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HALO The Jewel of Lylat

Chapter 2 Feet First

"To war."

Major Cooper's favourite two words. Excited like a little boy on Christmas Eve, the officer took in Admiral Harper's following instructions with the biggest smile a UNSC orbital drop shock trooper was capable of wearing. The more dangerous the situation began to sound, the more his smile grew.

And finally, when he had all the pieces of the grim puzzle he couldn't help let out a "whooooo-ey! You sure know how to throw a shindig, admiral!"

"Gypsy Company is all over it, sir!" Major Cooper assured the commander in chief of the Leviathan, then turned his excitement to the boys and girls under his command.

His marines were his black armoured rosary beads. He'd counted them, prayed on them and knew every one of them by the sound of his or her voice; by the way they moved or even by the way they stood idle. The charcoal plates bulwarking their bodies and the grey mirrored visors hid nothing from their commanding officer.

"We got ourselves a game, marines!" the major belted out to catch every ODST's attention. They rose from where they sat on ammo crates or averted their focus from cleaning and assembling weapons. Instantly, the hum of soft conversation and preparatory clicks that occupied "hell's waiting room" fell to a grave silence.

"The admiral is sick of our company," the major continued to explain, "and he's booting us out the air-lock to go and secure some landing zones for relief efforts. Enemy forces are assaulting a cornerian city, their planetary capitol at the sounds of it, and the marines from Raider Company are going in to help hold the line and evac civvies. So as usual they need our help to lock the shit down.

"Word is; Raider Company is heading down in pelicans, sipping expensive water and nibbling tarts. But that's not how we go, isn't helljumpers? How do we go!?"

It was a time-tempered tradition to which Gypsy Company responded, joining their voices to one; "WE GO FEET FIRST!"

Major Cooper smiled broadly. "Fuck yeah, we do. Now you got two minutes to find a coffin and shove a cork up your ass."

It was a tired old customary joke, but the ODST all laughed like they'd all heard it for the very first time.

Grabbing their gear, the marines streamed down the centre of a long narrow gantry that branched off to the rows of angular armoured drop pods lining the room. Each pod bore the name of the individual ODST and was poised over a gaping cargo hatch that ran along the ship's belly.

From even before the war against the Covenant, before Contact Harvest the UNSC had invested quite a sum of resources into the problem of delivering shock troops to a battlefield thick with anti-aircraft fire as quickly and as effectively as possible. They had come up with the orbital drop shock troop programme.

The ODST had evolved over time, their human-entry-vehicles (HEVs) had advanced and their tactics had refined and most importantly their battle-gear had been upgraded. But the principle remained the same. Pack a marine into an armoured pod and send them hurtling to the battlefield from orbit.

Some of the "helljumpers" as they were sometimes called might be picked off by computerised anti-aircraft fire, but most of them would hit the area of operations intact and in a condition that allowed them to deliver maximum hurt upon a shocked enemy.

Cooper remained on the walkway until every one of his two-hundred or so men and women found their pod and strapped in. He knew that meant he would have sixty seconds less to make his preparations and was quick to enter his own HEV once the last hatch had closed.

As he ran his prep, the cargo doors they dangled over opened up into the little strip of space between the Leviathan's belly and Corneria's upper atmosphere. Fireballs sped by as they scraped atmo leaving a trail of fire in the ship's wake and a literal hell-storm for the ODST to drop into.

It was going to be one hell of a drop and Cooper made sure to remind his marines; "All chalks, secure your buddies and lock down an LZ, ASAFP. Those ground pounders from Raider are going to be right on our asses.

"Kill on three, gypsies! One! Two! Three!"

Voices pierced the armoured shells of the HEVs and filled the vacuum outside. "KILL!"

