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Flood of Blood
Posted By: Neil Meyers<toftaps@hotmail.com>
Date: 22 January 2004, 3:22 AM
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The noise from the engines began to grow quiet as the pelican slowed down.
"Alright boys, we're approaching the L.Z., I hope you guys brought your boots because you're walking the rest of the way." the pilot's voice crackled over the radio.
One of the marines scowled "Hey Sarge, how come we get to crawl in the mud while O'Reilly gets to sit her ass in the ship?"
"Because, private, Corporal O'Reilley is the one who's going to be getting us out of this mud hole when it's time to leave. Unless you'd like to stay here and start up a new life farming pigs in the mud just like back home?" The sergeant replied as he loaded his shotgun, the other marines laughed.
"What're we doing in the puddle of mud anyways, Sarge?" asked Private Finnigan as he checked and re-checked his assault rifle "I'd think it's past time for your breifing, Marines. About six hours ago two pelican dropships dropped their squads in here to seize control of a small but vital river valley from some covenant boggies, they were supposed to radio base as soon as they arrived at the objective no more than two hours away from the drop point. Command says there is minimal covenant resistance but the marines haven't radioed back yet, we're going in to find out what happened too those squads and seize the valley if we can."
"Babysitting job or are we going to see some action?" asked one of the marines as he hefted his shotgun, "Oh, we'll defiently see some action. In fact, we're too rendevous with some 'Special Reinfocements' outside the valley, this shouldn't be too hard on y-" he was cut off as something jostled the pelican and he tried to stay in his seat. "Holy shi-" the pilot cried over the intercom before the sounds of shattering glass and her scream cut her off, the pelican started a nose dive as the pilot died.
"What the fuck is going on?!" Screamed one of the marines "We're going down!" screamed another as they struggled to free themselves from the straps holding them in place "Bail out, we're hit!" Cried the sergeant as he grabbed a marine and helped him out the drop bay door with a shove, as the marines startled jumping out the doors into the mud below a blue streak of energy slashed through the wall separating the drop bay from the pilots room and slicing a marines arm off at the elbow. As the man screamed and fell the broken peices of the door flew outwards as an elite kicked them away.
It's golden armor exploded into sparks as the sarge and the last two remaining marines let loose with their weapons as he charged at them. The marine on the far right of the sergeant was sliced clean in two at the waist by the energy blade and the sergeant barely managed to push the other out the door and away from the searing blade as the elite tried to take the two out in one swing.
As the elite prepared to slash the sergeant the wounded marine fired his pistol at it as the sergeant fired his shotgun, the combined rounds punched through its remaining sheilds and caused it's head to explode in a meaty splat.
As the elites headless body fell to the floor the pelican hit the muddy ground, the two feet of mud did a little to dampen the impact of the crash as the sergeant went flying into the air and the one-armed marines head colided with a wall and snapped his neck.
There was a muddy splash and the sergeant opened his eyes to the face of the squads medic, who promptly stood up and shouted to the rest of the squad "He's alive guys, cancel the celebrations!" as the sergeant struggled to sit up he swore at the medic "You always were an asshole, Mattock." "Well good morning to you, to." the medic replied as the rest of the marines stopped their salvaging and clustered around the sergeant as he stood.
"Alright, report! What's our situation?" he barked, "Bad news first. The pelican's trashed. If the elite didn't kill O'Reilly the crash did, the cockpit's a total mess. We lost Cannonball and Thumper too, and Jace hasn't come back yet." one of the marines said, "The good news is that the radio works and the crash brought us at least fifty or sixty meters closer to the objective." the sergeant just shook his head and swore, "Alright, Marines! We've still got a job to do, grab what you can carry and let's move out. I want to be out of here before any covenant boggies come to check out what all the noise was. We'll double back about twenty meters and check for Jace, if he's not there we're moving on. Let's move it, Marines!" as he gave the order the marines scattered into activity, grabbing what they could before they started out, the seergeant found his shotgun still intact where it had fallen. He pumped it once and was greeted by the heavy chu-chunk sound.
They found Jase about eighteen meters away, the plasma scarring on his corpse still smoking "So much for Jase." mumbled one of the marines as they scanned the foliage, "Alright, let's move, they may still be around here. Move silently and keep your eyes open, do not engage unless they see us." the sergeant moved towards the foliage as he gave the quiet order, the marines spread out and followed. The found the covenant about ten minutes later in a small mossy valley.
"Sir, they look like they've taken wounded" said the marine to the sergeant's left. The covenant had indeed taken wounded, several grunts and jackals lay on the ground bleeding their blue and purple blood as their comrades set down the other heavily wounded, most of the ones still standing had small wounds of their own. "Something must've seriously kicked their asses, most of them look hurt in some way or another. hmm, that's odd, I've never seen the covenant carry their wounded before. Fidget, get over here!" he called and their demolitions man came up to them in a running crouch.
"What's up, Sarge?" he said as he came to crouch next to the sergeant "These covenant are in our way, think you can get them to go away?" the demolitions man studied the group of covenant for a little and then nodded "I think I can make them fly for a few seconds." "Good, do it, I'll get the men ready to clean up the rest." the sergeant said and went off to get the marines ready.
