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Minutemen: The Battle of Boston Chap. 9
Posted By: Azrael<tondorf@bc.edu>
Date: 25 January 2005, 12:12 PM
Read/Post Comments
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Minutemen: The Battle of Boston Chapter Nine
53rd Massachusetts Militia (Minutemen)
Evacuated city of Boston
Midway through the Covenant invasion of Earth
near dawn
For a second, Captain Jack O'Shea forgot about training, leading, fighting...even fear was wiped from his mind. For one second, Jack O'Shea was just tired. Tired of fighting this guerilla war, tired of death, tired of making the wrong decision, tired of coming back to a home that was nothing more than a glorified bunker. The highly charged green bolts of plasma came screaming through the air, lighting the night sky and illuminating the tired, battered faces of the Minutemen and Marines. In that second, Jack O'Shea welcomed the fuel rod cannon fire as a respite from his weary, war torn life.
But it was only a second.
"FRCs! Get the hell out of here!" The Captain yelled at the strange contingent of professional soldiers and militia. Needing no further encouragement, the security perimeter disintegrated, spreading out into an assortment of cover: overturned cars, Warthogs, and chunks of pavement disgorged from the battle served as shields for the bodies of weary soldiers. The Covenant fire hit the street where the men had been, making a noise like a growl on impact with the asphalt. The pavement cracked inwards, but to O'Shea's relief, the manhole was intact. They could still escape to safety as soon as everyone had made it back. Staring up the street, O'Shea realized it was going to harder than originally thought. He could see two medics desperately hustling down the street, carrying a Marine on a stretcher between them. Another wounded Marine lagged behind. As the fire began, the medics and walking Marine had to take cover inside a small bombed-out townhouse on the left side of the street. Now they were sealed in as the Covenant were advancing. They would never be able to break cover and make it to the manhole. Next to O'Shea, the Marine in command, a Gunnery Sergeant, saw the same scene. O'Shea sighted on the Covenant with his urban-camouflaged battle rifle. "Covies will be all over those medics if they keep coming this way." O'Shea said.
"Fuckers." The Gunny agreed. O'Shea felt the Marine look at him, and Jack knew what he was thinking.
"We don't leave them behind. Not alive."
"Good." The Marine CO nodded.
"We'll send a team to get 'em. Three o' yours, three o' mine." O'Shea offered.
"Agreed. Walsh! Grant! Bowman! Get those medics!" Three Marines broke cover and hustled up the left side of the street in a single-file line, guns pointed at the incoming Covenant. They were happy to get out of the hot zone.
O'Shea got up from his cover and signalled to two Minutemen. He was not about to order one of his own to do something he would not do himself. The Captain and the two Minutemen quickly caught up with the Marines and moved alongside them, weapons at the ready. O'Shea could feel the four fragmentation grenades bounce along his webbing below his flak jacket. Along with those, Master Gunnery Sergeant Gus Reynolds had given the Captain a red smoke grenade, "just in case," to signal for immediate assistance. The Captain did not want to use it. Each of the Minutemen behind O'Shea wore camouflage facepaint undearneath their helmets, and wore urban camouflage underneath advanced flak jackets.
Next to the Minuteman Captain, the UNSC Marines all wore the standard Titanium-A battle armor, carrying the bare minimum of accessories so they could get to the medics and back quickly. O'Shea had worn older models of the armor during his tours of duty as a Marine, and he knew it would do next to nothing against the Covenant's plasma weapons. Now was not the time to mention it, however.
The group moved in a leapfrog fashion: O'Shea and the two Minutemen would establish cover and stop as the Marines would move forward, the last Marine hitting O'Shea on the shoulder on his way past; the Marines would give the same cover to the Minutemen. They had been doing this for fifty meters when they finally reached Corporal Ron Parsons and Specialist Tim McManus. Both snipers were in the dark, prone behind buckled concrete. Ron Parsons S2 AM sniper rifle peeked out from undereath a small arch, indistinguishable from other scattered pieces of metal on the ground. O'Shea slid in beside the snipers. "Whadda we got?" He asked.
"Sir," Parsons said, his eyes transfixed on the scope, "eight Elites, 300 meters. They're sticking by those tanks on the right side of the street. Fatboys abound, there's about nine of them on the left side. They have one officer carrying a plasma rifle. He wasn't in my line of sight, sir, I didn't have shot."
"Copy that." O'Shea acknowledged. There was silence among the three militiamen. "How're you two holding up?"
"Ibanez is dead, sir. It's my fault. I wasn't looking-"
"I sent him, Corporal. He went. It's a fucking war zone, and people die. You will quit this 'woe is me' bullshit presently and cover your fellow militia, huah?" O'Shea didn't like talking like that to Parsons, but Jack knew what had happened and knew that Ron would respond to a forceful voice at this point, not a shoulder to cry on.