The launch timer clicked to zero, the clamps holding their armoured caskets in place let go, and the company of warriors dropped into hell.

~~~

Krystal thought her "aim-shoot-adjust-shoot-rinse-repeat" routine was going splendid right up to the point she was shot in the head.

In truth getting shot in the head was probably the best thing to happen to her so far. As the cerulean vixen lay where she fell, tearing the charred and cratered flight-helmet from her head she silently stared at the overcast sky. The dull ringing in her ears muted the sound of lasers hissing through the air.

She could have closed her eyes and pretended the breeze was a warm summer wind rolling over a peaceful grassy hill. A polar opposite to her position in a shot up parking lot at the end of a dead-end street boxed in by apartment buildings to the sides and the National Treasury to her back.

A trio of cornerian arwings screamed across her field of view chased by an anglar fighter with weapons blazing, just to remind Krystal exactly where she was. Pressing a hand on the bump throbbing on the side of her head, the vixen managed to sit up and survey the team forming a base line of fire along the long concrete barrier stretching out to her left and right. The soldiers had pulled her from her arwing earlier after she'd gone down and given her a fighting chance agiasnt the anglar horde sweeping over Corneria City.

Shouldering her rifle again she managed to kneel and get a look at the deteriorating situation. Bodies lay sprawled where they had fallen, burns marked the buildings and street and lines of charred dimples ran at chest height across every surrounding shop front and roadside barrier.

And beyond a kill zone defended heavily by cornerian infantry the ground-based might of the Anglar Army bore down on their last line of defence. The anglars were massed in the sporadic cover of more barriers and abandoned vehicles across the parking lot. Some even took up positions on a pedestrian walkway stretching between the buildings lining the street on the left and right, raining a hail of fire upon the cornerians.

Earlier that day Krystal had trouble telling one cornerian apart from another when they wore battle armour. But the anglars were a whole different story altogether. They were like clones of one-another, every one of the fish-people clad in sleek grey and purple bodysuits that clung to the round contours of their scaly bodies were identical. They had short little legs with flat feet, and each arm ended in pointed, almost bladed, fins that were wrapped around long laser rifles. Their bodies were ridiculously oval-shaped, with no discernible neck between the torso and the head. Their slitted green eyes glowed venomously and they had heavy frowns with large gaping mouths, the corners of which were heavily downturned into a natural grimace. Finally they had tails, however the stubby appendages looked more suited to maintaining balance rather than swimming.

As harmless as they initially seemed they were clearly not a force to be trifled with. Their pilots had been adept enough to outmanoeuvre Krystal and shoot her down clean. And afterwards she'd been fighting them on ground level for nearly an hour non-stop. No matter how many anglars fell, more seemed to teem out of the woodwork to join the assault on the Corneria National Treasury. Any minute now the corporal in charge of the infantry unit who'd rescued Krystal from her downed arwing would order them to pull back into the treasury in a last ditch effort to defend against the unending waves of anglar troopers.

But until that order was given, Krystal popped up her laser rifle and let the anglar troopers have it. Soon, as she was streaming energy packets and long stringed cerinian curses at the enemy she realised she was venting her frustrations as well as anglar toops.

Since the crash she'd kept an eye on the sky. And thus far she hadn't seen her wingman, Panther swing around to check on her yet. Her comms had been operational up until she'd taken a round to the helmet, but in that time he hadn't established radio contact. In fact, Krystal hadn't seen any Star Wolf fighters in the dogfights populating the city's airspace.

That could mean either all of Star Wolf squadron had been shot down. Or they'd bugged out.

The latter wouldn't surprise Krystal. In her short time under Wolf O'Donnell's command she'd bitten her tongue more often than she'd done the rest of her life. Star Wolf had a way of operating that sometimes didn't agree with Krystal's moral code, and thinking back she felt like an idiot for running off to them.

She'd been so blinded by her anger directed at Fox she didn't think through the consequences of flying with Star Wolf. Hell, she couldn't even remember what she and Fox had argued about. She hoped it was important. Important enough that it warranted being up to her knees in anglars all trying to shoot her in the head, abandoned by the squadron who were supposed to be her family.

Fox never would have abandoned me, Krystal thought bitterly as she put a burst in a charging anglar, then switched to the next brave trooper that hopped a barricade to run at her.

As the second trooper went down, he flinched heavily, but got off a single shot from the under-slung attachment on his rifle. A tracer lashed through the air and round hit the barricade by Krystal's elbow with a ctchink, then started beeping rapidly.

"Oh, sh-..."

Krystal interrupted herself, sliding her rifle over one shoulder to holster it across her back and ran headlong into the cornarian soldier beside her. Dragging him to the ground, they hit cover just as the explosive round went up, blowing a gaping chunk out of their already laser-raped cover and knocking some of the other cornerians down.

Soldiers on the flanks opened up in full automatic to take up the slack as the core of their formation faltered, and funnelling arcs of fire prevented the anglar from pushing too far forward. Most of the creatures who made a dash fell bleeding. Only a few slid into cover only a few metres away from the cornerian base line of fire.

Pushing the ringing pain in her ears to the back of her concern priorities, Krystal rolled off the cornerian radio operator to look, plucking her hip-mounted sidearm from its holster at the same time. Half sitting, half laying back, she fired one hand, putting blasts through the hole in their line in a desperate attempt to keep the enemy from pushing.

And as she was loosing round after round in her shell-shocked state, the ringing in her ears faded and she heard voices shouting over the handset attached to the radio operator, still laying flat on his back and too stunned to do anything. His rifle was missing and the young pug had a wide-eyed, shocked expression on his face.

The cornerian radio traffic was a complete and total mess and the channel reserved for tactical updates had turned into such a confusion of screams, request for orders and pleas for extraction that the radio operators may as well have spoken in tongues. The radio operator beside Krystal wouldn't have been able to translate even if they were.

And then through it all came a voice of clarity, drowning out the excess chatter and cutting through all other conversation like a hot knife through butter. Without static, pause or hesitation, the disembodied voice spoke on an octave deeper than Krystal was used to, and in an accent she'd never heard on Corneria before.

"Gypsy two-two ta' Gypsy-actual. Our AO is clear o' AA at the looks of it. Let the marines know they can roll in at any time."

The answer was immediate and equally cryptic. "The luck of the Irish really is strong with you today, you leprechaun bastard!"

"Ye' know it, sir!"_the first voice barked. _"All cornerians on this freq, ye' have human re-enforcements incomin'. So watch 'yer fire! We're comin' in hot!"

Humans? Re-enforcements?

Krystal and the young pug beside her locked eyes for a moment before Krystal suddenly rolled to her feet and yanked her rifle to her front. The pug radio operator was scrambling to attention as well, his eyes scanning the skies. But all he saw were clouds and arwings clashing with anglar fighters.

