead. Many were thrown to the rear of the end of the compartment and were crushed. There were three unrecognizable, charred bodies that still sat, trapped by the straps of their seats, in place.
Ekim put his hand over his nose as the small the burned flesh invaded his nostrils. He proceeded to walk foreword to a crate that lay, smashing the body of a Marine. Click… click. Ekim opened the crate and saw the most calming sight of his military career. Inside were a few MA5B Assault Rifles and two M90 Shotguns. He grabbed one of each and as much ammo as he could stuff in his pockets and on his ammo belt.
He kept his walk through the ship going as he stood back up and stepped over one or two mangled corpses towards the cockpit. He gripped the handle tightly and jiggled it. The handle wouldn't move and the door held firm. Ekim wasn't feeling patient.
Bang. He blasted he lock out of the door with a single shotgun shell and kicked it open in two smooth movements. Ekim peered around expecting to see no movement but saw a man in green pilot's uniform squirming like a worm in the left seat. His leg was pinned to the floor with a piece of a console that had fallen from overhead.
Twenty minutes later Ekim emerged from the craft with a wounded pilot named Rob clinging to him.
"Finally." Mohr said taking a puff of his cigarette when he saw movement from the craft. "Let's get moving—my god, who is that?"
"Mohr, Rob. Rob, Mohr. Let's go."
Mohr sighed and a noticeable growl could be heard from his throat. He scowled and followed the limping pilot and battered Marine.
"You got a gun?" Mohr said to Rob as the group began descend from the first staircase.
"I've never had any combat training or experience." Rob said avoiding saying it in a tone that would sound like he was just making excuses.
"How are you in the military then?" Mohr said, getting mad that there were only two men with guns here.
"Well I was just a civilian pilot before the war and I was kind of grabbed up to run Pelicans when the Covenant came the first time." Rob explained "I decided to keep doing it since the company had shut down when the owner freaked as the Covenant found Earth. I was only assigned to do some cleanup with this squad this time the Covies came around."
"Heh" Mohr said. Something about the way he said it seemed odd. It was like he said in a more violent tone.
For the rest of the five-story decent the only sound was that of the boots against concrete and rubble. Provisions were low and there was twenty kilometers to trek in hostile territory.
God I wish this was just a video game, Ekim thought to himself.
As the three reached the second floor an odd sound echoed through the window. Ekim turned to look but by the time he glanced at it, Mohr was already there. Ekim squatted and moved to the window cautiously as if it might explode at any moment. He poked his head just far enough in to see the cause of the noise. A Brute's Chopper had just stopped and three Brutes were standing, backs to each other, in the middle of the street. Two were standard ground troops and one of them was a Captain and each one of them had some type of armor blown off and battle damaged.
Flood started leaping from in and beside buildings and from virtually anywhere they could hide. Spikers fired wildly and tore bodies of both Human and Covenant flood to pieces. A Brute Shot fired periodically from the Captain, making hit after hit. At least the Flood were occupied.
"Okay, we can sidestep this whole mess and in a matter of minutes it'll be over." Ekim whispered turning to the group. "Just follow my lead and— what are you doing!?"
Mohr was near the window and pulling his arm back with something in it. As he tossed it at the Brutes, Ekim realized what it was. Mohr started running down the remaining stairs before the brutes could look to the source of the item. Boom. The item was a UNSC frag and it exploded at the side of the Brute's circle opposite of the chopper.
Mohr leaped through the window facing the scene on the first floor head first, firing his AR. Ekim and Rob struggled to keep pace and landed just on the ground level just as Mohr reached the outside. One Brute lay dead from the grenade and AR fire as the other two were still trying to grasp what just attacked them while killing any flood that jumped in their way.
Mohr scooped up a plasma grenade and tossed it in one move at the feet of the other common brute. With a boom the grenade knocked his helmet off and him off his feet. Mohr turned and squeezed the trigger pf his AR, pumping rounds into a pair of combat forms that sprinted his way as he caught sight of the second fallen Brute moving slightly. Once the two fell to their knees, he pressed a button to drop the clip from his AR with his left hand and whipped his Combat Knife out in his right.
He started sprinting to the Brute that still lay flat on the ground as he flipped the knife around in his hand, with a toss, to an upside down stabbing grip. As Mohr fell upon it the Brute's eyes snapped open and he raised his fur covered head with a roar. Mohr fell downwards and stabbed downwards on it in a single move. Mohr stood up as the roar went silent. The knife pinned the Brute's head to the ground through its mouth and throat. A purple blood covered the brute's head and neck as well as Mohr's hands.
Mohr turned his eyes to the Captain who looked straight into his. Ekim dared not move. Not from cowardice but from the heat of the battle. It was a surefire but that if anyone walked out on that street they were as good as dead by both fighters.
Mohr gripped a chip from his belt and shoved it into his Assault Rifle with a click. The Brute raised his Brute Shot and fired one round. It skimmed across the air the air beside Mohr's right ear blasting a flood just behind him in a rain of shrapnel and green dust. He didn't do so much as flinch, but instead reach into his pocket with his left hand for something that he just left there when he pulled it out.
Mohr started in a sprint. He didn't fire his gun the whole time he was running and the Brute dropped his to the ground pulling his huge clenched right fist backwards down by his waist. Mohr ran until there were only feet between him and the Brute. The brute let his fist fly in an uppercut which caught Mohr in the gut and lifted him off the ground on top of the massive fist. He was suspended there as he lowered his AR in one hand and began to fire into the brute's chest and face.
More purple blood came from the holes that were punched in the armor. BRRRRRRTTTTTTT. The gun kept firing until a single quiet, damning, click sounded and Mohr dropped the gun. The Brute pulled his left fist back and threw it foreword as fast as the previous one, straight to the Marine's face. Mohr fell off his right fist to the ground like a rag doll. The brute was covered with his own blood and his helmet and breastplate had fallen off. Where they had once been was now a patch of purple, blood soaked fur and bullet holes. He too fell lifelessly backwards and landed with a crash.
Ekim snapped back to the reality of the situation as Mohr lay still a few yards in front of him. He popped up from where he was crouched behind the first floor window and ran to the body of the Marine, determined to outrun the flood. Mohr's neck was twisted too far to his side for life but Ekim could swear he was seeing a smile on the face of the dead Marine.
He hurriedly swiped the tag off the marine's neck but as he started to stand Ekim saw another glint in Mohr's left hand. He knelt down quickly and opened the Marine's hand to have the sight of the engraved words "Hunter Mohr" staring back at him from another dog tag. He grabbed that tag as well and started running to the chopper trying to shake the thoughts of what he had just seen.
Ekim caught up to the limping Marine that was a few feet ahead of him as flood reemerged from all directions, pursuing them. In seconds of the flood's emergence a group of minor Sentinels began to hover in the sky raining beams down on the crowd of flood.
"Keep moving! Don't slow down for me!" Rob cried as he bent down to grip the handle of an energy sword from a flood's body. He whipped out the white blade and spun around with his arm straight out and cut a perusing combat form in half.
Ekim reached the chopper as the Flood began to close in from every direction but there was no sign of Rob anywhere in the crowd. As Ekim jumped into the driver's seat he looked around once more only to see sprinting combat forms closing around from all sides.He squeezed his eyes tightly together, hating what he was about to do, as he activated what he assumed was an alien ignition system and sped through the crowd as fast as the engine could go.
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