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The Pelicans arrived to the Chief's squad in five minutes. Hurriedly, they climbed to the dropships and took a small rest before they arrived. Vehicles were latched back onto the Pelicans and the troops took some ammo from the weapons lockers in the dropships. Approaching the spaceyard, MC saw that parts of the structure were mangled and burning. As his dropship neared the ground, he could see thousands of Grunt and Elite tracks in the red sand of Mars. To one side of those tracks he could make out many more enormous footprints deep in the ground. Those could only mean one thing: Hunters. The Chief saw explosions and plasma streaking through the air near the undamaged sections of the spaceyard. "Pilot, put us down over by that battle," he told the pilot. "Aye, aye, sir. Should I tell the others?" the pilot, a Lieutenant, replied. MC nodded and the Lieutenant sent the message to the other Pelicans. They all changed course and headed for the battle below. He could see the Covenant pinning down a small group of security officers. When they touched down just six meters away from the Covenant forces, 11 green, artillery-style bolts erupted from the middle of the crowd, disintegrating half a Pelican. The Chief knew where those shots had come from. They were undoubtedly Hunter Fuel Rod guns. The shields would help keep his troops alive a little longer, but he knew he had to take them out soon. There was no time to get in vehicles, either; they were in immediate danger. Fortunately, he knew all their weak spots from long experience, so he told the Marines about them. Some of them already knew about this, but most had not encountered Hunters before. They spread out to avoid the shots as the Covenant turned to face the bigger threat. The security officers took cover and watched. They cut down the first few ranks of Grunts easily, but there was a wall of Elites guarding the Hunters. Their Fuel Rod guns could fire over the smaller aliens' heads. This method slowed the humans down considerably. The solution was rather simple, however. The Marines would throw grenades or shoot plasma rockets. The Elites would either have to dodge, leaving the Hunters vulnerable, or get killed standing in the blast radius of the explosives. Most of them rolled to one side instinctively. A few unlucky ones were caught in the explosion, which also took out two Hunters. Angry at being tricked, the Elites charged, growling fiercely. The Marines were ready. The front line of Marines fired in unison. The plasma-charged rounds were extremely effective against the shielded creatures and took many of them down in one go. However, the Elites' charge proved to be a good diversion, although they had not meant it that way. The Hunters charged their weapons and fired. Chief! Look out! shouted Cortana, inside his head. He rolled to one side just in time, watching the Hunter's shot blacken the area where he had stood a moment before. Many Marines were not so lucky. They were caught in the green explosions. Only a few survived, badly wounded. They were helped by their comrades to the medics, who were standing out of range of the guns. The 30 snipers in the group took up good firing positions behind rocks or in craters. The rest moved to cover them. Once again, they scattered to avoid being vaporized by the destructive guns of the Hunters. Sniper rounds whistled through the air. Some bounced off the shields or armor of the gigantic aliens, but several found their mark. Seven Hunters fell. Another three were badly wounded and could not fight. There were only about ten left. A few heavy weapons officers popped up behind a large rock, wielding their rocket launchers. The blasts were highly effective against the large creatures, who did not have the best of reflexes. There were still about 1000 Grunts left. Seeing all their superiors killed, they did what they could do best in a battle: panic. The Marines watched in amusement as the aliens swarmed around, all screaming. Everyone who had their translators on started to laugh as they heard the high-pitched voice of the Grunts loud screaming out various phrases. "They're gonna kill us all!" "Leaders dead! Run away!" "Mommy!" "AHHHH!" "Help!" "No more!" As the Grunts continued running around, the Marines tossed a few grenades into the moaning mass of frightened aliens. That, and a few more shots from the weapons of the group, silenced the Grunts. After the smoke cleared and the wounded were treated, the Chief took stock of their losses. About 650 Marines remained. They had lost almost 300 alone in that fight. Still, it was nothing compared to the Covenant losses. An estimated 25 Hunters, 300 Elites, and a few thousand Grunts lay upon the ground. Ignoring the carnage, he gathered up the security personnel they had saved. There were only about 40 of them. They all carried light protitanium body armor and M6DP pistols. Most of them were badly hurt, so he sent them off to the medics. He found the security leader, who carried a MA5BP that had an extra power pack and a shield in addition to his armor, which was similar to a Marine's. "What happened here?" asked the Chief. "Well, we were trying to prevent the Covenant from getting into the shipyard. At first, we were up at the perimeter of this complex, over there," he stopped to point at the edge of the burning buildings. "We took down hundreds of the Grunts and quite a few Elites too, but then things got bad. I used to have 300 men under my command, but those-those Hunter things you took down; they would vaporize 10 troops at once with one shot! I thought we were done for until you showed up," the leader replied. The Chief watched more Covenant dropships dropping out of the sky a kilometer away. "Well, we could use some extra help. Do your men have vehicle training? I mean, can they ride on one?" he asked. "Yes, they received a little training on that. Why?" answered the officer curiously. "They might have to ride on one if I lose too many troops. I'll call for a dropship to bring some better weapons and armor for your men. This is going to be a long, hard fight," MC said gravely. Meanwhile, in the lunar