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Tin Cans: Grunts
Posted By: Andres<andres_vera2000@yahoo.com>
Date: 5 September 2006, 1:11 am
Read/Post Comments
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0232h, January 21, 2527 (UNSC Military Calendar)
Taurus System, UNSC Outer Colony Controlled Space
Hill 413 Diamond Continent, Ruby.
The Mech team consisted of ten Marines, three crew members and a Marine Fighting Vehicle. They were supposed to fight together. Once the Marines disembarked the MFVs they became maneuver elements for the platoon to move through rough terrain while the armor provided suppressive fire. The textbook had gone down the Jon that evening. Four squads of ten Marines disembarked and took the first blow, an FRG in the center of their lines causing a volley of radioactive rods that took nearly the entire first squad in one strike.
"Targets, defiladed on the tree line." Captain Marcus Regatta cleared the chamber of his assault rifle on the plasma rifle camouflaged on the rock and foliage above the horizon of grass where the trees began. His first platoon, the only to disembark the MFVs before the retreat, now down to thirty two men remained hidden behind the crest on the terrain above the grassy prairie, the only cover over the featureless terrain. "Sergeant!"
"Engage with the two-four-seven."
"On the way." The slightly exposed bipod machinegun lat loose and for three full seconds and the Covenant hid their heads as long. Then, as the Covenant creatures on the cloverleaf regained composure and fired he realized a terrible fact. He and his thirty two Marines too were inside the Covenant artillery range.
"Hu?"
"I respectfully said what the fuck now, sir." Said a terrified Sergeant, helmet less.
Marcus popped his head over the ridge just in time to witness a one-seven-oh millimeter miracle. DIVARTY was doing its job and the entire forest splintering, breaking, cutting and scraping almost every tree in the forest. The Captain chuckled uncontrollably. "Sergeant, if you don't calm down I will kick your ass." He rolled to his back and looked to both his right and left. He counted nearly twenty heads. "Prepare to charge!"
"What?"
"You heard me Marine!"
"But sir there is over a hundred Covenants on that hill and we are only thirty heads with no heavy backup."
"Look Marine there are three ways to get out of this mess, the first is to attack, the second, to retreat and the third," the Captain locked and loaded his rifle. "Is to show those sons of bitches that we are fucking savages."
"I'll go with the third one!" called a random Marine.
"Now we have over two batteries of one hundred seventy on that hill we need to go now!" he nodded to the Sergeant. "OK, sergeant you have ten men, go right, there is a slight slope down the ridge use it to gain speed, get clear of the open as soon as you can and reach those woods, I'll be right behind you."
The Sarge nodded, turned around and shouted, "second squad! Up!" They were ten men total. He rallied them up, walking past them shouting their names, and then threw a cylindrical grenade over the ridge and waited four seconds. Then he jumped up, and began to ran to be stopped immediately by a plasma beam to his head. He collapsed to his knees and so he was gone.
Needles to say, the Marines froze and something had to be done. In all his years as a reserve Marine he never expected to do what he was about to. The Captain pulled out his forty five and ran across the ridge. He turned his face around and shouted, "Lets go, they are fucking ours." The Marines, stunned, snapped to their feet, jumped over the ridge and began to run, rifle blazing at the enemy.
In all the confusion of the fog of war there is always the certainty that to get killed you must be at the wrong place at the wrong time, that day wasn't the captain's. He made the bullet dodging dance, plasma bolts smearing past him, until he reached the edge of the forest where he stopped cold after for a second, he looked right, and then left. There must had been over sixty Grunts around him. For a moment he thought his eyes deceived him. The creatures dropped their arms, turned around and ran across the woods in despair.
"Fucking get them," shouted the Captain aiming his forty-five on the creatures and shooting. The slide snapped backwards and remained still as the Captain loaded a fresh magazine into the receiver. He whaked two more with seven rounds as the rest of his Marines joined him, fifteen total waxing away at the stampede taking them down, plumes of dirt jumping around them as the ammo missed them by inches.
"Go for it Marines!"
"Jeeeeeeha!" shouted a Marine. "Now what we need is reinforcements," said an unruly sergeant. "Why do you think they are retreating?"
"See any Elites?" asked the Captain.
"No." Said the Sergeant placing the stock of his rifle on the ground and kneeling next to the captain. "We need to contact Legion, they'll know what to do."
"No need sir!" said a Marine turned around and pointing at the fields, the MFVs came at full speed leaving a wake of dirt behind them. "Close enough for the squad net to reach them."
"Sergeant," said the Captain. "Volunteer five heads, move up the hill, base of fire on whatever pokes his head above that hill." He thumbed the radio on, "Hellhound one actual, over?"
