Chapter 4
October 25
Camp Artemis, Miridem III
2537
"Tell ya', they have the place bugged."
"Pops, if they had cameras in the barracks, they'd have caught you smoking these," the young Private tapped the sergeant's cigar, "long ago."
Harbin sat in a dimly lit room, with several bunks along the walls. He had joined some Marines after they had invited him to cards. Ammo crates were stacked on top of each other to craft makeshift chairs. In a central aisle, four soldiers and the Captain dealt out cards. In a corner, a man of about forty played an old acoustic guitar and smoked a Sweet William. Harbin learned this man was 'Pops', the Private in front of him was 'Nickel', and the two Corporals to his left and right were 'Dime' and 'Quarter'. Next to Dime was 'Dollar'.
"Oh, well," Quarter's soft but deep voice rang. He threw a chip into the center of a group of barrels and crates. "Ante up."
Dollar brushed a strand of black hair out of her rough face.
"Yeah, yeah. We're not rookies." She mused.
"I am," Harbin announced. "I've never played this..." He searched for the right words.
"Poker." Dime had light blue eyes and golden hair, with a fair face and a long scar from his ear to the tip of his chin. "By the way, my name's actually Daemon." Dime stretched out his hand, and Harbin took it.
Nickel proceeded to explain the rules to him. "You can fold whenever you like. If you get a bad hand, go ahead. Just remember, you don't get a refund. Ha."
Harbin hoped to get some information out of the troopers. He was still pondering why there was such a big military operation going on here. It looked more than it seemed. More than simple R&D.
Quarter put four cards on the table, and gave one to each person. He did this twice more, and on the third card, he flipped it over. Harbin was given a two headed thing with a Q in the top right and bottom left corner. He turned over his other cards, and saw a mostly blank card with two A's, again both in the corners.
"You've got an ace, a ten and a Queen. You should definitely bet. That's a straight flush coming along." Dollar leaned over and whispered into his ear.
In an obvious effort to start conversation, Nickel threw his chip in and started talking to the Captain.
"So, Captain... We've heard that you, uh, took a whole fleet on your own. It sounds like BS, respectfully, but hey, you're the one who lived it. What happened?"
"Well, I didn't actually take out the whole fleet. Just the head honcho Cole couldn't handle. We kept 'em off the third colony in the system long enough to allow the civvies to evacuate." Harbin replied, and picked up a red, flat circle, and threw it in the pile.
"Pretty insane if you ask me. Glad I'm not an ODST." Nickel took the card Quarter offered him.
"Sometimes I wish I wasn't one," Harbin sighed. "The pressure can be too much every once in a while, y'know?"
Nickel shrugged and breathed deeply. He reminded the Captain he was just a regular ol' Marine, nothing special. Pops looked up when his cohort said this, and squinted at the Private. Nickel leaned his head closer to his cards.
"What is it?" Harbin asked. The ODST had a bad feeling about this.
"Nothing, just..." Nickel squirmed.
"Just what, trooper?" Harbin raised an eyebrow.
"Not at liberty to say, sir." Nickel bit his lower lip, and a trickle of blood ran down his chin and neck. The tension in the room was palpable.
"This base..." Harbin let that hang in the air.
"Isn't what it seems." Pops finished. The smell of sweat and grime grew more stifling every second, A duo of flies rammed repeatedly into a light swinging from the ceiling like a pendulum. A Marine leaned on a crate, rocking back and forth, back and forth. The Captain felt all eyes on him. Which, they probably were.
Harbin whispered so slowly and softly everyone strained to hear him. "ONI."
"Hit the nail on the head." Pops sighed and blew smoke rings from his Sweet William. "We don't know all the details, but..." He licked his dry lips. "Those poor, dirty bastards found something, and they're scrambling like monkeys for bananas to get it. And slitting a few throats while they're at it, so I hear."
That explains that, Harbin thought. Though exactly what 'that' was still eluded him.
"Hence the armor, the vehicles, heavy weapons, you name it." Dime added.
They remained sitting in a silence for a while.
"Office of Naval Intelligence," Dollar cut the silence. "More like Office of Narcissist Idiots, if you ask me." Her pale green eyes blinked.
That brought the mood back up. They started playing again. Harbin learned three new things that night. First, and most important, he now knew the true purpose of this base. Second, he the backstories of these caring compadres were revealed. Thirdly, he would need to trust them to find out the nuggets of detail that 'true purpose' entailed.
