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The battle of Lushoto by Kiefer Inson
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The battle of lushoto: Part 1
Date: 10 October 2006, 11:45 pm
"Make sure that the safety is on." I don't know how many times my father had said that. Holding that gun at age seven was not fun. It was heavy. I remember him and me in the backyard, shooting 9mm into a tree. "Keep your finger off the trigger…that's it." It scared me. Having so much power in my hands. My father was a marine medic, but you wouldn't have guessed it. He was built like a soldier and loved to shoot. I always knew him to be a great marksman.
The war…
The war had been going on for a while now. It was only a matter of time before my father was called…
He was away for almost a year before we found out that he was wounded. He was sent back to earth, along with countless others. He stayed in the hospital for two years. When he came home, half of his body was covered in bandages. After that, I stayed away from guns. I never wanted to be in any war.
The city of Lushoto had grown in the past year. Some wealthy governor decided to put a heap of money into building the city into a businessman's paradise. All around the world, the wealthy and the lucky decided to bring their business into this place. I was one of them. Having been educated in the art of construction, I decided to place my company in the heart of Lushoto, Africa. My company, however, comprised of twenty employees and a construction crew. We even brought in a software technician from New Mombasa. Everything was fine in my life.
The war was worse, though.
Every day, you would hear something on the news or rumors from the paper. The covenant keeps getting closer. There were fewer soldiers in the city. The marine headquarters in Lushoto was almost empty. When I heard about Reach, my heart bottomed out. I knew it was only a matter of time. Everyone thought the same way. I was thankful, though, that I was in Africa and not in one of the major cities around the world. Covenant forces would probably attack Washington D.C. first or Britain.
Wrong.
Dead wrong.
On October 20, 2552, the covenant attacked. Mombasa received the brunt of the attack. However, Lushoto is Mombasa's next-door neighbor.
"You did check it right?" Mary-Ann asked. I rubbed my eyes and asked her to repeat the question.
"The progress report. You did look over it right?"
"Um," I stalled, "maybe."
She looked at me with a glare and put her hands on her hips.
"Carl, I told you to read those yesterday."
I raised my hands up in defense. "All, right. All, right. I check them now. I just don't know why I am reading these on such a beautiful day."
It was a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky.
Mary-Ann rolled her eyes. "Sometimes, I don't know how you became my boss." She walked out of the office. The old progress reports always bored me to tears. There was one consolation. The company had actually purchased some new underground scanners. I had sent a team to the outskirts of Mombasa to test them out. The scanners would help find better ground for better foundations for buildings. This progress report would tell me how the testing went. After opening the file, I skipped all the boring parts and went strait to the scanner report.
"What? Metal?"
In the report, the scanning crew said they found a large hunk of metal. A very large hunk of metal. They said it was about a hundred miles long. This made me stand up out of my seat. Nothing was in that dessert. It was just a big, flat piece of land. I was about to make a call when I heard my name being called in the other room. I walked out into the cubical area, only to find my employees gathered around the television set. They all had blank looks, but in their eyes you could see…fear. I gazed at the T.V. and what I saw almost made me run out the door.
"My God."
The covenant had just arrived.
I gathered my suitcase and headed out the door. Mary-Ann and the others had already left. As I walked out the door, I heard the roar of people everywhere. Mothers, Fathers and children all ran like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off. I thought "where are they going to go?" I knew that there was nowhere to run. I jogged to the nearest train station, but I knew what I was going to find. Thousands of people were packed into this small train station lobby, praying to hitch a ride. Instead of pushing my way into a train, I thought it best to find another way out. Of course, there is not way out. I knew what covenant ships did after conquering a planet. There would be not hope for anyone. As I walked towards the airport, the first covenant ships appeared above the city. Even more panic.
I do not know what it was. I must have gotten my fathers instincts, because I headed strait for a pawnshop. I could not escape, so I would do the next best thing…fight. Better die fighting than to die standing around. After dropping my suitcase, I ran as fast as I could to get to my destination. When I arrived, I found five other men and three marines standing outside the shop. They had striped the store of all its guns. The sergeant looked at me with a face that would make a man cry.
"Do you want to help?"
I nodded.
He nodded.
"Here." He passed me a small handgun. It was a little outdated, but still shot bullets. The other civilians had sawed-off shotguns and more handguns. The marines were equipped with SMGs. I only could only see one grenade. They handed me three clips of ammo. With a long sigh, the sergeant gave us the plan.
"Okay… The covenant will be raining down our throats in a couple of minuets. We need to slow them down so the city can evacuate."
One of the civilians piped up.
"Uh, sir? Are there any other marines in the city?"
The sergeant paused.
"Yes. But I haven't been able to contact them. They are probably doing the same thing that we are going to do."
"Sir?" It was I talking this time.
"What?"
"I just came from the train station and it is full of people. That would be the best spot around here to defend."
The sergeant only nodded in approval.
"You lead us to the train station then."
A young man, about the age of eighteen, asked the question that was on all our minds.
"Do you think that a couple of shotguns and machine guns are going to hold off the covenant?"