He gaped for a moment then answered while isolating the frequency the humans hailed them on. "Affirmative, but... we don't see you. Where-...?"

And then the old Gods - the angry vengeful ones even the modern cornerian had a respectful fear of - answered.

Objects screamed out of the clouds at terminal-velocity, screaming bloody murder and spitting fire from their undersides. The armoured monoliths hit with the force of godly hammers striking the world of mortals with such ferocity Krystal was sure the tremors in the earth made her bounce on the spot.

Confusion, death and destruction followed swiftly.

Krystal saw one anglar rushing her position vanish. One moment she saw a cloud of blood and bone, she blinked, and the anglar trooper was replaced entirely by one of the steel sky-coffins settled into the cracked asphalt road. Next the hatches popped open, thrown outwards by controlled explosions like scything shields thrown like frisbees.

Another anglar in Krystal's line of sight met a twisted metal demise as the pod that crushed the previous launched its lid and wiped out the enemy trooper leaving just a bloody smear on the battlefield.

An armoured figure promptly threw himself from the confines of the pod, levelled his weapon and unleashed a hail of violence Krystal had never before though possible for today.

He (she assumed by the bulky build that the new soldier was a "he") carried a sleek looking rifle with a savage orange and black paint job, topped by an ocular target-assist device on the carry handle. And every time he fired the weapon gave a throaty _prrrow_noise as it ejected a trio of glistening bullet casings over the user's shoulder.

Krystal had only seen projectile weapons of the like in museums, never in active use. Then again, she'd only ever seen humans in pictures and vids.

It didn't do their fearsome appearance justice.

The human was clad in an eldritch suit that replaced the smooth rounded curves of cornerian infantry armour with small flat plates fixed together at stealthy angles. The impact plating bulwarked everything from the shoulders down to the boots. Matte black plates locked over a sleek fitted under-armour suit - a mirrored visor and scant painted-on markings just about set the human soldier apart from the others in identical armour and carrying similar weapons. The one who'd landed right in front of her had yellow chevrons and the insigne of a sword-knot on his shoulder armour with a yellow band running over the top of his helmet like a painted-on war-hawk.

The first was joined by two more... and then there were five. And then twelve. Then more than Krystal could count in a short time with bodies milling from side to side and deadly projectiles roasting the air.

They formed small fireteams of threes and fours, covering each other with overlapping arcs of fire as they moved up bravely. The return fire didn't faze them and they marched stubbornly onward, ducking into cover but only pausing briefly to either reload or send directions and orders to subordinates.

Their momentum never faltered as they reached the first line of barriers, vaulted over and pushed the anglars hard enough it made them stumble and retreat.

They weren't invincible though, and Krystal saw their armour was as hit and miss as her own. One human took a laser light to the chest and went down, skidding to a halt on his rear. But as if he didn't feel the puncture wound spitting blood he just sat up and kept shooting as a buddy dragged him to cover.

Explosives rocked the ground with mighty thumps, and with every blossoming explosion of fire and shrapnel Krystal saw anglars flying in bloody, limb-less pinwheels.

The bodies carpeting the ground doubled in the few minutes that felt like fleeting seconds. Some clad in black armour, but for every one human that fell dead or wounded, the anglars dropped in the dozens. The humans didn't just beat the anglars back from their assault line. They were breaking the aliens, smashing their formations, sucking the morale out of them and traumatizing any that might survive.

That was if the humans let any survive.

Even as the anglars turned and ran, the humans opened up. They shot them in the back while running away. The humans in the back dead-checked the bodies as they stepped over them, putting rounds into heads of wounded anglars begging for mercy. But there was none to be found within the cold emotionless veil of their visors.

Krystal shivered, but she felt a sickening little pang of relief. Their entrance and counterattack was brutal, but it had saved them. Shakily, Krystal and her cornerian compatriots rose up and picked through the slick mess the parking lot had transformed into. They followed the human assault to the T-junction at the end of the street, then joined the clustered human soldiers by the right corner. Some had taken positions beyond the corner to form a defensive perimeter and ensure the anglars didn't think of doubling back at them.

Moving among the loosely gathered humans, Krystal saw the soldier with the tribal paint job on his rifle again. He was shouldering the corner and watching over his fellows setting a perimeter between them and the anglars still on the retreat.

Satisfied they had breathing room he leaned back and turned his visor to Krystal and the squad of cornerians.

"Jambo, fuzzie-wuzzies," the human greeted with a light buzz. "I'm Staff Sergeant Marko Hoot, Gypsy two-two. Heard 'ye lads needed a hand so we jumped in."

Krystal wasn't entirely sure what to say at first, so the cornerian squad corporal spoke up first. "Are you soldiers?"

That seemed to amuse the staff sergeant, clearly the one in charge of these humans. "Better than soldiers, sure. We are marines!"

"OOH-RAH!" the rest of the humans in earshot chanted with a chipper, motivated attitude.

Gripping his helmet between is hands; the staff sergeant pulled the armour up and off his head. Tucking it under one arm he gave his head a relieved scratch like he'd been saving up to do so for a long time.

Krystal knew what humans looked like, but again the vids and pictures hadn't prepared her for the real thing. She stared at his pale, fur-less skin and the short buzz-cut patch of hair over the top of his head. His eyes were the same shade of emerald green as hers, which seemed to clash oddly with his ghostly skin and bright red hair.

Hoot breathed in sharply through the nostrils to test the acrid scent of cordite in the air, then let out a contented sight.

"Righty-tighty," he murmured before ordering around his marines. "Let's go marines. Base line o' fire across this street. Them anglar feckers do not re-take this junction. I want the pigs on that bridge. Soon as enemies wander in range 'ye rake the feckin' dog-shite outta them, rah!?"

The marines with the big belt-fed machine guns bellowed "rah!" in response then lugged their gear out into the street and on the elevated crossing that ran over the road. As the men and women set up where they were directed to form a line of defence, a group of lightly armed marines with long barrelled rifles and telescopic scopes crouched near Staff Sergeant Hoot.

"Rodriguez!" Hoot called to the shortest of the masked infantry. "Get 'yer buyz up on high ground with the long-shots. Pack some o' the anti-armour jus' in case."

"All over it, staff," a woman's confident and tough sounding voice replied slightly muffled by her helmet. She stood then jabbed her index finger at the marines under her command. "You heard the man, ladies! Grab that heavy shit and hump some stairs!"

With rifles slung across backs and hands encumbered by the heavy looking rocket tubes the group of snipers dashed across the junction to the building on the far corner and disappeared inside. Krystal assumed they would get as much elevation and cover as they could find to give them a full view up and down the street.

