Leonis Minoris III
September 2537
"We're gonna get you out of here, okay son?" Harbin gripped Tyler's shoulder. They were in the only surviving evac transport, with the remains of the company. Dozens of other wounded lay across the floor of the hangar. They had completed their objective, but Leonis Minoris II and III were a lost cause. Soon, the evac ships would RZ with the fleet, and they would get the hell out of here. He watched as Leonis Minoris III was burned to cinders by Covenant cruisers in high orbit. It was oddly beautiful to watch, like sharks descending on prey with that angular beauty. Lances of red and orange fireworks danced from the tips of the bulbous carriers, and blobs of purple flew like sparks from a campfire as smaller corvettes set fire to the forests and wildlife. He had seen it a dozen times. Billions dead. Nearly uninhabitable planets.
Harbin tried to get his mind off of the thousands left to die. He took off his helmet and looked at his reflection in the faceplate. Scars and burns crisscrossed his gray, pale face. Sidious decided at that moment to chime up from his black box on Harbin's back. "It isn't your fault sir. There's... there's nothing we can do." The AI tried to console him, but the machine's kind words didn't relieve the Captain of his guilt.
He picked up the shotgun and dismembered it, cleaned it, and then reassembled the weapon. It reminded of him of the one he had used to kill the cattle on his family's farm, back on Earth. He hadn't seen them in years. Captain Harbin closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He lay down and fell asleep.
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Lieutenant Andrew Harbin ran. The Brute roared, and raised the giant hammer in its hands. The cudgel hit the ground, releasing a shock wave that sent Andrew and Captain Riley to the ground. Riley turned and emptied an entire magazine into the beast, but it still kept coming.
"Run!" Harbin fired his own weapon at the alien, and reinforced armor absorbed the 7.62mm AP rounds. How in the hell was it sill standing?
A second shock wave sent him flying another twenty meters away, and he landed in the dirt, hard. Harbin screamed, but he got up and kept running. Riley's tactical waypoint slowly began to stop on the Lieutenant's HUD. Then, it completely disappeared.
There was no time for mourning, however, and Harbin leaped over the barricade into the Marine bunker. Weapons roared, and pelted the Brute Chieftain with lead. Energy shields repelled the bullets, and then, the alien smashed the barricade aside and uttered a battle cry. Harbin drew a pistol and fired, round after round. It kept coming.
Suddenly, a huge figure jumped out from cover. The seven foot tall figure jammed a knife into the side of the Brute's head, and ripped off the alien's arm. A second figure tore out of the bunker at lighting speeds, and caved the Brute's face in with a shard of rebar. As the two killing machines came to a stop, Harbin saw them for what they really were: Huge, 7 foot tall men wearing dented brown combat armor. "Whoa..." His jaw was on the floor. "What the..."
"It's alright soldier. We're gonna get you out of here."
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Harbin woke up, and looked around. The vivid memory had shaken him up a bit, and he unconsciously shivered. No longer was he on the floor of the evac ship. He was in the seat of a Pelican dropship. Some ODSTs from his platoon were sitting in the seats, some asleep, others cleaning weapons, still others just sitting.
The dropship rumbled, shook, and Harbin felt the docking clamps attach to the plane. The Captain felt a sickening lurch as the craft rotated and backed into the Everest. The blood tray opened, and the gunmetal gray of deck plate reflected the overhead work lights. A maintenance crew ran up to the battered Pelican and examined the various dents and scratches in the gray hull.
"Looks brand new, Cooks." One of the techs smiled at the pilot through the cockpit.
"And I just had her washed..." The pilot chuckled. The troopers in the bay laughed with him. The Captain was not so cheery. The battle had taken its toll. Twenty troopers dead defending dead evac transports with dead people on board. Dead. Dead. Dead. Millions lost. Only one thousand saved. One thousand of five million. And they had taken how many with them? Ten thousand? It hardly balanced the scales. It never would.
Harbin stepped off the blood tray. He, A/1, and E/3, stepped onto the service elevator, and Stacker hit the control for the bridge. The doors shut, and locked together. The gray metal box dropped like a rock, and the Captain instinctively reached for acceleration controls. Then he realized that the elevator was not a HEV.