Magallanes tapped the TRANSMIT button. "Hotel-India nice to hear from you!" shouted the tanker.
"Actual," said Marcus. "We need the rest of the dismounts if we are going to take the hill."
"Negative, our objective is to close the gap, not take the hill, you will have the dismounts but futher action is not necessary."
"Roger."
Gustav stood by the ramp of the M1116 Armored Personal Carrier, rifle at the ready with his finger inside the trigger guard. "Troops at eleven, twelve and two o'clock, friendlies trapped in rolled over tank, that's the prize Marines!"
"Hurrah!"
"What do we say?"
"Marine Corps!" suddenly the only thing to be heard was the whistling sound of the diesel engine and the intermittent heartbeats of his pounding ticker, a calming melody before the storm that was about to come. The calm of the roar was interrupted by the groan of the minigun of the APC. That was the cue.
The ramp dropped and somehow he was on the right side of the APC popping rounds out of the muzzle of his MA5B and leading his Marines. "Breckenridge left!" he ordered the platoon light machinegunner who dropped to the ground next to him and opened fire with his LMG, showering the enemy with bullets. The exposed small creatures, shell-shocked, immediately fell limp on the woods.
Deployed to his right was first squad, shooting their rifles at will on the enemy. Second squad, moved from behind, passed the left side of the PC and dropped on the ground opening fire on the enemy. Third and fourth squad stayed in a column behind their APCs. "Marine column!"
The Jarheads of first squad, still engaging the Covenant moved right behind the Lieutenant and stuck to the right side of the APC, facing the Covenant and began to strut forward, their rifles blazing with lead the enemy ahead concealed in the foliage that flanked the paved road. Amongst his men were calls for targets, both acquisition and engagement. "That tank is two-five meters ahead!"
Gustav gestured a line to be formed, and as his men redeployed to his flanks a scream was uttered. "Corpsman!" The Lieutenant kept moving, iregardless of the scream, to the tank, he stuck to it, on the part of the tracks that faced the APCs.
Then, he had cover, a place to think what was happening. On the middle of road, exposed to enemy fire and applying pressure to a wound was the Corpsman, Petty Officer Jones. "What the hell are you doing?" The rest of the squad, six men, stuck to the tank as cover as well.
His reactions were based on both training, and instinct; he ran across the paved street as plasma bolts smeared past him, turned around and popped six rounds into the enemies direction, grabbed the wounded man by the shoulder, causing him to scream in pain as his wound scratched the pavement, and dragged the Marine the seemingly endless six yards to the safety of the tank.
"Gunny!"
"Lieutenant!" there was a loud explosion on the opposite side of the tank. "They are getting close!"
"Stand fast Marine, here we go." The Lieutenant took a step backwards grabbed a cylinder shaped grenade and lobbed it above the tank. The smoke-flashbang hybrid detonated and the lieutenant bellowed "Go, go, go!"
He followed Team Alpha to the right on which they formed a line and fired dozens of tracer tipped bullets across the smoke. Gustav passed them by and swung left, he approached the hatch and tapped twice. "About fucking time," Atwood helped his buddy out and he followed him after he was safetly in the Lieutenant's hands, who had swung his rifle across his back.
The Officer then swung right, the man clenched on his back and rolled behind the tank. "Marine Column, organized retreat."
"Hurrah."
The Marines began to move to the rear, where the APCs stood, and passed by the second squad. They squad continued to pin the enemy until it was all over, and the Lieutenant had placed the gunny and the gunner of the tank inside the track.
"What now!"
"I have no idea."
"Infantry at ten o'clock and fire incoming from the right!"
"Calm down."
"How in the name of heaven can I calm down?"
"Both of you can it," said Gunny Atwood as the smoke cleared inside the track where the only light to be seen came from a orifice on the right side of the PC. "What the hell happened?"
"A-T from the right side of the road!"
"Left side you retard."
The Gunnery Sergeant grunted and crunched from the floor of the APC. "Identify yourself."
"Lance Corporal Mike Wellington."
"Pee-eff-cee Steve Perez."
"What happened," asked the Gunny, calmly to chill the grunts down. "Where is everybody?"
"They all made a run for it," said Mike. "They left us behind."
"As soon as we got hit."
"The other two PCs made a run for it too."
"What do we do?"
Stunned, the gunny frowned. He was a tanker, not a poge, and if he recalled it correctly so were the Marines with him. They were the crew of the track. "Are you armed, I cant see shit through this friggin' smoke."
"Two MA5Bs and a pouch of grenades."
"Great, get ready to blow out."
