Concurrence Chapter 8-5

3431 words 

***

“Did she just call you Andrew?” Joker balked.

“It’s a nature reserve,” the Major explained. “Gives the locals a chance to see the native animals in their natural habitats, or at least it used to.”

“I much prefer this place over the city,” Seela replied. “The rock formations remind me of the homeworld.”

The Warthogs wheels churned up the dirt as he shifted gears, trundling their way deeper into the park. He knew from his pre-mission reports that every aspect of the reserve was completely artificial, the park situated on a manmade island in the middle of the ocean, but the illusion was pretty convincing.

“Something up ahead,” Seela reported, her gun spinning up in preparation for a fight. They drove over a slight incline, the Major and Joker angling their heads to the right as they passed a pair of dead animals laying in the shade of a tree.

“Now that’s just cruel,” Joker said. “Covenant invade our home and kill our Zebras? Come on.”

“Why is it black and white?” Seela asked as the curve of the hill slowly concealed the animals behind them. “It does not blend well at all in this environment.”

“The black stripes absorb the heat while the white stripes cool them down,” Joker answered. “Keeps them nice and cool when they’re out in the sun.”

“Why do you know so much about Zebras?” the Major asked.

“Hey, I got interests outside of puns and guns,” Joker replied.

“And those?” Seela asked, pointing down the slope on the left, where more corpses were sprawled along the path. “What are they called?”

“Giraffes,” Joker said, chuckling bitterly behind his helmet. “I feel like we’re on a tour bus and I’m the info guy. If you look to your right: you’ll see dead, exotic animals. And if you look to your left: you’ll also see dead, exotic animals.”

“Can you get in touch with the rest of the squad?” the Major said before Joker could get another word in. “Tell them we’re on the way and to stall the boat?”

“One sec.” He put a hand to his helmet, tuning the commlink into their shared channel, fiddling with his wrist-mounted terminal as he patched in. With the open skies above them, there was much less interference, Joker able to interface into the team-wide frequency.

“Did you say boat?” Seela asked, turning on the flatbed to lean towards the Major.

“Yeah, we’re supposed to exfil to a Navy cruiser just off the coast,” he said. “they’re meeting us on a beach on the other side of the reserve.”

“Holiday, Rebar?” Joker asked, the Major linking up his helmet so he could listen in to the exchange. “It’s Joker, come in.”

“We read you,” a woman’s voice answered. It was Holiday. “What’s your status? Thought we’d lost you for a second there.”

“Status is green and mean. Picked up a couple of stragglers on my way back,” Joker replied. “Well, technically, they picked me up, but tomato tomato. The Major says hi.”

“He’s alive?” another voice answered, this one belonging to Rebar. The Major felt a wave of relief, even though Joker had said they were alive, hearing the voices of his team was still liberating. “So he wasin his pod?”

“Not, uh, really,” Joker answered. “You know him, never one to stand around waiting for rescue. Tell you everything later, point is we got ourselves a Hog and we’re zooming over.”

“Good,” Holiday said, her voice coming through tinny on the speakers. “Navy boys were starting to get cold feet. I’ll tell them you’re almost here.”

“Don’t forget about my friend,” the Major said as he swept the wheel round, the truck trundling down the bend.

“Oh, right! Before you go,” Joker added. “Don’t uh, shoot the Elite. ‘Kay?”

“Very funny Joker,” Holiday answered. “See you soon. Out.” The connection severed, Joker giving the Major a sheepish shrug, who was frowning back at him.

“Hey, I tried, alright? Not my fault I’m the funny one. Anyway, I’m sure they won’t plug her full of holes. She’ll be fine.”

“She certainly will,” Seela answered. “She will simply put the ‘funny’ Imp in front of her to act as a shield, should the humans try anything.”

The Warthog drifted as they rounded a wall of rocks, the Major occasionally lifting his eyes up to the broken tether and the alien cruisers on the horizon. They were so close to leaving this place, but the Covenant was moving fast, and soon the city would be lost for good.

“So,” Joker began, stealing a glance to make sure Seela wasn’t listening in. “You and an Elite, hm?”

“Yeah,” the Major replied, his tone neutral.

“A whole night with an alien must have been quite the experience,” Joker continued. “You both seem more than acquainted.”

“We worked well together,” the Major said, looking at him, then back at the road.

“Well enough to be on a first name basis,” Joker noted. “You improving interspecies relations, Sir?”