Dime was born on Biko. He escaped when he and his family were saved by Marines who found them. It inspired him, his brothers, and his father to join the military. They were insurance brokers. Dime had learned the family trade, and Harbin thought he might be useful in the days ahead.
Nickel was the youngest of the squad, joining the military (with his parent's signature) at the age of 16, leaving his home on Mars to fight the alien onslaught. His black hair was short and shaved, and he had a beard going. It, however, would soon need to be cut, thanks to 'unfortunate' regulations. His real name was Nicholas.
Dollar's entire family had been wiped out in the glassing of Green Hills. She signed up in 2531, after being fed up with horribly tragic reports of death tolls in the millions. With hope and pointless propaganda in her heart, she cleared through boot camp.
Quarter was huge. At least two and a fifth meters tall and at 250 pounds of rippling muscle, he was easily the largest on the team. With a record of 150 confirmed career kills(not to mention 68 more unconfirmed), he was the best sniper the Captain had ever heard of... and also almost fatally wounded by a plasma mortar on Falaknuma. His left leg was metal and circuits. The behemoth made no attempt to cover it with false flesh.
Pops was drafted in the Insurrection, and later bumped up to the Marines when the Covenant attacked. Harbin could get no more out of him. These men and women had seen action, and now they were getting repaid with what seemed to be simple shore leave on temperate Miridem...
Chapter 6 - Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
October 30
Pelican dropship inbound to surface of Falatea VIII
2000 hours
Sergeant Vilok pulled the bolt back on his MA5B. The magazine on the back was filled with high velocity shredder rounds. He checked that his suit was airtight, sealing his and Harrison's oxygen tanks. The surface of Falatea was toxiccarbon dioxide was sprayed into the air from refineries to heat the surface in preparation for terraforming. Six other Pelicans and several HEV pods dropping from above completed Gamma Company. The ODSTs were assigned to guarding the one thing that was important on the ball of rock and metal and timefuel.
In the late 22nd century, man had stopped burning polluting and inefficient fossil fuels and started using pressurized hydrogen to power their vehicles and homes. Falatea was rich in hydrogen, with a huge sun glaring red hot in the system center. Pumps extracted hydrogen in its liquid form deep beneath the surface. Factories processed this and prepared it for off world shipping. Hundreds upon hundreds of fragile pipelines carried the liquid up to the top. They all had to quickly reach the surface, or the pressure on the gas would not release, keeping it from expanding and liquifying.
"Dropping the hatch in 5!" The pilot announced, swinging the chin gun around and searching for targets. With a muffled pop, the back door unsealed. A dome filled with oxygen lay beneath the drop ship. This was the center where the hydrodgen was shipped and processed, and where the workers lived. Vilok's squad was to detonate the facilities if the inbound Covenant broke the line at the pumps. It was likely the aliens would attempt to bomb and break the dome, so everyone wore oxygen tanks and sealed pressure suits.
An airlock cycled the three Pelicans defending the factories down into the solar-plated dome. At the other planets in the hydrogen-rich system, Alpha, Beta, Epsilon, and Delta companies were doing similar jobs. In the skies above, Cole's fleet circled, waiting to return.
The Covenant had entered the system, dropped troops, and fought a skirmish with the UNSC for a brief few minutes. After that, they bugged out, presumably to return with reinforcements to combat the overwhelming humans.
"Iring, you got point. Harrison, cover the six. Everyone else, Diamondback formation."
Vilok gave orders as the Pelican lifted off to cover the ODSTs at the pumps. A diamond shape of soldiers formed between Harrison and Iring.
The squad covered the ground to the first factory in minutes. Inside, hundreds of pipes crossed and laced themselves on the floor, ceiling and walls. Valves and switches decorated the steel. Bringing up a schematic on his HUD, Vilok located the major systems and locations they needed to wire and blow. Closest to him was a set of hydraulic pistons in a side room. Threading their way through the jungle of shining metal, the squad located the door and pushed it open. Harrison laid down the C-12 on a likely-looking seal and wired it to a movement trip detonator, back several hundred meters from the hydrogen pumps and made to detonate if any non-IFF equipped mass came over the line.
Many similar targets were set to go off inside the factory, including a barrel-like container that cooled the gas as it came up from under the ground. The Covenant would be in for a nasty surprise.
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