base- James and his squad were relatively happy. They had reached the lunar base and successfully defended it against the alien onslaught, helped by the numerous automated plasma-chain guns around the base. After a few waves of attack, the Covenant dropships that still had troops changed direction, seemingly retreating. James wasn't surprised when he found out they were actually heading towards Mars. His squad listened grimly to the static-filled reports on Blue team, the Chief's squad. "Lost sections E-G-Covenant forces-approaching-need assis-too many-more drop-coming-need help-can't hold out-longer." After this depressing message, James contacted the Maw. "Admiral Stanforth, sir, I am requesting that my team and I land on Mars and help Blue team," he said into the COM channel. "All right, James. Be careful. The Maw's scanners are picking up over 24,000 non-human lifeforms on Mars. Do anything you can to save that shipyard. If it falls-so does Earth, humanity-everything we worked so hard to accomplish would be destroyed. Good luck. Stanforth out," the Admiral said. All he could do in the Maw was shoot down some dropships before the got too close to Mars. James and his team readied for the fight. None of them had the standard issue MA5BPs or M6DPs. They all took weapons that could hit multiple targets. Most had rocket launchers in anticipation of huge crowds of aliens. Some also had shotguns and sniper rifles. The SPARTAN's modified MA5BP had an added grenade launcher, a computerized scope that would help to angle the launcher to hit his targets, and a large battery pack that would make the rounds even more deadly. They opened a few cratefuls of grenades and took six each. James took twenty and loaded them into his launcher. This preparation didn't take long and they were all armed within three minutes. The veteran team put on armor and powered up shields at the charging station before boarding their Pelicans. The dropships' jets roared to life when all had climbed on. One by one, their hatches closed and they shot off towards the red planet. James could see minute explosions on the surface, close to the huge shipyard. The pilot did, too, and headed towards the battle, just like MC had done a few hours earlier. Only this time, there would be thousands more enemies. The Chief and his squad were fighting furiously. Plasma flew thick and fast through the air. Grenades hurtled from both sides. The humans, however, had the advantage of cover. They put up some barricades and portable protitanium walls that had small niches to shoot through. MC had also had the soldiers set up stationary energy shields for even more cover. This way, losses were minimal, but their enemies just kept coming. More of the purple dropships were coming by the second. The Chief was, despite all his experience, beginning to think this was a battle he could not win. With his 600 remaining soldiers outnumbered almost 50 to one, he felt that the battle for the shipyard, and humanity, had been lost. Still, he fought on. Suddenly, he saw several gray Covenant dropships descending towards him. He took a second look, squinting at the objects, which was still high in the air. They weren't Covenant dropships; they were Pelicans! The Chief heard a familiar voice over the COM system in his helmet. "Hey, boys! Looks like we made it in time for some action!" It was James and his team! "Wait a minute. If they're here, then-" the Chief was cut off as Cortana finished his sentence. The lunar base is safe. I was listening on the COM channels and I heard that the Covenant retreated from there to land here. James and his Marines joined in the battle. The 27 Warthogs were running over ranks of Grunts and Elites. The Scorpions were on a high hill, plasma-shelling the Covenant. Their plasma-machine guns were highly useful also. "Scanners are picking up at least 28,000 Covenant. Things won't be good down there. I've just radioed the Maw and Aurora. I asked for any reinforcements they could spare. They said they're sending down fifteen SkyHawks," the COM officer at the Mars shipyard said to the Marines and SPARTANs. The soldiers were too busy to answer, but they were relieved that they would get at least a little help. Six Ghosts cornered a group of Marines. Their shields were falling rapidly when a plasma-charged rocket ripped through two of them and a grenade took down another. The Marines opened fire, taking down the last three. Two of the Ghosts were still in operating condition; only the drivers had been killed. Two Marines commandeered the vehicles and went back to fighting. A few minutes later, the SkyHawks arrived. The 539 remaining Marines cheered before going back to the battle. The quad-50mm plasma-chain guns and twin plasma-charged Scorpion anti-tank missile pods of the fighters were devastating. The Covenant had already lost one-fifth, or 6,000, of their troops. Despite this, Marines could be killed almost instantly if they were out in the open, due to the huge salvoes of plasma from the Elites, Grunts and Jackals. The final 300 Covenant dropships to land carried Hunters. There were about 1000 Hunters. The SkyHawks concentrated their fire on those aliens. The added heavy shields and a quarter of a meter of protitanium protected the jump jet fighters well. About 50 of the fearsome creatures were felled in the first pass. But there were only fifteen of the fighters, and the Covenant still had many more soldiers than the humans. Can we hold them off? wondered the Chief. Cortana gave an estimation for him. My analysis indicates that the chances of holding them off are a 31% chance, she replied. Unless we get more reinforcements. 31%. To a normal person, that would seem bad. But the Marines and SPARTANs had seen far worse percentages. Once Cortana had even predicted a 3% chance of winning one battle the Chief had been in. Despite this depressing number, the humans won in that battle, because of some quick thinking on MC's part. Still, there was a 69% chance they could lose. Then humanity would almost certainly fall. Many of the Marines were feeling hollow as the battle raged on. Would humanity fall? |
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