“What are you getting at?” the Major asked.

“I think you know what,” Joker said, holding the Major’s gaze when he glanced over. Joker’s visor was reflective, but he had an inkling the clown had a stupid smile on his face behind the helmet.

“Ready yourselves!” Seela said, her raised voice snapping the two into action. “On the left, aircraft!”

The Major looked through the windshield to where she was pointing, his eyes tracking a pair of Covenant aircraft swooping over the canyons. These were single-occupant, propulsion fighters, with a rounded nose and a pair of wing canards which terminated in small gravity drives. The fighters were small, six meters from nose to tail, but they were packed with firepower and were more manoeuvrable than the standard human fighter craft.

The Banshees soared low across the park, flying perpendicular to where they were driving. Seela turned her gun on them, tracking their progress, but refraining from pulling the trigger, as it didn’t seem like they’d been spotted yet.

“They’re going straight to the evac!” Joker said. “Heads up Holiday,” he added, patching into the channel. “You got Banshees moving in your direction.”

That wasn’t all the Covenant had, however. Following the Banshees at a distance was a Phantom, painted over in the same purple colour that was present on every Covenant dropship, the only difference being the alien symbol decaled onto the nose.

“It’s him,” Seela growled, turning the chain gun on the flying dropship. “This is no stray patrol.”

As if to confirm her words, the Phantom banked in their direction, its nose dipping as it picked up speed. He could make out the pair of guns bristling from its belly swivel on their gimbals, tracking their Warthog.

“What does she mean, it’s ‘him’?” Joker asked, pulling back the bolt on his rifle in preparation.

“She’s being hunted by this Brute leader,” the Major explained. “That’s his dropship. Seela do me a favour and bring that thing down for good.”

“With pleasure.” She opened up on the approaching dropship, a stream of tracer rounds connecting the barrel to the aircraft’s signature decal, the Major’s helmet dulling the roar of the mounted Vulkan gun. The Phantom rolled away, sparks flying off its hull, its chin-mounted turret rocking back into its housing as it returned fire. Unlike before, he and Seela now had a weapon that could penetrate its armour, the Phantom’s pilot aware of the fact as it pulled out of its charge.

The trail of plasma bolts cut through the road ahead of the Warthog, the Major swerving the truck out of the way, Joker lurching in his seat as he pulled a rough turn.

“We got more Banshees nine o’clock!” Joker warned, pointing his rifle over the Major’s helmet.

From roughly the same direction the Phantom had appeared, another pair of Banshees flew into view, banking their noses down in a dive. He could hear their gravity drives scream as their pilots gunned the propulsors, the Covenant dropship pulling back to give them a clear shot.

The leading Banshee fired the fuel rod cannon mounted on its chin, the bright green bolt falling to the road like a comet. The Major pulled the wheel hard, narrowly avoiding the resulting blast by a couple of meters, the Warthog lifting onto two wheels by the shockwave.

“Can you keep us steady?” Joker complained, shouldering his battle rifle as he took aim at the retreating Banshee. The weapon was semi-automatic, the recoil jumping in his arms as he tagged it with armour piercing rounds. The bullets ripped into one of the wings, severing it near the middle of the length, the aircraft listing as it swooped high into the air.

The second Banshee was readying its own dive bomb, but Seela was ready for it, the chain gun making the truck shake as she opened up on it, the thin armour on the aircraft’s nose breaking apart, flames seeping out of the fuselage as it plunged to the ground, detonating like a grenade as it smashed into one of the rockwalls on the right.

“I’m starting to become partial to Heretic weapons!” Seela said, seemingly enjoying herself as she watched pieces of the ruined Banshee roll down the slope.

She turned the Vulkan on the Phantom, but the pilot wasn’t taking any chances after the Banshee’s demise, dipping behind a canyon and breaking line of sight with Seela’s gun.

The second Banshee returned for another pass, the Major swerving out of the way as it sent a stream of plasma down at them. It was flying so low that they could have reached out and touched its hull as made a pass over the Warthog. Joker and Seela spun round to track it, Joker twisting his torso slightly as he strafed it with bullets, catching the other wing and breaking that apart too, the aircraft delving into a spiral as it plummeted to the ground behind them.

“One for me,” Joker said, ejecting the mag on his rifle and slapping in a fresh one.

“Surely you jest?” Seela exclaimed over the roaring engine. “I shot it more times than you did.”

