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Of No Consequence, Chapter Two: Follow the Fall
Posted By: Hecatoncheires
Date: 26 January 2006, 4:05 am
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Chapter Two
Follow the Fall
Sundown Four
All three of the Special Forces soldiers were at the pinnacle of physical and mental shape; but for Staff Sergeant Sherwood, there were few things that raised his pulse like the hot approach of Pelican dropships. The scream of the engines, the curve of the hulls, the rush of air in their wake, the chin guns and autocannons... Shit, the Staff Sergeant told himself, if I had been dumber, I would've signed up to be a flyboy. The three troop transports came in at top speed, gradually declining in altitude and velocity as they swiftly approached the city center. As soon as the lead airship passed the inner-city limits, however, there was no more nostalgia, no more joking. This mission was Sundown-Four's baby, and they would have to protect it with their lives.
Gunnery Sergeant Mike shifted his focus from Objective Riley to the long line of buildings that remained on the Sierra's approach. The jutting tortoiseshells of air conditioning units and ventilation conduits, as well as the relatively simple access ways to the roofs, aroused a tinge of fear into the normally ice-cold heart of the Force Reconnaissance Marine. Even after monitoring the surrounding area, there was only so much the team could do. The rest was up to a complicated combination of piloting skill and luck. The Gunny didn't care for luck, nor did he like anything he couldn't personally manipulate with enough ordnance, reinforcements, or other persuasive methods .
The newly-tested threat assessment binoculars came up to Mike's eyes once more. The optical devices were treasures; the R&D pukes had been giving the really nice experimental hardware to more cutting-edge divisions, like the Spartan-II program, so it was nice for command to start paying more attention to the real humans and leave the killer cyborgs to their own devices. For now, the Gunnery Sergeant was enjoying the motion sensor feature, which showed him just what he wanted to see: nothing. He leaned his head to the right and spoke into the gray transmitter that was clipped to his shoulder.
"Sierras, Objective Riley still appears clear, but recommend you keep your eyes open."
Three pilots replied affirmatively in their cool, no-frills, no-worries tone. To Mike's left, Sherwood sat in a cross-legged position, his S2-AM rifle scanning slowly from left to right. The cool, calm, and collected tone of the sniper's movement told Mike that his partner was completely and totally keyed in on the mission.
"Sights are cold on approach to Riley. Recommend the Sergeant activates thermal targeting feature."
The setting sun would indeed make a thermal scan a solid strategic plan. Mike flicked a switch on the side of the heavy binoculars, turning his world into a slightly fuzzy collection of colors. While the roofs had been exposed to sunlight all day, and therefore wreaked havoc with the sensor, the high heat output of the Covenant's portable anti-air weapon—the feared Fuel Rod Cannon—would show up a bright red on the Gunnery Sergeant's screen. At least, that's what they had told him back on the carrier.
At first, Mike had swept past it, moving on in a systematic scan of the urban jungle to try and cover every roof and window, but it didn't remain hidden for long. He had confused the mixture of colors for a windowpane, but after sweeping back and letting the image settle for a precious second, his orders came out rapidly and clearly, and a new sense of urgency resided in his deep, forceful voice.
"F-R-C, F-R-C! Rifleman, your one o'clock, five-hundred meters!"
The Staff Sergeant didn't flinch or hesitate, though he felt his heart rate quicken perceptibly. Sherwood swung the intimidating barrel of the powerful long-range weapon from his ten o'clock to the one o'clock position in an instant, sighting with a considerable level of malice on the small, shanty-like doorway to the roof. Sherwood trusted his commanding officer's judgment with his life, and seeing no threats on the rooftop, he assumed the thermal scan had seen through the thin wood of the rooftop's outcropping. Thin wood, huh? the sniper thought to himself as he squeezed the trigger, feeling the stock of the weapon buck sharply into his shoulder. His trained eyes focused intently on the target, begging to hear the kill confirmation for a faceless, bloodthirsty enemy.
