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Minutemen: Cronin Protocol Chap. 10
Posted By: Azrael<sherwood.tondorf@gmail.com>
Date: 3 November 2006, 7:01 am
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Minutemen: Cronin Protocol Chapter 10
South Station Refugee Camp Surveillance Hub
Evacuated city of Boston
Midway through Coveneant invasion of Earth
Afternoon
It's always funny when they fight, Specialist Hung Lam chuckled to himself as he called up the feed from a well-hidden surveillance camera. The image shifted from the top right of a large bank of screens into the middle, growing larger and sharper in detail. Lam took a satisfying sip of black coffee as the humorous scene unfolded for him alone. Two grunts were fighting in a deserted back alley near the ruins of Fenway Park, the scene bore a striking resemblence to an elementary school brawl. The two combatants were encircled by their comrades, all chanting in unison what Hung could only assume was "Fight!"
As one blue armored alien hit the pavement, a short tone sounded in the Asian Specialist's ear, which Lam quickly identified as Staff Sergeant Ron Parsons' COM channel. He quickly picked up.
"Lam, Parsons."
"I'm here," Hung answered, stifling a laugh as the victorious Grunt executed a near-perfect body slam on its bludgeoned opponent. "What can I do for you, sir?"
"This is going to sound odd, but...have you registered anything...I don't know...weird, recently?"
Hung looked back at the fight on screen and pushed it back into obscurity. "I would not categorize anything that occurs in this city as normal, Parsons."
The Staff Sergeant's voice sounded much more urgent than normal. Lam leaned forward and paid more attention. "I mean very out of the ordinary. Like signals coming out of nowhere, explosions, high unexplained enemy casualty rates..."
The light bulb turned on with a brilliant glow as the Minuteman smoothly rolled his chair across the surveillance room. He swiveled to bring himself closer to a bank of pulsing, beeping displays and grabbed a sheet of paper in his hands. "Well...now that you mention it..."
"Yeah?"
"I just started picking up this anamoly a couple hours ago."
"What do you mean?"
"The Cap wanted me to suppress all ULF transmissions in Boston. I couldn't suppress, but I was able to throw over a ULF web. Basically I put the whole city under a glass case."
"Go on."
"Well, while it blocked out all incoming transmissions, all outgoing messages originating in Boston kinda ricocheted inside the web until I intercepted it. The transmission isn't a message I can decipher, and it only lasts from half a second to five minutes."
"Lam, assume I have no idea what you're talking about. Why is that interesting?"
"It's not that the ULF transmissions are interesting, it's the fact that the same transmission comes on ultra-high frequency as well, the kind of frequency the Covenant use...and it doesn't behave like any kind of device I've ever detected."
"This is the part where you pause and explain why in normal-people terms."
The Specialist sighed. Sometimes he got really tired of having to dumb things down. It really did not do the discovery justice to use everyday terms. "Parsons, if you go from ultra-high to ultra-low, you have to at least stop over through the moderate ranges. But when the transmissions swing, it's like the signal kind of...I don't know...phases out, or something. It simultaneously hops over from one to the other. That's impossible."
"But it's occurring."
"For the better part of today; yes, sir."
"Where's the point of origin?"
Lam swiveled in his chair and called up a new screen on one of the dozen computers around him. A large map of Boston rotated, then zoomed in at a fantastic speed to a blinking green point framed and identified with small blue letters. Hung squinted at it. "UNSC facility. ID has it as 'Chawla.'"
"That's impossible."
"I feel like we've had this conversation."
"I'm holding a list of all UNSC facilities and installations. Chawla is not one of them."
Lam rolled his eyes. "You have a list of the all UNSC facilities that are accessible, sir. The Master Guns only wanted those. Chawla was off the list 'cause it's inaccessible."
"I don't have time for insinuation and nit picking, Lam. Can we get into it?"
A scrolling diagnostic list lit up the left side of the Asian Specialist's face. He scanned it and summarized. "The main entrance is sealed like a dam right now, but it probably has some well-hidden ventilation access." Hung performed a quick speed read and tried to verbally put forth the highlights. "It's an underground bunker, really well fortified, but..." Lam stopped and double-checked the next bit of information. It was not good news. "Fuck me running. Our recon lists Chawla as inaccessible due to the fact that it's directly underneath a very impressive Covenant camp."
"You're shitting me."
"Shit you not, sir."
"Can we access it?"
Hung frowned at a wide bank of seven screens above the diagnostic list before him. Multiple black-and-white images showed a robust scene of alien military might. The Asian Specialist cleared his throat. "They've got light artillery, mechanized infantry, and they're at least batallion strength, without reinforcements. If we stand a chance at slipping in, we'd need some very transparent soldiers."
Staff Sergeant Ron Parsons looked through the glass at the two captive Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, staring right back at him through the two-way mirror. "I need an 'all hands' transmission to on and off-duty officers, Lam. Get 'em to the debriefing room, and bring all your materials, too. Be ready to explain all of this over again. We need a strategy, and we need it yesterday."
The COM snapped off in the Specialist's surveillance room. Left alone in the flickering light of dozens of screens and data arrays, Hung jotted yet another urgent instant message to Corporal Tim McManus. The Asian tech expert finished the rest of his cold black coffee and swore aloud to no one in particular. "Son of a bitch," he said to the instant message screen, "where are you, McManus?"