But Krystal wasn't watching where Rodriguez took her people. She was still taking in the sight of Marko Hoot sans helmet. It was a little overwhelming, probably a natural reaction when meeting a being from outside your home solar system for the first time. She had so many questions. So many curiosities.

What did human's do for fun? What did they eat? How did they manage to stay warm without fur?

Staff Sergeant Hoot clearly wasn't affected by the same wonder as the cornerians, and he glared back at them realising he was being stared at.

"And what are 'ye lookin' at?" he suddenly shot in his peculiar accent.

The cornerian corporal gulped. "N-nuthin'."

"What can we do to help, staff sergeant?" Krystal quickly piped up. She felt the need to say something - anything - to break out of the silent staring habit.

Hoot seemed to be glad she asked and nodded approvingly. "First 'ye can brief me on the situation. Why are the anglars so desperate to take this dead end?"

Krystal sidestepped and pointed Hoot's gaze at the building they had been defending. "That's the Corneria National Treasury. And hidden in the vault inside are a few thousand civilians."

"So?" Hoot shrugged. "What do they want with the civvies?"

"They want to kill them all. The anglars aren't interested in just taking this planet, staff sergeant. They want to wipe everyone out."

"Feckin' brill'," the human slurred bitterly before jamming his helmet back on his head. "Well don' 'ye worry 'yer fuzzy little head. The ODST are here to save the day."

He was continuing to say, "We're gonn' hold the line 'till re-enforcements get here 'n we can evac the civvies," but was interrupted mid-sentence by a scream across the street.

One human with the most powerful set of lungs Krystal had ever heard of belted out; "INCOMING!"

The explosion that followed was near instantaneous. Furious blue light washed out Krystal's vision and she had to shade her eyes. And when the ground stopped shaking from the blast and the light faded, she found herself looking at a scorched, glassy crater where a five-metre diameter of road once sat.

The humans had scattered and dropped into cover. A second sun arched from the sky and hit a section of the elevated crossing just after a few of the marines leapt to street level and rolled into cover.

More plasma mortars followed the first two and the humans across the street found shelter under the raised walkway. But a rain of destruction hitting them was only part of their problems.

A mass of anglar infantry doubled back and weaved through a maze of abandoned cars and barricades. Every time a finned head popped into view, shots of light seared in the direction of the humans.

The rattle of ballistic weapons retorted with a mess of shouted contact reports. Hoot immediately brought his rifle to bear, joining in the return fire. The cornerian corporal and his squad did the same, even though Krystal remained glued by the human staff sergeant's side.

"This is stupid crazy!" one human yelled through the detonation of another mortar round.

"Frankly, lads, I'm not hearin' the aggression I was hopin' for!" Hoot turned his gaze across the street and called out to someone out of Krystal's line of sight. "Clarence, 'ye awake down there 'ye wee red-neck bollocks?"

The humans must have been tapped into the same frequency as the cornerian squad communications, because she heard a reply crackle in the bulky headset of the cornerian radio operator knelt beside her.

"Keepin' your momma company, staff," was the reply in an accent as peculiar as Staff Sergeant Hoot's.

"Put the bitch down 'n get to the rooftops. Move up 'n kill them mortars!"

On the far side of the street from where Hoot was barking, the skinniest of the marines, probably only a hundred kilos fully armoured, gave a firm nod as his orders were received loud and clear.

"We're all over it, staff!" Private First Class Clarence assured before he gestured the three ODST in his fireteam to rally-up. "C'mon, gents! We're Oscar-Mike!"

Slipping into an alcove, Clarence followed Private Jenkins through a low door built for cornerian stature. As they were pounding up the steps to the first floor apartments, Private Blue covered off and hefting his heavy machine gun Private Braddock had to double over and turn sideways to fit through.

At the top of the steps was a floor of apartments the likes of which you'd only find in high society back on Earth. The corridor was clean, the automatic sliding doors were free of graffiti and had 80-megapixel peep-holes build into the top doorframe. The hallway walls were a sleek, glossy and tasteful colour that brightened the space despite the lack of natural light, but didn't hurt the eyes.

With the pounding of the firefight muffled through the building's walls, Clarence was almost lulled into a false sense of security as he jogged behind Jenkins towards the roof-access stairwell at the end of the hall. But was enough of a lull for him to relax just a little too much.

At the end of the hall the stairwell door slid open and movement inside caught Clarence's attention. The anglar infantry inside wasted no time in laying down a field of suppressing fire. Their guns angled around the doorposts exposing only laser rifles and a pair of hands. Bolts of energy soared past the marines as they ducked to the sides of the corridor in search of better cover that didn't exist.

Then in their moment of vulnerability, the marines were doubly fucked over as one of the little oval-shaped bastards threw something at them.

The little deadly ball was immediately highlighted on Clarence's heads-up-display, circled by a pulsing crimson circle with a "WARNING" hazard tag attached. The grenade bounced, then settled between the evenly spaced marines.

Jenkins did something that no amount of training or combat experience could condition you to do. He was the strife of humanity given form by all that fire and determination fuelled by the love of his friends and family and fellow marines. He was the deadliest creature to have ever existed, so courageous and resolute that his own death became a statement of defiance.

The private threw himself face down on the grenade moments before it detonated.

The explosion was oddly muffled. There was no shrapnel or screaming noise in Clarence's ears. Just a short flare of fire curling around Jenkins' sides and a shockwave that knocked the three other marines to the floor. Jenkins was lifted into the air by the force of the blast; and for a split second the team leader dared to think his friend would spring to his feet and yell "surprise!"

He landed with a sickening splat and didn't move.

Private Clarence was pretty sure he cycled through a dozen emotion in those few fleeting moments. Relief, shame then grief were among them. But as the anglars in the stairwell popped out and started taking shots, an energy bolt sizzled past Clarence's visor and he settled on unbridled fury.

He blinked away the colourful spots the flash of energy had left in his vision as he rolled to his feet. With an arch of brass spilling from the side of his assault weapon he worked the mob over, and didn't let up until the rifle ran empty. He then slung the MA5D assault rifle, drew his sidearm and laid into the survivors even as they tried to crawl away, dragging bloody smears over the floor.

When the hostiles were finally bodied two depleted mags later - one assault and one pistol - Clarence slotted full magazines into his weapons and returned to where Braddock and Blue were checking Jenkins. Looking up from where he pressed two fingers against an exposed part of Jenkins' neck, the larger of the two privates solemnly shook his helmet. Braddock's visor tinted hiding away the expression of grief that looked out of place on the face of a gangster straight out of Compton.

The ODST still standing did the same, hiding away the shock and sadness behind curtains of grey. As their visors polarised so did their emotions. They still had a job to do. More marines would die if they didn't take out that anglar mortar.

"We'll be back for you, brother," Clarence promised the dead marine, then turned with the intent of mimicking his handiwork in the gore-strewn stairwell with every anglar that crossed his sights.