The powerful round broke the speed barrier with a sharp crack, the thin white vapor trail already fading away in the dying blood-red sunset. The fin-stabilized bullet carried on past the rooftop, splintering out the other side of the doorway in a shower of wood fragments and phosphorescent blood. It was followed almost simultaneously by the explosion of a Fuel Rod Cannon inside the small structure, which blew the lean-to door off and expelled two dead Grunts that had been hiding inside the fragile roof-top access. A minor victory, but both soldiers knew that the appearance of that threat was incredibly bad news. Mike immediately called the drop team.
"Sierras, Sundown-Four. Be advised, F-R-C anti-air teams sighted on your approach path to Objective Riley. Acknowledge."
"Sundown-Four, Sierra-193, acknowledged." There was a brief pause. "Don't worry, dad," Another pilot quipped over the COM. "We'll look twice before crossing the street."
"It's not comical, damn it," Mike muttered, mostly to himself, as the Pelicans' plumes of jet wash made the area too hot to observe through the thermal binoculars. With the black craft settling over the AO, Sundown-Four could now only watch and try to give cover as best they could.
"Shit," Sherwood swore to Mike's left. "I think I saw something. Pelicans are passing in the way. I don't have a shot."
The Gunnery Sergeant looked in the direction of the long barrel, but the view was hindered as the dropships closed in on Objective Riley. Chances were minimal that any danger beyond their control existed in the immediate vicinity of the LZ—having scouted the entire area already—but something could still catch the Pelicans off guard. The transmitter came to Mike's lips again, but sudden flashes of green had already left the roof-tops before the words of warning could be conveyed.
It was too late.
Sierra-141
Whether the clutch of Grunts had sprouted from the woodwork or had simply rushed from the rooftop exit of the nearby building was now irrelevant. Bearing much more immediacy of concern were the heavy weapons they toted sluggishly on their small shoulders: Fuel Rod Cannons; the smaller version of what the behemoth Hunters carried. The First Lieutenant saw them quickly scurry from cover, glancing at the first passing Pelican—the one that had first sent thrums of engine noise through the surrounding obstacles—but then settling on the twin craft about to pass directly through their eager sights.
Lieutenant Samuel Cousins, Jr. sat observing from one of the two "hot seats"—the Marine-dubbed term for the two positions adjacent to the open rear hatch—out upon the sea of rooftops. It had only been a small turn, swinging the end of the ungainly transport around just a few degrees, which had gifted him the sight of the freshly appearing anti-air squad; but needless enough the sight met his attentive gaze with unsolicited shock. The soldier's reflexes immediately triggered a train of letters ingrained into him by his lengthy training; but not before the fastest of the six Grunts managed to depress its weapon's trigger.
"F-R-C!" the powerful voice of the platoon leader bellowed through the ship-board COM system. The directional bearing of "Three o'clock!" was added a split second later, as a seeming afterthought, but an incredibly necessary one.
Jun's practiced eyes quickly darted from readouts to rooftops, trying to pinpoint the threat as quickly as his tuned reflexes would allow. Using the full capabilities of his talents, the pilot simultaneously jinked his bird to port—quite a maneuver for the lumbering vehicle under his control. It was just as the Pelican paused in its extraordinary roll when the pilot saw the weapons fired at his bird. His eyes instantly went wide and his muscles tensed around his controls.
Six superheated orbs of energy, one right after the other, sped through the air towards the Pelican; which Jun now pulled into a reverse turn that brought the craft hard to starboard, gunning the engines and sending the wire signals from the joystick to the wings and directional thrusters to push the bird to a higher altitude. But despite the harsh aeronautical maneuvers to avoid the incoming volley of green-cloaked death, the pilot knew it wasn't going to be enough. He had been through many insertions and pickups, and had seen his fair share of anti-aircraft fire. Some of it had been via formidable manned turrets that belched miniature suns of unstable plasma, and other times it had been with more precise weapons—like these FRCs—that were used by individual soldiers to pluck opposition from the sky.