“Hey I took out both its wings, that makes it my kill.”

“Both of you stow it,” the Major snapped, pointing ahead of them. “You’ve both got plenty of chances to rack up your kills!”

Rounding the next bend, they came across a small expanse, the canyons spreading apart to make an oval-shaped clearing. There was a building off to one side, presumably a tourist centre, and in the carpark surrounding it was a group of Grunts, plus a few Jackals. They were lingering around a pair of Ghosts, the vehicles sitting idly on the concrete. The squat aliens seemed to be taking a nap, and they jumped out of their skins as the Warthog closed in, Seela spinning up the chain gun as she took aim.

The Major pulled the Warthog into a continuous drift, circling the group of Covenant in a clockwise direction, giving Joker an open line of fire. He peered down the scope as he unloaded round after round at the aliens, the methane tanks the Grunt’s wore splitting apart to spill their collected gases. It was like a shooting gallery, made all the more chaotic as Seela pulled the trigger on her mounted gun, her sights trailing from the Jackals to one of the idle Ghosts, cutting a line through the alien ranks.

She riddled the smooth hull of the Ghost with bullets, leaving craters in the plating, blue-coloured flames leaking from the damaged seams. Her rounds must have tagged some vital system, the vehicle soon exploding in a cloud of smoke, shrapnel raining down on the Covenant and sending the ones closest to the blast flying.

The Major saw one of the Grunts push aside a panicking Jackal to climb into the remaining Ghost, the engines lining the belly of the vehicle igniting. The Ghost rose off the ground, as though an invisible force was pushing it away from the dirt and grass.

The thrusters on its skirt ignited, the craft pivoting until the forward-facing cannons on its nose were aiming at their Warthog. It peppered their truck with two continuous streams of plasma, the bolts of gas splashing against the windscreen and the front tires, the Ghost starting to mirror the Warthog’s drift.

The windscreen broke apart, the glass melting in the upper corner, but the Warthog was designed to take punishment, the Major gunning the engine and initiating another turn to try and through off the Ghost’s aim.

“Take that Ghost out!” he ordered, reaching up to wipe the frame clear of glass, shards raining down onto his lap.

Seela swivelled the mounted gun on the Covenant vehicle, the Ghost sliding over the ground without any hint of friction, like a giant floating hockey puck. Tracer rounds filled the gap between the circling vehicles, Seela catching the Ghost on one of its skirts. The craft crashed against its own inertia, tipping onto its side, the Grunt pilot spilling out to fall to the dirt. Seela cut it down with a short burst of fifty-calibre rounds.

Joker had mopped up the rest of the Covenant with his rifle, leaving the carpark a bloody mess of ruined vehicles and fallen aliens. The Major swerved the Warthog round the massacre, the suspension sagging as they drove over a bump, moving down a path leading out of the clearing.

“Alright you definitely got more kills than I did,” Joker admitted. “I’ll give you that, even though you’ve got the bigger gun.”

“That sounds like a you problem, Jester,” Seela replied.

“It’s Joker,” he corrected. “You wanna swap seats? It’s a lot harder to aim without a stabiliser and Major shortshift over here who can’t drive straight.”

“Anyone got eyes on the Phantom?” the Major asked, ignoring his squad mate’s words. His chair shifted on its springs as they drove up and over a crest, the road bending to the left.

“No, but I can hear it,” Seela answered. “The Brutes linger, they want to see where we go, or perhaps they await reinforcements.”

“We’re going to lead them straight to the evac point,” Joker warned.

“Haven’t got a choice,” the Major replied. “We can’t wait around, we’ll just get overrun. Best bet is to just get outta here.”

For a few minutes they were left alone, Joker slotting a fresh mag into his rifle, Seela pulling back the loading bolt on the chain gun. She kept her eyes to the sky as they crested another hill, Covenant spaceships filling the clouds as more cruisers began to jump in, disgorging Phantoms and Banshees from their docking bays. There had to be thousands of Covenant aircraft up there by now.

“At least you got the data in the end,” Joker muttered, his helmet angled upward. “Don’t know how it’ll help us wipe out these alien freaks, present company excluded, but here’s hoping.”

“ONI wouldn’t send us out here if it wouldn’t make a difference,” the Major replied.

“Yeah, well, data or not, that’s a lot of alien ships in Earth’s atmosphere.”

