- Mr Evil 37
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- Exalted Mythic Member
"Pilot's alive. Unconscious. Possibly injured. Go check on him."
Connor immediately climbed onto the wrecked fuselage of the Hornet, being careful to stay low and within the smoke to avoid getting shot at. Reilly activated his long range comm. inside his helmet, while setting about the horrific task of searching Scott's mangled remains for anything of use.
"This is Reilly," he said into the comm. "We're at the crash site. The pilot is alive, repeat, alive. Requesting immediate evac."
While waiting for a response, he retrieved Scott's MA5C assault rifle, checked the magazine and attached the rifle to the magnetic clip on the back of his armour. He then rummaged through the dead man's pockets, trying not to look at the cold lifeless face, and found a lone fragmentation grenade.
All Reilly heard in reply was static.
"This is Reilly, come in," he said again. "Come in!"
More static.
"You gotta be kidding!" Connor yelled from up in the cockpit, while he tended to the wounded pilot.
"This storm must be interfering with our long range comm.," Reilly stated matter-of-factly.
Reilly then found something inside Scott's pocket that killed him inside. It was a small, dirty photograph of a beautiful young woman holding a tiny baby in her arms. Next to the mother and child was the tall figure of Scott, almost unrecognisable from the huge smile across his face.
Connor came back down from the fuselage, muttering curses under his breath; curses at the radio, at the crashed Hornet and at the Covenant themselves.
Reilly simply held up the photograph to Connors helmet. Reilly could imagine that inside that silver visor the annoyance on his face was being immediately replaced by sorrow and regret.
"Oh God, no..." he said trailing off.
Reilly blinked a small tear out of his eyes, invisible to Connor inside his helmet, and ejected the magazine for his SMG before speaking.
"That," he said, pointing to the remains of Scott. "That will not happen to that pilot."
Connor's helmet simply nodded in grim agreement, as he quickly reloaded his sniper rifle and took up cover to Reilly's right.
"How is the pilot?" Reilly asked as he slapped a new magazine into his SMG and began aiming down the street.
"Still out of it. Leg looks broken, but he's not trapped so he'll be easy to move."
Connor then fired his sniper rifle, the shot causing the methane tank on a Grunt to burst in blue flame. Reilly responded with two bursts from his SMG, dropping two Grunts and a Jackal.
The Covenant were growing in numbers now. From out of the sand more and more Grunts and Jackals appeared, a hail of plasma fire burning and fizzing on their cover.
Connor unleashed another sniper round. Reilly followed the trail only to find a spurt of purple blood and a dead Brute lying on the floor. Reilly fired burst after burst of his M7, dropping Grunts and Jackals all over the place.
Two Brutes suddenly appeared out of nowhere a few feet in front of the two ODSTs, their jetpacks deactivating as they landed. They began firing their Spikers. Superheated metal spikes sliced through their cover and the fuselage above them, forcing Reilly and Connor to duck.
Connor began firing his silenced M6S pistol blindly at the Brutes, to no effect. Reilly acted on instinct and fished out the frag grenade from Scott's pocket. He armed it and lobbed it over his cover at the Brutes.
Three.
Two.
Boom.
So much for three second fuses, Reilly thought. Both ODSTs brought their weapons up again, opening fire on the Covenant. The explosion had blasted arms off the two Brutes. The remains of aliens were slumped on the dry, sandy ground, a pool of purple blood slowly oozing out.
The barrage of suppressed muzzle fire from Reilly's SMG was almost inaudible over the tumult of the sandstorm, coupled with the booms of Connors sniper rifle and the fizz of plasma.
Reilly then heard a noise he had not expected. High pitched yelling and moaning was coming from behind them, inside the wreckage of the Hornet.
The pilot, Reilly thought with worry.
"Connor!" Reilly yelled, throwing his SMG to the other ODST. "Cover me!"
Connor looked around as he heard the moaning, acknowledging it, but quickly returned to the fight with two cracks of the sniper rifle in quick succession. Two Brutes fell instantly. He then dropped the rifle and let off a burst with the M7.
While his team mate held off the overwhelming Covenant forces, Reilly climbed the rubble carefully until he reached the cockpit of the Hornet. Partially buried under rock, the glass shattered and broken, Reilly could see the pilot raising a blood soaked up into the air. The ODST quickly took hold of it tightly with his gloved hands.
"We're here," he said reassuringly. "We're gonna get you out of here."