~~~

Another mortar shell brought Hoot back; way back to the first op he'd been on. A time before he'd painted the wicked decals on his rifle, or earned the ODST tattoos sprawling up his arm.

It had been a pretty basic mission template like this one. Secure an LZ for marine re-enforcements and defend against incoming hostiles. And like this one, the Covenant had used plasma mortars. Each blazing blue ball of deadly plasma reminded Hoot of an attacking wraith tank. And what he hated most about the damn thing was that often the bastards didn't even need line of sight to unleash hell upon him and his ODST.

That made it tricky to fight back. Especially with enemy infantry pressing the position. But he did his best. Which was all that was expected of the NCO.

Dropping onto his hip, Hoot slid in behind a barrier as laser lights blistered the road in his wake. Settling in cover the helljumper quickly slid his rifle to his front and popped straight up to fire, muttering "c'mon 'n get me," between shots.

Three-round bursts shattered skulls as he smart-scoped in on the enemy lines and switched targets between shots. He worked with swift efficiency like a bag-boy piling groceries into a bag smoothly and effectively. Each shot dropped another anglar, sending the stocky little aliens tumbling away and out of sight.

Only five fell though, and they were quickly replaced by reinforcements swelling in from the rear. Hoot was forced to duck back down as points of lethal light swatted his diminutive cover. And as he ducked he was forced to lock visors with a fallen ODST laying with his limbs sprawled out at unnatural angles, assault rifle still gripped in one hand and a rocket launcher cradled across his blood smeared chest.

Hoot was pulled from his trance by a heavy machine gun opening up on the anglar advance. The heavy _chug-chug-chug_was drowned out only by a rumbling explosion. He thought a grenade had detonated, or perhaps another plasma mortar.

It turned out to be much worse.