Fidget tossed the grenades timed grenades to the feet of the covenant guarding the perimeter he hit the detonator a few seconds later and blew several sizeable holes in the ground and sending any covenant nearby flying through the air, as the grenades blew the marines broke cover and opened fire from the ridge, gunning down the surprised covenant. A sniper rifle was fired and the side of and elites head exploded as the bullet exited it's skull. Most of the standing covenant were killed before they returned fire and even then they only managed to hit the marines armor before they were all dead or too hurt to fight on.
"Looks like they came from the direction of the valley, maybe our guys got the drop on them after all." Sarge said as he surveyed the scene. "Sir!" called the medic and the sergeant turned sharply to face him, "What is it, Mattock?" "Sir, I don't think it was our guys who attacked these guys first, their wounds don't look like they were caused by human weapons." Mattock said as he reached the sergeant "What, their guys were fighting covenant?" the sergeant said, raising an eyebrow "No sir, they don't look like plasma or needler wounds, they looks like they were almost... shredded. Look." Mattock led him to one of the heavily wounded and now dead grunts. "look at that." he said and pointed at the same, the sergeant looked, there were quick a few small holes in the arm as if someone had stuck the arm with a lot of wires, "All I see is holes." he said, looking doubtful "Wait, look." the medic said as he pulled out a knife and slashed the arm open. The inside of the arm looked like someone had taken a sharpened blender too it, lumps of shredded muscle fell out of the arm to lay in bloody piles on the muddy ground "What the hell did that?" Sarge asked, taking a step back and raising his shotgun instictively "I don't know, all the rest are like that too, except for the elites, they seem fine. Before we got to the, that is." The sergeant flicked on his radio and shouted into it, "Alright marines, gear up, we're leaving." as he finished he ordered the marines spread out again and move as quietly as possibly and still reasonably fast.
They reached the entrance of the valley after almost two hours of trudging through the swamp, they were greeted with a battle scene human and covenant corpse lay everywhere, "Well, now we know what happened to the other team. What the hell happened here?" said one the marines as they moved to check the corpses.
"Sir! Looks like whoever got those covenant before were here too, and they don't like us either." said the medic, running up to the sergeant.
"Holy shit! Sergeant! Hey Sarge! Come tkae a look at this, quick!" called one of the marines. "Holy shit, what the hell is that, Mattock?" the sarge said as he trained his shotgun on the corpse of the strange yellow skinned thing, "Sir, I have no idea what it is, but shit is it ugly." Mattock said, lowering his assault rifle and shaking his head. Suddenly they heard screams behind them and spun around, raising their weapons, gunfire exploded around them as well as more screams as more of the strange yellow things charged around, attacking the marines with long tentacle-like protuberances. Sarge fired his shotgun and blew apart the torso of one of the creatures that rushed him, "Shit! That one looked like a human!" beside him Mattock opened up with his assault rifle, the bullets peircing into one of the creatures flesh as it rushed them, when it finally fell he swore, "Shit, these things are tough!" "Marines! Get to that building! Shotgunners cover the door, aim for the heads!" Shouted the sergeant as he gunned down another of the creatures and ran for the cover of the building. The few marines who made it inside started blazing away at the door as the creatures tried to force themselves in.
"Fuck! They're inside- AAARGH!" screamed one of the marines as he was swarmed by tiny little things, their tentacles worked into his flesh and he lay writhing as they tore his innards apart. Assault rifles blazed and the small potatoe-like things started exploding, leaving sickly green smears on the walls and floors.
"Fire in the hole!" Screamed one of the marines as he tossed a grenade outside, the explosion cleared the door for a few moments "Go! Go! Go! Get out!" screamed the sergeant and he fired another round form his shotgun into the mass of potatoe-things which had already killed three of his men, the rest of the marines ran outside, most had abandoned their weapons for shotguns. When outside they tried fighting their way through the mass of yellow flesh, but were either gunned down by creatures that had picked up fallen weapons or were hacked to pieces by their tentacles. The sergeant and the two other surviving marines turned and sprinted for the forest. The marine too his left screamed and fell down as an assault rifle took out his leg, the sergeant turned just long enough to shoot him and end his suffering before turning to run again.
As they ran something shot out of the forest and zoomed past him leaving a trail of smoke and behind him he heard an explosion, looking up he saw what had fired the rocket, he dared to hope he may live through the day as he saw the master chief fire another rocket into the creatures behind him and then drop the launcher and pull out a shotgun. The sergeant and the last marine turned and started firing into the swarm with the chief, grenades exploded and shutguns flared, the head of the marine beside him exploded as he caught a shotgun blast in the face.
He heard a noise above and looked up to see a pelican dropship lowering itself into the clearing.
"Grenades on three." said the chief, calm even in the heat of battle agaisnt a swarm of strange things "One. Two. Three!" He said, just as calmly. As he started chucking grenades at the forefront of the creatures, Sarge did the same. As the grenades exploded the pelican dropped a pair of ropes out of door to the drop bay, "Up." said the chief, grabbing a rope and blasting one of the creatures which got a bit too close, the Sergeant grabbed the rope rightly between both hands and the pelican started to rise, the marines in the dropship pulled the ropes up as the creatures below them swarmed forwards, grenades tossed from the pelican exploded beneath them as they were pulled into the drop bay. "What... what are those things?" the sergeant managed to ask as a medic tended to his wounds, a nearby marine answered, "They're called the flood, nasty parasites which look like they want to kill anything and everything." the sergeant looked at the masterchief as he walked up too the pilot's room and stuck his head inside, "Oh." then he finally passed out.
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