The former was not incredibly difficult to avoid, given that the pilot knew what he was doing, and had decent intel on his mission air-space. It was the latter that one had to worry about when hovering scant meters above the ground, waiting for the contingent of troops to disgorge themselves into the potential hell waiting below; and all while—often enough—confined between buildings, hills, or other terrain that offered more lethal threats than actual cover and safety. That very fact was why Jun was never fond of urban insertion ops: there were too many damned places for the enemy to hide and shoot from.
Not to mention that a ship like this one could only move so fast to get out of harm's way. And this time was when the maximum capabilities built into the D77-TC dropship were required and depended upon—not just for the sweating pilot, but for all twelve of the relatively helpless Marine passengers who were unable to do little more than watch the light show of death. The FRC rounds were still fast approaching as they sped past a crowd of nearby buildings and slid towards the Pelican at roof level.
Sluggishly, the bulky bird started to overcome its portside inertia, focusing the forward momentum it had been carrying for the whole of the flight into an upward tilt. But the trailing projectiles were moving with ample velocity to close the gap, gliding ever nearer in a nearly flat arc, taking them directly into the path of Sierra-141. It was almost dreamy, the speed at which events now occurred through the pilot's eyes. To Jun, the sizzling energy targeted at him moved in slow motion, almost as slowly as his ship before them. The worst part of it all was that he had no power over the situation. He could no more avoid the shots behind him—and the second volley trailing the first—than negate the effects of gravity on the hulk of metal he was controlling.
"Brace for impact!" warned Jun through the troop-bay speakers, glancing over at his co-pilot's face, which was, despite the circumstances and similar train of thought, a perfect image of cool focus; a mirror of his own. "Hold on!"
The leading projectile dropped below the view of the front windscreen, missing the nose of the groaning beast-of-a-flyer by a mere meter. Following close behind, the second glanced the upper edge of the viewport, melting a spot of the transparent material, before detonating two meters to port; soon accompanied by another. It was just as the pilot thought he might have been able to manipulate the course of his ship enough to produce a miracle and evade the glowing threats when the first impact occurred.
The Marine manning the twenty-millimeter autocannon had just unleashed a stream of high-explosive rounds towards the Grunt infested rooftop when the whole Pelican shuddered violently. Lieutenant Cousins grunted as the tail of his ride snapped to port, slamming his helmeted head into the metal beam behind him. Several of the other soldiers suffered similar bumps, the majority of them gripping their safety harnesses with white-knuckled fists. Their faces were, though stern from training and experience, the image of shock and fear; all eyes finding their way to the condemning billow of smoke now trailing the transport.
Outlined by a second impact, the thruster assembly was clearly damaged. An unsteady jet of plasma erupted suddenly from the rear, causing the ship to lurch downward from the directed burst. Sam was no expert on the inner-workings of the dropship, but he knew what he saw could prove disastrous. That stream of uncontrolled, ignited liquid combustible could only mean a ruptured fuel line; and that hose was directly connected to the D77-TC's massive fuel tanks. Already, Sierra-141 was gliding scant feet from the buildings lining the street, the highest tops now shadowing the dark hulk of smoking metal.
"Sierra-141 hit," The Lieutenant heard the pilot shout over the radio, worry giving an edge to his unwavering voice. "Repeat, Sierra-141 has taken hits. Right-rear thruster unresponsive. I don't think I can pull the nose up—"
The bird shuttered beneath Sam's squad of soldiers, growing into a creaking rumble as a distinct rise in altitude could be felt. Seconds later, after a string of reverberating clangs which sent sharp spikes of pain slicing into the Marine's temples, the top of a wide building—what appeared to be a shopping center—flashed two meters from the flyer's bottom. As the near-sight-of-impact began to grow distant, the falling metal debris clattered violently to the parking lot below, trailing sparks in their wake.