"What do you mean by great?"
"Kamikaze."
"Fucking A."
"You have no idea what that means, do you Perez?"
"We are going to hold this stretch of road till we get relieved."
"Why?" said the terrified Corporal. "So they can fuck kill us."
"Fuck yeah you retard."
"Yes, Gunnery Sergeant."
"If we hold we might give those PCs time enough to get somewhere with the intel they have collected," he crouched turned around and walked across the flaming and smoking APC. "Hold the rear, and remember what's the most lethal weapon in the universe is!"
"A Marine and his rifle!"
"Fucking Awesome."
When an enemy advances, shoots and retreats, it is called shoot and scoot. That was what the Covenant was doing all around the lines, probing, breaching, shooting and retreating. The aliens tactics were working perfectly and the hundred and eleventh Marine Infantry Division was taking heavy loses in a twenty kilometer front to protect the city of Ruby.
"We need to do something, fight back, kill them somehow," said the Brigadier. "And we just lost another battalion, without achieving their targets."
"Check that," said a radioman inside the M1116C Command and control Personel Carrier. "The hill is ours." Closing his right fist and nodding the General celebrated. "We have the hill."
"How is that possible?"
"Infantry that was left behind charged the hill an took it," said the Sergeant, "the enemy simply retreated when they charged."
"Get them out of there!" shouted the Brigadier. "Shoot and scoot."
"Sir we also have reports of a surviving element of a team of mechanized infantry engaged on the top of the hill."
"Well get them some air," said Wenzel. "Air support that is."
"Roger."
"Sir do you feel that?" asked a Marine entrenched in the same foxhole as the captain.
"Yes," and he felt it, on every inch of the damaged forest. Nothing at all. No movement, nothing, except a few plumes of smoke and scattered fires. He had thirteen Marines and the reinforcements were about to come, on the horizon the MFVs moved rapidly to bring the remnants of Alpha and Bravo companies. "Get ready-" the quietness of the forest was interrupted by a long and familiar sound. It was the bark of an MA5B.
"Contact!" screamed the last remaining Sergeant.
"Shut up," said the Captain calmly. "Its not us," he thumbed the radio off. He looked to his right and then to his left. "Get the two-four-seven on the tree-trunk that is collapsed."
"Net call, net call, all units retreat, retreat, retreat."
Suddenly thirteen heads turned to see him, and he shook his head. "If we retreat we will be fucked."
"Over and over again," said the private next to him. "They are endless."
"And this is only the beginning," the Captain locked and loaded as he saw the light machinegun was set over the tree trunk just in time before the attack, the initial wave of enemy forces. It was, after all, a sudden loud screech came from the west, A Shaman Grunt, or whatever it was, ordering an all out attack.
The hundreds of footsteps could be heard on every inch of the forest. That feeling of nothing suddenly turned into a panic spree. He immediately shouldered his rifle and aimed uphill. His thirteen Marines were allocated into three fire teams spread in a triangle with two tips facing up and one down, thus forming a perimeter that would be hard to crack.
"Shat," said the Captain. It was over a hundred beams heading down witch made his marines cover. "Shoot now if you wanna live forever!"
Shells, unlike plasma made a very distinct sound when approaching at high speed. The swirling move of the bullet spinning on air created a whizzing sound unlike the electric buzzing sound of a plasma beam. He immediately knew what to do. He pushed his helmet harder on his head and barked "Hit the deck!"
Suddenly the hill transformed into a massive fireball that expanded linearly to the right. It was the one-one-oh mil of a Longsword strafing the mountain. "Get down!" he screamed again once the line of explosions plummeted down on the earth.
"Fucking flyboys!" he heard between explosions.
Fuck them indeed. In the cockpit it only looked like plumes of dirt rising from the ground, on the mud it felt like the whole world rained on you. He hated the fucking things. Inderct fire, if there was such a thing.
The earthquake ceased and suddenly he was on his feet pointing with his right hand to the left flank. "Left flank," he whispered. "Cover."
He turned around and saw a rocket smear past him, it struck a tree trunk amidships and it evaporated in a fireball. He ducked and looked to the rear. Shades, shadows in the green. Black figures visible only for milliseconds on the green.
"Rear, identified yourself!"
Three figures popped out the tall grass. "Man, are we happy we found you." Said one of the Paras, they wore brown, green and black BDUs, packed old arms and a deep look that penetrated the armored vests the Marines wore. "Second Anti-tank team, Parachute Brigade, Ruby northern defense command."
Suddenly twenty more figures stood up. "What the heck are those?" asked the Marine next to him.
"Old MA-2A assault rifles. These guys are militia."
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