"Huah, sir. Won't let you down."
O'Shea nodded in confirmation, and a Marine scurried by, striking the Captain on the shoulder. "Put the fear in 'em, snipers." Jack said, and continued his journey.
The bombed-out townhouse was 100 meters from the sniper's position and 200 from the Covenant. The facade of the structure was crumbling, and the five stairs on the way to the front door were almost completely blocked by bricks and debris. The windows, three on either side of the door, were blown in, and O'Shea couldn't see if the stairs to the second floor weren't destroyed as well. There was only one way to find out.
O'Shea got into a small huddle with the other five soldiers on what was left of the street's sidewalk. All six soldiers had their backs to the street, covered completely by large piece of structure that had used to be part of an apartment building. "I'll take point as soon as we raise contact," O'Shea told the group, diagraming on the ground with his finger. "Marines, you clear the other rooms. If there's a second floor, clear that, too. Bring the medics with you and take up firing positions on the second floor if you can, we'll cover the first. There's about eight Elites and sixteen or so Grunts, six with heavy weapons." Everyone nodded along with the plan. O'Shea put his fingers to this throat mike, opening a COM channel. "Gunny, can you hear me?" O'Shea transmitted. The commanding Marine back at the manhole answered in the affirmative.
"Good, we're going to hide in that townhouse and let the Covenant pass us. As soon as they're past, we'll get 'em from both sides, move to you, and extract before that other group of Covies flanks us." O'Shea cut the transmission.
As if answering the question in O'Shea's mind, a Marine spoke up. "We can handle the tanks, sir," he said, and the three UNSC soldiers pointed to badges on their right shoulders. Each had a diamond-shaped, yellow and black patch that had what looked like a symbol for a U-turn on it. "We all aced the simulator." He explained. O'Shea's eyebrows arched.
"Cute stickers. Form up, on me."
"Hoo-rah," the Marines said in unison.
Inside the bombed-out townhouse, two medics glanced impatiently out the windows onto the street. In the middle of the room, one Marine lay on a stretcher, an IV in his arm, dripping fluids into his system. The other wounded Marine had passed out from exhaustion, but could be revived easily. The medics were not worried about their charges just yet, though. They feared the unknown outside. They feared the Covenant. The invaders would be on top of them in less than three minutes, and they didn't have the firepower to match the force that was marching down the street. Both medics looked down at their SMGs, then looked at each other. They were woefully ill-equipped. Both flinched when the COM channel opened up with a chirp, but only one answered. His shoulders sagged with relief. It was the Captain.
"Medics, is that townhouse clear?"
"Clear as we can tell, sir. It's the parade down the street we're worried about."
"How're the wounded?"
"One was able to move, he's combat effective, but not very mobile. It was hard enough for him to run in here."
"The other?"
"He needs proper medical attention, sir. Sooner rather than later. He may have internal injuries, but we won't know until we get underground. We have him on the stretcher."
"Understood, friendlies coming in. Don't fire unless fired upon."
"Copy."
Ten seconds after the transmission, Captain Jack O'Shea turned the corner into the townhouse. He came across the doorframe from the right and proceeded to the rooms on the left, battle rifle raised and sweeping across the area. The Marines behind him peeled off to the right, clearing the rooms. O'Shea noted there were only four rooms on the first floor: two facing the street and one set of stairs in between the two back rooms. Each room was crumbling, plaster was hanging off the ceiling, patches of singed wallpaper stubbornly stuck to the walls, many displaying cracks spidering in all directions. Some floorboards were missing, allowing a free look into the earthen foundation. Three of the four rooms were bare, either from looting or evacuation, and the fourth room held a kitchen with a single antique gas stove. O'Shea considered the explosive properties of the townhouse, then decided against it just as quickly. He still remembered the car bomb.
With memories of the car bomb came memories of the young Connor brothers, all but one lost today. Gerry, Michael, and Rory had all been excellent soldiers since the very beginning of the war. O'Shea identified with the last and oldest brother, Seamus, waiting with the rest of the Minutemen by the manhole. Both he and Seamus had lost just about everything to this war. Jack fought to keep his mind on the mission and not thinking of how much the construction of the house reminded him of his old house, the same house in which he had lost both his children to the Covenant. The images were swirling around his head, and the veteran Captain closed his eyes and willed the swirling to stop. He shook his head, focused on shoving his pain away. Jack was standing in his own city, but at this point, he had never felt farther from home. Just as quickly as all the images and sadness had entered, O'Shea's training rejected the emotions and brought him back to command. Now he was aware of every movement and sound, especially the Marines by the stairway.
"All clear down low," One Marine called out.