Looking up again he just about caught the aftermath of the scattering rubble. A shopfront at the end of the street was turned to chunks that scattered across the road as something zipped out of the building's ground floor and into the street. Hovering on four glowing anti-gravity pads, circled by armour and mounted with a terrifying gun on top, the anglar hover tank tore across the street and right at the ODST lines. Even the anglars whose side it was on scattered to make space or they'd be run down.

The main cannon recoiled and an explosion engulfed a fireteam to Hoot's side. One minute four men in black armour sat readying an RPG, the next they were black skeletal x-rays of themselves before they vanished from sight completely. The force of the blast was enough to drop Hoot to the deck beside the dead marine he was crouched over.

The blood smeared rocket launcher shifted onto Hoot's chest and he knew what he had to do.

Rolling to his feet, he shouldered the heavy weapon and sighted the tank. The turret was swivelled the other way, putting rounds into the side of a building where some ODST had gained elevation and were firing out of the windows. As smoke and debris curled down into the street a few enemy pot shots pocked the road and barrier beside Hoot.

He ignored the danger and fired. It was the most exhilarating feelings Hoot had ever experienced

The warmth of fire and flame engulfing his body, the dust and rocks swirling around after the back-blast exploded into the most powerful noise you've ever heard.

The rocket launcher was a good time.

Unfortunately it was ineffective.

Hoot helplessly dropped the smoking launcher to the deck as his rockets hit home. But they bounced off mere inches off the sleek armour. The thrusters gave out and like they'd hit a rubber surface the warheads went spinning away. One struck the side of a building and exploded. The other hit the street and vaporised a section of anglar ground troops.

And unlike when he'd fired shots at Sangheili back during the Covenant war, there was no shimmer of a personal force field.

Two more rockets streaked across the battlefield from the heavy weapons fireteams that had launchers with them and hit home. But as before the projectiles bounced off harmlessly. The tank had some kind of EM defence field. It had to be; as bullets and some cornerian laser projectiles plinked the armour unaffected by the anti-RPG defences.

The tank kept plugging away carelessly with that main cannon, engulfing whole sections of the ODST defensive line even as the mortars kept raining on them. It would seem that Hoot's best was not going to be enough.

He hit the deck as a tank round went screaming over his head and he shouted into his helmet mic. "Clarence! Would ye' kindly kill them feckin' mortars!"

~~~

"Clarence! Would ye' kindly kill them feckin' mortars!"

Clarence landed on the far side of the alley by the time the NCO's transmission ended. He tucked and rolled, and without missing a pace sent his reply while beating feet across the next rooftop.

"We're getting close, staff! Just a few more seconds!"

Reaching the next ledge Clarence pushed off hard and soared, still running in the air, across the next alley. Like before he hit the following rooftop, tucked, rolled and kept running.

Directly behind him he heard two more pairs of boots slam into the roof followed by the scrape of armour and guns tumbling over coarse concrete. He slowed and looked to where the rest of his fireteam found their feet and followed.

"C'mon, gipsies!" Clarence waved. "Let's move-move-move!"

The fireteam caught up to their team leader and they dashed like the devil was nipping at their heels.

Up ahead of them sat the mortar team, huddled on the far corner of the next rooftop. Most of the aliens had their backs to the approaching humans and were too busy slotting shaped plasma charges into a firing tubes. They'd drop in a shell, then lean away slapping fins over their heads as a blazing blue sun shot up in the air, arched over the street and dropped onto the heads of the defenders back from where Clarence had come.

The humans reached the edge of the rooftop at the same time and all pushed off, leaping into the air towards the next roof. And as they soared over the alley, the pavement racing by a dizzying hundred metres below, all three brought their rifles to bear.

Single shots popped from the muzzles and three anglar bodies dropped to the deck before the marines even landed.

Laser pistols and rifles were drawn and energy fire blistered back at the marines as they landed hard and fell clumsily into cover.

Clarence landed awkwardly and felt fire lance through his ankle before he slid head-first into a ventilation stack. Shaking off his weakened foot and the headache now throbbing in the region behind his eyes, Clarence rolled onto his front and aimed his rifle prone around the stack he used as cover.

At the same time the others got their gats up and fired into the enemy. Only a few shots met their mark and two anglars fell, but a healthy five OPFOR managed to dash into cover to co-ordinate their counter-attack.

But in their rush they had left the mortar equipment abandoned. While the shelling of Gypsy Company and their new Cornerian Army friends came to an abrupt halt, the mortar platform suddenly became the venue for an intense firefight.

~~~

The mortars stopped falling, but the explosions didn't stop. A tank round exploded and the vixen flew like she'd grown wings.

Landing hard on the sidewalk, Krystal barely had enough time to slap herself back to her senses when something heavy landed on top of her.

Hoot rolled off the fox and chucked a grenade. The device clicked on impact, then exploded with a thump, throwing back a trio of anglars and giving Hoot time to grab the pretty blue thing by the scruff of her neck and drag her into the nearest doorway.

The two of them had been ducking and weaving between positions all up and down the street, accepting covering fire from snipers and machine gunners as they attempted to upset the anglar offence with sustained bursts and grenades.