They took another turn through the canyons, and then their vision opened up, a giant unimpeded view of the ocean spreading out before them. The dirt road sloped down towards a beach, soil and grass giving way to sand and shallow water. The clearing was dotted with tall pine trees, and the Major could see figures standing behind them, rifles trained at the road as they took up firing positions.

Sitting in the middle of the strip of water was a Navy patrol boat, the radar dish on its roof spinning gently. There was a mounted Vulkan gun on its prow, nearly identical to the one on the Warthog, a human standing behind it clutching the handles. He could see a few figures moving inside the raised cabin where the pilot would stand, its roof sprinkled with antennae and other sensory equipment.

There were about ten figures surrounding the boat, the Major recognising the signature green armour used by the common Marine. They looked antsy, but they lowered their weapons as he pulled the Warthog to a stop nearby. They soon raised them again, however, when they noticed Seela manning the gun.

“Marines!” the Major shouted, vaulting out of the truck and removing his helmet, raising his voice so all could hear him. “I am Major Dawson, ONI, and unless you want me to have a strong word with your superiors, you will stand down! This Elite is not to be harmed, she’s carrying vital intelligence on the Covenant’s plans, intelligence that’s beyond your pay grades.”

At the mention of ONI, the Marines got the message, lowering their guns while giving Seela exasperated, if suspicious looks. She stepped off the flatbed, the Warthog’s suspension rocking, standing by the Major’s side and giving him a confident nod, wary to keep her hands clear of her sword and carbine. He might not see her as a threat, but Marines had been trained to shoot Elites and ask questions later.

“Welcome back to the living, Major,” one of the soldiers present said. It was Holiday, her lighter variant of specialist armour giving her away. Her synthetic arm whirred as she offered him a handshake, the Major noting it was scorched near the elbow joint. “See you’ve been busy,” she added, nodding towards Seela. “And that Joker wasn’t… joking. Suppose we’ll get at least something out of this mission.”

“That and more,” he replied, giving the data drive a pat. “Copied the Superintendent’s data, that’s a wrap in my books.”

“Then let’s get the hell out of this city,” she said. She turned to the rest of the onlooking troops, raising her voice. “Marines, back on the boat, we’re-”

The report of a plasma cannon drowned out her words, the Brute leader’s Phantom appearing over the hill and banking to the side, its ventral doors wide open. A Grunt manning the side turret in the bay hammered their position with plasma fire, the specialists and the Marines diving for cover as the beach was strafed.

One of the trees stood in the way of the barrage of plasma, the wood severing near the base, the trunk listing with a loud snap. Seela launched towards the Major as it began to fall, pulling him close and shielding him with her body before he could even think, the trunk bouncing harmlessly off her back.

“Thanks,” he said, Seela nodding as she hauled him to his feet. As the Marines turned their rifles on the dropship, the Major noted the boat had been its target. A line of plasma had scorched it from prow to stern, the glass canopy on the driver’s cabin slagging in on itself. He watched as a pair of Marines leapt off the bow, and not a second too soon, licking fires blooming from one of the rear compartments, what must have been the fuel tank cooking off.

As the men emerged from the water, wading back to shore, he noticed one of them was a specialist. It was Rebar, the man clutching a sniper rifle in his hands. Wiping his visor clear, he levelled the long barrel of the rifle, aiming up at the circling Phantom. There was a loud bang as he pulled the trigger, the Major just able to catch the contrail of the round as it lanced into the sky, hitting the door gunner right between the eyes, the Grunt falling into the water with a splash.

“You good, Rebar?” the Major called out, his counterpart giving him a curt nod.

“Better than our ticket out of here. Instruments are fried, she’s dead in the water, literally.”

“Call in another one,” he ordered, Rebar nodding as he put a finger to his helmet. The chorus of gunfire began to recede, the Phantom falling back after making its initial pass, the decal on its nose catching the light as it pivoted. It dropped low over the canyons they’d driven in from, the unmistakable silhouettes of Brutes filling the troop bay as it neared the ground.

“What do we do, Sir?” one of the Marines asked, directing his question at the Major. As the highest-ranking officer around, they were looking to him for leadership.

“Form a firing line, Marines,” he shouted, his tone commanding as he pointed. “Navy’s sending us another boat, and we’re gonna hold here until they arrive. Rebar, status?”

“Replacement’s on the way,” Rebar answered. “ETA: not soon enough. Ten minutes.”