Operation: Cleansweep Part One Ch. 1
Posted By: Myth
Date: 8 January 2006, 12:54 am
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2552
New Malindi, Earth
Operation: Clean Sweep
Corporal Garden looked hopelessly into the dark foreboding cloud strewn sky. Garden was one of the few survivors of the 504th's landing in the city of New Malindi, a large city though it was, the Covenant were dug in pretty well. Mombassa had nearly been wiped off the map when the Covenant ship jumped to slip space so close to the city. Both Covenant and human losses were immense. The 405th was completely gone, but Covenant reinforcements now held what was left of the city and had marched on the nearest location to extend their conquest.
Garden's platoon was the first on the ground, though most of them did not even get that far, Garden and Sergeant Rodriguez had made for the Marine HQ a few clicks inside the city, but everyone there was dead. Rodriguez had soon after suffered prey to a Covenant sniper somewhere in the higher levels of the buildings. Garden was now starring at the corpse lying in the street that had been his friend. The Corporal had hurtled into alley after he had heard the discharge; he did not notice that the blast had left a gaping hole in the Sergeant's chest.
Garden's face grew tense as something sprinkled down upon him from above. He lifted his hand to his forehead and wiped off the liquid. Only water. It was raining. Garden gripped his BR55 tighter and took a deep breath. Rodriguez had known all of the drop zones, but Garden knew that the Pelican flying wing for them should have touched down somewhere close to where he was now. He switched his rifle from three round burst to single fire. He gathered his wits and peered out from his concealed position to survey the rain soaked streets.
His eyes lingered on Rodriguez. Finally the Marine sighted a wisp of smoke rising from behind a highway that ran close beside several large commercial buildings. That should have been the landing zone…or the crash site, which made more sense. The rain must have been putting down most of the smoke. He stood up and leaned out of the alley and studied the face of the building where the sniper was stationed. The gleam of metal caught his glance. The Jackal's beam rifle was relaxed, but he was not so far from the ground level as Garden had expected, only three stories up.
Garden primed and tossed a smoke grenade into the intersection. The smoke would not last long due to the rain, so he would have to provide an additional distraction to ensure his safety. He tucked his shoulder and somersaulted out of the alleyway. His rifle came up and fired seven quick rounds in and around the Jackal's window. The alien shrieked and squawked as it scuttled to safety. The Corporal hurtled out into the street and sprinted towards the street level offices adjacent to the road.
Garden slid behind a charred hulk of a street car, panting. He poked his head up to make certain no one was perusing him to the LZ, nothing. He stood and strode cautiously into the building. A door on the far side of the room opened into a long hallway that was lighted poorly and smeared with blood. The marine put his fears aside and jogged along the corridor and out into the damp plaza beyond.
The plaza was immense; a fountain was erected in the centre and a small amphitheatre at the far side opposite to Garden, where a Pelican dropship lay across the right hand side of it. This was the CSAR bird, the combat search and rescue team of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers that were dispatched to secure crash sites of downed aircraft and evacuate their wounded. Conveniently, they had been shot down as well, which meant no one was coming to assist those crashed pelican and stranded platoons.
Garden scowled as he marched past a badly burned ODST corpse and towards the Pelican. The left tail thruster was mostly melted; most likely what had caused the crash. A second shock trooper was slumped over in his chair, but a trail bloodied boot prints lead away from the dropship hinting that at least someone had survived the crash. The Corporal pulled himself up into the cockpit and into the empty copilot seat. Blood had spattered the canopy, with the pilot lying limp beside him. Garden leaned forward and held the transmit key on the control board.
"This is Corporal Garden…2nd platoon has taken heavy causalities, our Pelican went down at the LZ, and the CSAR team is mostly KIA, requesting immediate reinforcements. Over." Garden stated. Static flowed over the channel as response. He swore loudly and swung his fist into the weapon's locker behind the control board.
After several minutes, Garden gathered himself and opened the weapon's locker; two pistols and a M7 SMG. He scooped one of the magnums into his arms and slid it into its holster. He turned to walk out of the troopship when something gurgled over the COM.
"Corporal Garden, are you still there son?" Someone asked. Garden leapt back into the seat and transmitted in response.
[Indent] "Yes Sir, I'm still in the CSAR bird who am I speaking too."
"This is Major Stein at field ops, listen son, a shock trooper sniper team is still out in the field, Echo two-six is scheduled to pick them up in another hour, now that's your chance to get out of there, the 506th isn't ready to go planet-side for at least a week, they've taken heavy causalities in orbit trying to defend the Cairo MAC station, no help is going to be able to come to you, you've got to get moving, I'm uploading the NAV to your HUD."
"Understood Sir, I'll—." Garden's eyes widened as the words ceased to come out of this mouth. He looked slowly downward and noticed an ice blue tip of white hot energy protruding from the centre of his chest. His mouth spilled crimson blood and his face sank as he crashed to the deck of the cockpit. The voice over the COM kept asking his name until everything turned black.
The eight-foot-tall Elite's active camouflage flickered out of existence, an energy blade gleaming in his hand. He looked down at the human's distorted corpse and knelt down. The Sangheili easily palmed the human helmet in his large hand and wrenched it away from the human's skull with a sickening crunch. He carefully inspected the ballistic hulk and extracted the transparent green HUD chip from the eye space. The Elite deftly inserted the human chip into the socket at the base of his skull. This technology was state of the art, only Sangheili at his superior rank and status had the privilege of attaining it.
This information would be vital for the cause. The pitiful vermin knew nothing of the consequences of their foolhardy confidence of storing information with human regulars. The Elite, 'Tolamee, rewound the tape. He quickly determined that another legion of human soldiers was landing in a dura-cycle or a 'week' as the humans identified it.
Tolamee spread his mandibles into what passed as a grin and strode out of the human craft. His flier was concealed a short distance away, the rain was not necessarily a prime condition for the Banshee fliers, but this information had to be delivered to High Command as soon as possible. Tolamee slid into his flier and gripped the twin joy sticks. The gravity propulsion drives heated up and the Banshee whined into the air.
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