It wasn't working, not while that tank slowly pushed them back. And the defenders were being pushed back farther than they'd been expecting to be pushed. They were practically back where Krystal and the squad of cornerians had originally been before the ODST hopped in.

In what seemed to be a small grocery store with a shattered glass front had been cleared out and turned into a small field hospital.

They had about a dozen wounded to look after, a mixture of cornerians and humans. What made it so bad was the critical nature of their injuries and the fact that they couldn't be moved yet, especially not through an active warzone.

And they only had a few minutes before the tank would have the right angle to draw a bead on them and decimate this makeshift field hospital.

Hoot had to stop that hover tank, no matter what. He had an idea on how, but turning the idea into a reality provided a whole new set of problems to which he didn't have solutions just yet.

"Wilkes!" the staff sergeant bellowed through his faceplate looking around. "Oros! Where the fuck is Wilkes!?"

The marine he'd called to was up to his elbows in human and cornerian blood, his helmet missing and more crimson staining his stubble-marked cheek. He answered without taking his eyes off what he was doing. "You're standing in what's left of him!"

Hoot looked down and realised he was standing in a puddle of pasty crimson flesh. Uneasily he stepped aside and looked around. Specialist Wilkes had been a demolitions expert and would have had a pack of explosives with him. A pack exactly like the satchel sitting beside where Petty Officer Oros was applying a field dressing to laser burns on a wounded marine.

Kneeling by the medic as he worked, Hoot pulled open the satchel to find exactly what he was looking for. Pulling out two large metal disks he ran back to Krystal and offered one, slinging the other in place of his rifle across his back.

Krystal paused from sniping at the enemy to weigh the disk in her hand. It was heavy, about twice the weight of her rifle and had a set of prongs sticking out the circumference. The metal spikes she figured stabilised the land mine when buried.

"Surely you can't be considering we try to bury landmines out there, staff sergeant?" she asked indicating the intense firefight still dominating street level.

"Not exactly," Hoot beckoned her to follow. "C'mon."

Leading her to one side of the room, Hoot seemed to have lost his marbles. He levelled his rifle, switched to full-automatic and blasted the wall with a few dozen armour piercing rounds.

"Staff sergeant, what are you-...?" Krystal didn't get to finish.

Hoot ran headlock into the wall, busted through and hit the deck flat-out on the other side in the next shop along the street.

Scrambling to his feet, he twisted to one side and started putting bursts out through the store window, covering the vixen as she followed him through.

It didn't take Krystal long to figure out Hoot's plan, so while the human dealt with the anglars harassing them, she shouldered her rifle and unleashed a sustained burst into the next wall in their path along the flank. Like the human projectiles before, her rounds punched through the separating wall and Krystal threw herself into the neighbouring building.

Their roles reversed. As soon as Krystal righted herself in the next store she found cover and took shots at the anglars on the flank. Hoot reloaded as he followed through the hole, then took his turn ploughing through the next wall.

Like a relay run they slipped through one building after another, making their own doors between the shopfronts. They slid between groceries, ducked behind racks of fashion and bulled through shelves of fine china, every step of the way getting closer and closer to where the hover tank was crawling further up the street.

Eventually the vehicle slid into view.

Krystal skidded to a halt and dropping her rifle pulled the mine from the magnetic holster on her back. Hoot did the same, producing his own before he armed both on a seven second timer. They ticked down to six as he threw his, aiming for the underside of the tank.

Krystal followed with a full-arm flick. The disk curled out the shopfront then hit the ground, skipping like a pebble over a glassy lake surface.

Hoot ducked down, pulling Krystal with him as he clicked his comms. "Fire in the hole!"

The Lotus anti-tank mines both detonated at the same time - it was a flash and a moment of fire. The overpressure rattled Krystal's teeth. The tank disappeared behind a screen of dust and a cascade of asphalt grains that had been dislodged and thrown like confetti by the blasts.

When the smokescreen faded, the tank seemed to be intact... mostly. The turret was still moving, but the vehicle was eviscerated. The quad hover-pads were mangled beyond any possible field-repair. The base had settled awkwardly over the crumpled bonnet of a half-crushed car.

But despite it all, the turret swung around like it had been recently oiled and the muzzle aimed directly at the two of them.

"Ah, shite. DOWN!"