The sergeant's face went dark. He was about to answer when the scream of covenant banshees flew overhead. We all dove for cover.
Either the banshees didn't see us, or they didn't care in a couple of poorly equipped businessmen. Either way, they kept on flying. I moved out of my hiding place from behind a dumpster.
"Alright," the sergeant said, "lets move out. You, in the suit, take lead. Yole, McMahon…you watch our six. The rest of you watch our flanks."
We moved into the alleyway and headed toward the station. I could hear explosions now, all across the city. Out of all the civilians there, I was the one who held my weapon with skill. The teachings from my dad kicked in. "Finger off the trigger. Make sure the safety is on." I pointed my gun around each corner, saying a silent prayer. Praying that there would be no covenant.
I was about to clear another section of alleyway, when I heard them. It was about five elites and twenty grunts. Their objective was to clear the alleyways. Lucky for us. Our group had to retreat into a building and stay quiet for a while. It was a restaurant filled with tables covered with cloths. Lucky for us again, there was a covenant team for checking buildings. Two teams entered our building, one from the back door that leads to the kitchen and one in the front door. We had hidden under tables and behind the bar. I was under one of the tables close to the kitchen. The swinging door opened and a tall, ugly looking alien stepped through. He took long slow strides, trying to be cautious. He walked right by my table. The ground vibrated at his steps. I heard some high-pitched squealing and noticed two more aliens entered through the door. Two grunts. Small team. We waited.
These covenant soldiers were not looking for anybody. They were just finding a place to rest. The elite pulled out a chair, while the little ones curled on the floor.
The ally-way team should be far enough not to hear any gunfire.
I peeked from under the table and made eye contact with the sergeant. He gave me the "Okay" signal and passed the word to his troops. All at once, we pushed the tables aside and fired. The elite was so startled that he fell out of his chair. Hundreds of rounds bounced off the elites shielding, until finally, it burned out. Purple blood took the place of the blue armor. The grunts suffered the same fate. Each one took two shotgun slugs, nearly tearing them in half. Glowing blue blood was splattered all over the place. I had to wipe some off my face. After commandeering the plasma weapons, we exited the building and headed toward the train station.
Or what was left of it.
When we arrived, the whole building was up in flames. The ground around it looked like it was painted with glass.
"It took a hit from one of the big ships," the sergeant stated.
A lot of people died in there.
I asked the obvious question.
"What do we do now?"
Nobody answered.
After ten minuets of silence, one of the marines whispered in his commanding officers ear. He sighed again.
"Okay," his voice was choppy " we are going to find the other marines in this city. If we try to evacuate the city by ourselves…we may not make it. Last I heard, most of the marines are in the center of the city. So…lets start walking."
Our group walked for about two hours when we came across a medic and a badly wounded marine. We asked the medic if there were any more soldiers up the road.
"I don't know," the medic whispered after wiping a spot of blood off his cheek " the covenant sent almost all their troops into the city center. When I left, there were maybe a hundred soldiers defending that place."
He looked at the wounded soldier wrapped around his shoulders.
"I'm just trying to get my brother out of here."
We didn't ask him any more questions.
Our little squad arrived at the destination at nighttime. It did not look like nighttime, though. The covenant had placed huge artillery guns all over the city. Every fifty seconds, they would lobe a massive glob of plasma, lighting up the darkness.
We managed to find a small platoon resting in half a building. We decided to rest there for the night.
We talked to the commanding officer, who was a lieutenant named Gregory. Lieutenant Gregory was almost ecstatic to see us. They had been hit pretty badly. They said the three covenant destroyer loads of forces advanced on their position. The only way that they survived is that they ran and hid. Out of the hundred soldiers positioned in the center city, only seventeen men made it.
I was about to sleep, when the sergeant walked up to me. He held out his hand.
"My name is sergeant Thomas."
I shook his hand.
"I'm Carl Houts."
He gave me a small smile and sat next to me.
"You are pretty good with a gun."
I chuckled.
"My father taught me."
"Well, I will try to find you a real gun instead of that pea shooter."
"Thank you, sir."
"You get some rest."
"Yes, sir."
He walked away to sit next to a big hole in the wall. After pulling his helmet off, he brought his hand up to his eyes and cried.
The next morning, we talked with the lieutenant. We asked him about the wellbeing of the surrounding cities. We asked about Mombasa. The lieutenant looked at us with a hard face.
"There is no Mombasa."
My heart stopped.
"What happened?"
"Well," he started," It seems that a covenant ship jumped into split space while being inside the city, obliterating everything."
"My G…"
"Covenant troops, heading our way!!!"
"How many?!"
"I counted two hundred infantry, three tanks and a handful of banshees. Sir, they are headed for the hospital."
"What?! I told them to evacuate!"
"With all due respect sir, that is better said than done."
The lieutenant stood there for a second, thinking.
"We can't let them kill all those people." He turned to few soldiers he had left. "New objective. Gather all the ammo you can carry. This is not going to be easy."
The battle of lushoto: Part 2
Date: 19 October 2006, 6:43 pm
"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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