Glancing back to the locked thruster, the mission's ground-side CO re-assessed the condition of the damaged component. Looking as close as he could given the circumstances, another problem seemed to have formed. A distinct crack snaked its way from the solid connection holding the contained jets to the fuselage to the rim of the lower directional cone. That wasn't the problem; the flickering glow within, along with the thick streams of back smoke belching forth from the fracture, was. The whole assembly was an aerial fuel-bomb waiting to happen. If the pilot tried any more heavy maneuvering to get the craft airborne, the smolder inside could ignite whatever jet-fuel might have accumulated within the advanced workings of the engine.
But it was already too late.
Yet another attempted jet of flame spat its tendrils into the thick air behind the Pelican's tail. This time though, the blast didn't stop there. With a deafening clap of thunder the damaged engine pod detonated, expanding in a ball of blinding fire and heated metal fragments. The forward momentum of the ship was all that kept the inferno out of the troop compartment, but half-melted shrapnel knew no restraints. Shards of glowing alloy components flew through the air like angry wasps, slamming solidly into whatever object impeded their path.
One such object was a flash-blinded corporal half-way through raising a hand to shield his face. The blades of burning metal found little resistance as they cut cleanly through the soldier's protective body-armor, and implanted themselves into the armored shield behind his seat-back. The man had little chance to do more than slump into oblivion, his heart now a ragged hole in his chest, and half his pelvis looking like shredded meat, leaking crimson onto the deck-plates below.
Jun knew his bird was lost even before his world was sent into a chaotic tumble. He had been struggling as it was to hold his craft steady, trying to gain enough altitude to make it away to some place of relative safety. Not an option now. Still pulling hard on the control sticks, the pilot attempted to squeeze in some measure of last-minute trick-maneuvering. The tall building that had filled the left-most portion of his view screen, however, had other ideas.
Catching a pointed tip on the thick concrete pillar adorning the corner of the structure, half of the left wing was shorn from the rest, taking the engine with it, and leaving a stump of metal twisted crookedly to the side – useless. As his neck snapped to one side and then the other, the pilot knew he had done something damaging to both his body and his bird. The side-spin had ceased, but all semblance of control was now completely gone. Jun inhaled sharply as the flying brick he was strapped into cleared a row of low-standing buildings, only to impact squarely on the upper-lip of a larger one. The sound of scraping metal and shattering cement was all proving audible over the incessant scream of the still-straining engines, the two remaining thrusters unable to keep their load aloft.
For a moment silent weightlessness found Lieutenant Commander Severian, the numb howl of roaring engines mute in the plummet. Dust scattered in a cloud as the dented nose of the turgid flyer buffeted against the meter-high concrete wall surrounding the sundry arrangement of rooftop vents, sending a spray of fragments hurling through the formerly stagnant pool of air wallowing in the circular intersection accepting the careening transport. Spinning horizontally several degrees to starboard, the broken Pelican shattered the tranquil silence of this untouched section of the city.
Rocking the frames of the few abandoned automobiles, the dropship impacted the unforgiving ground with its inertia driving it forward. Unstable on the dry stretch of grass and dirt making up the roundabout, the bird rolled jerkily onto its intact wing, plunging the control surfaces fully into the black soil, tilling as if a giant shovel. With a final list, the buried wing struck the reinforced barrier between road-surface and earth, stopping it cold. The dying breaths of air sputtered in hacks from the single active thruster poised in position on the ruined craft's tail, finally giving way to wisps of oily smoke.
Chunks of dirt and stone began to rain back down upon the jumbled miniature garden-adorned park, coating everything with the dust still clinging to the energized air. As the buildings ceased their deep reverberations, the glass stopped dripping from former windows, and a tree moaned to its side, silence finally ensued. The dead mass of metal offsetting the intersection presented but flickering fires to ebb the finality of its death
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