No sooner had Hoot tackled Krystal to the ground, the immobilised tank's cannon let out a spiteful roar and the explosive energy blast gutted the storefront.

~~~

Clarence, thankful of that beautiful son-of-a-bitch who first discovered the practical uses behind a pyrotechnic mix of magnesium and ammonium nitrate, chased the 9-bangers they'd thrown into the fray and opened up on the stunned aliens.

As Clarence and Blue moved, Braddock propped up his support gun and unleashed a hail of suppressing fire no one in their right mind would fuck with. The moving marines fired shortly after as they reached the flank and lit up the aliens.

Blue paused after his first shot turned the closest anglar into a pile of mincemeat, stopping only to work the action of his shotgun. By the time the foregrip slid forward again to lock a shell in the chamber his sights lit up red and he blasted the next anglar into a slippery mess.

The conclusion of their firefight, from the flash-and-bang of the stun grenades to the marines polishing off the last of the floored anglars took five seconds. A time that would make their otherwise humourless breach-and-clear instructor from helljumper-school crack a smile.

While Blue and Braddock took the time to catch their breaths and exchange a high-five, Clarence took the time to contact the chalk leader.

"Staff, the mortars are secure... staff sergeant?" there was no reply on the intersquad comms. "Staff Sergeant Hoot, do you read me?"

Clarence, Blue and Braddock exchanged nervous glances before they ran to the rooftop's edge and looked down into the quiet, corpse and rubble littered street where a firefight should have been raging.

In the time it had taken them to get some elevation and take out the mortar team the battle below had moved back around into the cul-de-sac and out of their sight. They'd need a periscope to get a visual on what was happening down there.

"Braddock. I need an eye in the sky," Clarence ordered.

Producing a small, lightweight chasse, Braddock flicked open the wings and threw the high-tech look-alike of the model aeroplane he'd thrown across Mrs Crossan's classroom back in highschool. Only instead of earning himself detention like back then, the ODST earned a bird's eye view of the battlefield.

Clarence knelt and pulled up the camera on his HUD. As the window dominated his view he felt his stomach flip as the angle of his sight changed from gazing intently at the corner of the rooftop to a sky-high view of the city scrolling by below him. He almost got the sensation he was flying through the air.

The UAV tilted left and rounded the battlefield from a high orbit. Green squares identified fellow ODST and cornerian soldiers. The red squares highlighted enemies, with the largest rectangle laid over a tank just inside the T-junction they'd captured earlier. The marines were pushed right back to the treasury with infantry pushing hard from the cover of that tank. It looked like the vehicle was down, but that turret was still hot and spitting death.

"They're in trouble," Clarence stated as he rose, closing down the UAV view.

Blue cursed, hopping from foot to foot, itching to do something. "What do we do?"

Clarence's eyes suddenly fell on the mortar gear they'd liberated, and a cool smile spread over his face. "I have an idea."

~~~

One explosion followed the second. And then the third lit up just a few metres from the previous as using the UAV above Clarence was able to correct the firing angle of the mortar tube. One at a time Braddock and Blue fed rounds into the mortar and traced a slow line of bright blue explosions across the street before finally the last round hit.

The turret popped open like a battery on a bonfire, spitting fire and debris into the air and leaving only a twisted metal husk. And as the marines with the captured mortar equipment celebrated, for the second time in just a few short hours the anglars presented their tails to the treasury and retreated.

As the enemy legged it, Krystal coughed and stumbled from the rubble that had nearly been her tomb. Hoot had been quick to react and pulled them both under a table before the tank made short work of them. They'd been saved from the energy blast and the subsequent rain of debris collapsing on top of them. From there they had dug themselves out in time to see the remnants of the tank go up in smoke.

Brushing soot and dust from the flight suit hugging her slender frame, the vixen managed to stand up straight and survey the area. Marines were crawling out of cover to take pot shots at the running enemy, and not one of the anglars remained to risk another human charge overwhelming them.

"That's right 'ya sissies! RUN!" Hoot bellowed over Krystal's shoulder, his volume making her wince slightly.

She still smiled though; glad she had ear-drums left to be hurt by the human's shouting. The man was shaking his fist at the retreating aliens before he sighed tiredly and brushed away the chalky dust that clung to his armour; then reached over and help dust some of the soot from Krystal's hair.

"Thank you, staff sergeant," Krystal breathed with a smile.

Looking at her, she saw his visor go transparent and it was apparent from his expression he was about to ask "for what?" He didn't get a chance, touching the side of his helmet distractedly as the bud in his ear crackled.

Krystal tried to listen in, but it was impossible to decipher the hushed murmur bouncing around inside Hoot's helmet.

Hoot suddenly said, "Clarence, slow down. 'Yer like a toddler on cocaine. What do 'ye mean there's more on the way?"

The human's gaze lifted and he stared straight through Krystal as an overlay slid across his face. Krystal had to squint to make any sense of it, and soon realised she was looking at an aerial view of Corneria City projected across Hoot's heads up display. She moved closer and watched with her nose practically pressing against this visor.

She made out the ant-like figures of the anglars streaming out of the cul-de-sac and down the street the marines had originally pushed them. The view jumped, zooming out to show more of the surrounding city blocks.

She noted a large square just down the street. The view zoomed in again and Krystal's eyes widened. Through the overlay she saw Hoot's eyes do the same.

The open market square almost six blocks away was home to a mass of figures. Anglar troop formations, more hover tanks like the last that had given them so much trouble, hovering gunships and moveable weapon platforms. It was an army massing with the intent of moving in their direction as soon as the retreating anglars linked up with them.

Krystal didn't even need to guess that they were outnumbered. And with wounded and a few hundred civilians to protect, there was no pulling out until the city airspace was cleared out enough for evacuation shuttles to reach them.

They had two choices. Cut their losses and run, leaving behind the wounded and the civilians. Or stand and fight. Krystal purged the former thought. They only had _one_choice. And it seemed Hoot was thinking the same thing.

"This is going to get worse, isn't it?" Krystal asked as the aerial view on his HUD evaporated.

Hiding his expression behind the tint of his visor, he slotted a fresh magazine into his rifle and cycled a round into the chamber. "Yeah... much worse.