Refugee Camp
The throat mike and COM unit had been hastily, almost disrespectfully, tossed aside and now lay on its side against the beige canvas of the tent wall. The sophisticated yet rugged device announced its existence with renewed vigor, a simultaneous signal vibrating and chirping in the slim black data pad across the room from it.
"If I wanted to talk to you, I would have picked up one of the past three times," Corporal Tim McManus said in a slightly groggy voice, reaching toward the data pad and brining it close to his face. The soft blue light of the instant message lit up his face in the relative darkness of the tent, illuminating a look of consternation and annoyance. "Fuck," he muttered to himself.
"Repeat after me," the gentle voice of an interrupted female came from McManus' side, "'Sir, I'm indisposed.'" Rachel Lynch propped herself up on one elbow, holding the sheet with her other hand just below her chin. She shot the sniper a slightly perturbed look as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and began to get dressed. "Try it out. I'll hold the microphone."
"Afraid it doesn't quite work that way, sweetheart." Tim responded, straightening his legs and tightening his belt as his redheaded partner grabbed a discarded shirt from the foot of the large glorified cot. As she slipped the ribbed cotton over her head, McManus came back to her, smiling a familiar comfortable smile, one they had traded back and forth for months. On his hands and knees, he leaned forward and kissed her softly, only to be drawn in with her two good hands for an additional forty-two seconds. As he reluctantly pulled away from her, they both saw clearly the look of love on each other's face. This, Corporal, Tim reminded himself, cannot be found anywhere else on Earth.
The COM unceremoniously butted into the moment, drawing another muttered curse word from McManus and a playful push from his girlfriend.
"One of these days I'm wrapping my arms around you and I'm not letting go." She stated, arms crossed over her healthy chest.
Tim chuckled. "Prove it, darlin'." With perfect muscle memory, the Minuteman fastened his throat mike and inserted his earpiece securely in his right ear. Then with gentle speed he put one hand behind the girl's head and allowed himself a moment of distraction as his fingertips passed impeccably smooth strands of deep red hair. McManus drew her head forward with care and pressed his lips against her forehead. She smiled silently and wished harder than ever that one day he would get the guts to ask the question every other militiaman seemed to be asking.
The rustle of cloth and metal filled the still air of the tent as the sniper made his way to the door. As he reached the exit, Rachel's voice met his ears and filled him with contentment and ease. "Tim, get back here safe."
McManus turned his head and winked. "Wouldn't have it any other way."
With that, he was gone. Rachel Lynch, the only person to watch the death of Jack O'Shea's wife, sat alone again in the dark. A chill ran up her spine and she found herself pleading with God to bring back the only person who gave her peace of mind. Please, he's all I have left.
Debrief Room
"The Covenant don't appear to be stopping until they puncture that bunker. That's the situation on the ground." Ron Parsons finished, standing straight and looking across the table to Gus Reynolds, the old veteran scrutinizing the live feed from Lam's data pads with almost feral intensity. Ron had taken seven minutes presenting the entire situation to the small collection of Minuteman officers in the room and each one, to a man, looked as if his dog had just been kicked.
Reynolds scratched his chin and glanced toward the two Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. Both elite soldiers stood tall and attentive, but betrayed a slight look of impatience. For the Mastery Gunnery Sergeant, it was relatively simple for him to realize what was going through their heads. They were men of action, and certainly hated the situation they were currently in. Gus continued to stare at the data and questioned the UNSC soldiers. "What advantages can you give us, Sergeant?"
The ODST Sergeant looked up and fixed his eyes on the side of the de facto Minuteman commander's head. "The enemy intends to hold that ground until they extract the objective," the Helljumper stated matter-of-factly, "but given your tactics against them, I don't think they anticipate any kind of attack. If you didn't know there's something valuable there, you wouldn't try to hit a location like that."
"But there is something there," a Corporal spoke up from the other end of the table, "and we do have to hit them. We need to decimate that position."
"Negative," Parsons piped up from his seat. "We don't have the capability to take a force that size, not without committing a number of ground troops we simply don't have. We have to continue to maintain a low profile in the city. The last thing we want is another battle like Commonwealth Ave." Heads around the room nodded in silent agreement. "We need to pull enough of their forces out of there so we can infiltrate, get to the objective, and extract before it gets too hairy."
Reynolds regarded the two black-clad soldiers as Parsons gave his analysis. Through his years of training and observation of how soldiers acted amongst their peers, he had noticed that nearly half of all communication was nonverbal. From what Gus could see, the two veteran special operations soldiers were listening intently, and judging from their forward-leaning posture, eager to get back into the game.
"Here's the way I see it," the Master Guns said, authority coming clearly from his tone and posture, "we don't stand a chance in going toe to toe with a force this size. But there's no other way to get into that facility than through those remote ventilation chambers behind their position, right, Lam?"
The tech specialist nodded, and Gus continued. "We're going to need to bring the Covenant out of the immediate area."
"Easy for us to say," another Minuteman said. "Even minor engagements with Covenant always lead to casualties. I won't ask my guys to mount a frontal assault on a fixed Covenant position."
"Even if it saves this city?" Parsons asked pointedly.
"Even if it saves this city." The Minuteman responded, glaring back at the Staff Sergeant.
"Less talk, more rock, guys." Everyone in the room, ODSTs included, turned to look at the figure entering the chamber. Tim McManus stepped into the room and tossed a data pad onto the surface. "I think we have a workable strategy."
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