Reilly used his other hand to retrieve his own M6S pistol, before placing it firmly in the hand of the pilot.
"We gotta hold them off," he waved to his left and right. "You see anyone come round these corners, you watch our backs, got it?"
The wounded pilot nodded, his helmet bobbing up and down. He slowly checked the pistol, making sure that it was loaded and ready to fire. But before Reilly could head back to cover, the pilot spoke in a quiet, croaky voice.
"What's your name?"
Reilly was momentarily taken aback by the question, especially considering their current situation. And yet he felt humbled in some way; the pilot wanted to know the names of the two people who were going to save him.
"Reilly," he said at last, before pointing to his squad mate. "That's Connor. You watch our backs, alright?"
The pilot nodded, quicker and more confident this time, as he raised the pistol above the wreckage of the Hornet cockpit. Reilly's mouth then acted without any input from his brain.
"Good luck."
He hadn't wanted to say it. He had wanted to reassure the pilot, to tell him that everything was going to be alright, that he was going to live. He had not wanted to emphasise the dire situation they were in. But his stupid mouth had acted before his brain could intervene.
Reilly forced the thoughts out of his mind, as he returned to cover. Connor immediately threw his M7S back.
"It's out," he said, before letting off a sniper shot.
"I don't have unlimited ammo, you know," Reilly retorted, irritated, as he slap a new clip onto his SMG.
"Yeah, that sure would have been handy," Connor replied, nodding in the direction the Covenant were coming from; down the street to the left of the one they had arrived from.
Connor was right. The Covenant now numbered in the dozens, the sand storm likely hiding more. Blue and green plasma cascaded out of nowhere, along with razor sharp purple needles and super heated spikes.
Two Grunts and Brute suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Reilly squeezed the trigger on his SMG. It bucked lightly in his arms, and the two Grunts fell. The ODST continued to empty the magazine into the Brute. The alien's energy shields flickered away with a flash, exposing the thick flesh.
Click, click, click, click, click, click. He was out of ammo already, and the Brute was almost right on top of him.
Suddenly there was a deafening crack, and the Brutes head exploded. Brain and skull fragments rained down on Reilly's black ODST armour.
"Thanks, man," Reilly said, shocked.
"No problem. Now get the hell up and help me kill some Covies," Connor said, as he fired another shot.
Reilly quickly snapped out of it, and got to his feet. He reloaded his SMG once more; he only had two more full magazines remaining. He fired off a burst, killing a Jackal, while Connor took down two Brutes with two well placed headshots.
Despite his grumpy and stubborn nature, Connor was the best marksmen Reilly had ever met. And it really showed. But after all this shooting he would surely be running out of ammo. They could not hold out for much longer.
The low rumbling of engines could be heard again overhead, before Connor, looking through his scope down the street, ducked.
"Incoming!" he yelled into his helmet comm.
Reilly instantly dropped to the floor, covering his head with his hands despite the fact that he was wearing a helmet. The engines grew from a low rumble to a high whine, when suddenly a huge green flash erupted out of nowhere right next to their cover. All sound was instantly drowned out and all he could hear was bells ringing as he raised his head.
The crack of Connor's sniper rifle sounded extremely far away and muffled inside Reilly's ears, and his own silenced SMG was completely inaudible. Two more Grunts fell by his hand as the silence persisted. Green plasma shot past his head, narrowly missing, before stopping instantly with another crack from Connor's rifle.
As sound began to rush back to Reilly's ears, deafening him for the briefest of moments, his SMG clicked empty again. He quickly reloaded, before he heard two high pitched squeals from behind him. He whizzed around, only to hear two muffled pings. The two Grunts instantly fell, as Reilly saw a hand with an M6S pistol poking out of the broken glass of the Hornet cockpit.
Thanks, Reilly thought; as he gave a brief thumbs up to the pilot, before returning to aim down the street.
More and more Covenant were pouring into the fray, as if the entire army wanted a piece of the action. The ODSTs continued to hold them off for a few minutes, but as ammo dwindled it became apparent that they would not be able to hold out for much longer. After trying again on the radio, and again getting nothing but static, Connor decided to take matters into his own hands.
"We aren't going to hold out for much longer like this," he said, before pointing over to the dilapidated buildings on his right. "I'm going to head over there and snipe these bastards. We need to thin their numbers, and I can't see crap from here. Cover me."