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"Damn."
Admiral Cole leaned on the rail of the bridge.
"Well... what should we do, Admiral?" The Admiral stared at the Captain's black, faceless visor.
"You know, there was a reason why it was called the Revolutionary War."
"Excuse me, sir?" Harbin raised an eyebrow behind his helmet.
"The American Revolution of the late 1700's." Sergeant Stacker nodded at Cole. "You should study Earth History, sir."
"On to the point. General George Washington was one of the first men in the war to ever use guerilla warfare. He sent snipers into the wilderness to take out British army officers as they moved north. Three hundred against ten thousand. And they did it. The British leadership was decimated. The army was disorganized and led by lower ranking officers. In the end, the Americans won."
"How does this relate to the situation, sir?" The Captain inquired.
"We use hit and run tactics to take out the Covenant leaders," The Admiral's face became stone cold. "Then, when they're disorganized, we move in for the kill."
"Sir, we have thirty ships against their sixty. Respectfully... I don't see how we can win." Private Tyler coughed and clutched his hip.
The bridge crew remained at their stations, cycling through sensor stations. The last evac transport entered slipspace, bound for Reach. The bridge deck was silent or a moment, until Cole spoke.
"I think it is quite obvious. We use you."
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The Savannah fired the MAC at the cruiser. The shields of the Covenant ship flickered. The Io fired, and took the shields down. Four remote-piloted Longswords strafed the ship, dropping what looked to be large bombs. However, inside these bombs, were the craziest, the most insane men in the galaxy. The 'bombs' crashed into the ship, near the center. Squads were sent to investigate why the 'bombs' had not gone off.
Several Jackals aimed pistols and rifles at several of these egg-shaped bombs. Smoke trailed from the corners of the 'bombs', and square chunks blasted from the front of the bombs. None of the investigators survived.
Captain Harbin, along with A/1, E/3, A/3 and A/4, exited the HEVs that had landed all around the very center of the ship. He drew his M90, and heard the rest of A/1 draw their weapons. They rounded a corner, and saw E3 round the corner on the other side. A door was in the center of the wall on Harbin's left. He waved them forward, and signaled a breach maneuver. The door opened into a wide corridor, big enough for the two squads to pass four at a time. At the end of the hall, there was another door.
"Move up. Flank the door, and wait for my signal." The Captain whispered. The two squads lined up on either side of the door, and the Captain in between, farther back several meters. He raised the M90 at the center of the door, and crouched on the purple grating. Harbin raised his hand, and pushed it forward.
One of the techs from E/3 placed a datapad on the door and tapped in the override code Sidious had come up with. Harbin made sure his helmet cameras were recording all of this, and he nodded at the tech.
The door slid open.
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"Ah, logoba!" The Ship Master yelled when he saw the humans in the passage. He drew his energy sword, and roared. The humans opened fire, and killed his bridge crew before they could get out of their seats.
They opened fire on him, and his shields failed. Rounds tore into him, and he fell to one knee. The humans approached the dying Elite, and one aimed a shotgun at his head. However, the Ship Master had one final gift to the world. It was his funeral, and he wanted a pyre.
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"Grenade!" Harbin tackled the ODSTs behind him, and they all tumbled to the deck below the command platform. The gold armored bastard had a plasma grenade! It detonated, and the command platform exploded in a hail of fire and shrapnel.
"One down, 59 to go." He grumbled and stood up. "Everyone okay?"
A chorus of weary "Aye, aye"s answered him. "Sidious, any idea if the bridge is salvageable?" Harbin said to the AI.
"No, I am afraid not. Although, this most recent outing has confirmed that the bridge of Covenant ships is in the center, as otherwise unknown."
The Captain sighed, licked his parched lips, and paced around the purple floor of the cruiser. "Sergeant Vilok, any luck on evac?" He said into the radio.
"Sir, we've found a Spirit in one of the hangars. But you might want to--" A burst of plasma fire was answered by the rattle of an MA5B. "You might want to get here quick. Things are gettin' a bit hairy!"
"Roger. We are on our way."