"Well, it's nice," another Marine said, his battle rifle pointed out a front window while he gazed around the townhouse, "...but how are the schools?"
"I think the Covenant bombed." One Minuteman replied, crouched by a window.
"Ha-ha! Good one!" A third unseen Marine replied. They cut the chatter when O'Shea walked in. The Captain was not an overly imposing figure, but his solid frame, battle rifle, and day-old stubble made him look as grizzled as any hard core ODST. Jack O'Shea removed his helmet briefly, revealing short brown hair with gray running through it. Glancing inside the helmet, he could see one picture dimly lit by the imminent dawn. His wife and two children looked back at him. He quickly re-donned the helmet. "Marines, secure upstairs. Coordinate with the snipers. I'm going to talk with the medics. Minutemen, hold the ground floor. When the Covenant get close, we'll relocate to the top."
"Huah," the two Minutemen replied. The Marines looked quizzically at each other, not understanding the Minutemen's exclamation, then moved upstairs.
The top floor of the townhouse was nothing more than two large rooms connected by a very short hallway at the top of the stairs. The first two Marines turned left and headed into one room while O'Shea and the other Marine turned right and almost knocked a medic over. Both of the medics looked on-edge and frazzled, and neither would have had their SMGs up in time had O'Shea been an Elite. Probably for the best, O'Shea thought. In their state, I'm surprised they didn't pop us as we came in anyway. O'Shea's COM chirped in his ear. The medics flinched. They really were on edge. O'Shea raised a hand to the medics, indicating to wait, then answered the call. "Sir, floor is secure." One of the other Marines said over the COM.
"Copy that. Hold position. One of you needs to go on overwatch and coordinate with the snipers."
"Engagement?" The other Marine asked.
"Don't fire unless fired upon. We're counting on the Covies to ignore this building."
"You got it, sir." The COM clicked off. O'Shea turned to the two medics.
"Any change in either condition?" O'Shea pointed toward a Marine passed out in the corner of the room.
"He's fine, sir, just exhausted." One of the medics explained. "But this guy," the medic pointed at the stretcher, "he's going to be critical in about half an hour. His condition gets worse as time goes on."
"How much time until he's out of reach?"
"One, maybe two hours. I'm assuming we're extracting back to the refugee camps. Ibanez had an impressive field hospital next to the base."
O'Shea nodded and turned to look out the window. He didn't want to talk about Ibanez right now. The commanding medic had been a wise-ass, but he had saved many Minutemen's lives, even when they seemed out of reach. "All right, listen up," O'Shea said, peering out the window, "we have to let the Covenant go past us; we'd never make it if we left the building now. As soon as I tell you, haul ass to that manhole. Don't stop until you get to the camps. We'll give you all the cover you need."
"Thank you, sir." A medic said.
"Don't thank me, son," O'Shea replied on his way out of the room, "just don't fucking die."
Before he made it out of the room, though, the COM chirped again. "Fatboys on foot, sir," one of the Marines observed. Seven of them, twenty-five meters out. I say again: advance squad. Seven Grunts on foot, inbound at two-five meters."
"Copy," O'Shea answered, and hustled down the stairs. He turned the corner at the ground floor and met the waiting gaze of his two Minutemen. They were well-trained. Neither militiaman would have moved without the order. O'Shea pointed up the stairs. "Go now," he said, "establish firing positions with good LOS, stay out of sight." O'Shea covered the two Minutemen as they ran up the stairs, and the Captain pivoted and creeped up the stairs just as the contingent of Grunts were clopping by.
O'Shea was concerned as the sound of Grunt movement ceased. He found himself trying to will the Covenant cannon fodder to continue on their doomed trek down the street. O'Shea distracted himself by quickly checking on his men, peeking into each room. In between every window on the second floor, a human soldier had his back pressed to the wall, weapon at the ready, barely looking out the corner of a window. One medic had crawled over to the sleeping Marine and roused him, keeping a gloved hand over the Marine's mouth when he awoke. Yet for all the attention he had put on trying to track the Grunts, O'Shea didn't know the aliens were right underneath the building until he heard them speak.
"What? What you see?" A miniature voice asked below the humans. O'Shea clutched a hand to his right ear. How did I hear that? How are they speaking English?
"Me have bad feeling about this..." Another said.
"You have bad feeling 'bout everything." An authoritative, yet high-pitched voice replied from the right. The clopping continued on down the street. O'Shea breathed a sigh of relief as the last Grunt passed by, its voice barely audible over the clopping of hooves and exchanges amongst the squad.
"It look nice...but how are schools?"
O'Shea looked quickly to the left. The Marine that had said nearly that exact same phrase looked at the street with huge eyes, his face ashen. His buddy hit him on the helmet.
"McManus," O'Shea hissed as he pressed his fingers to his throat mike, "since when do Grunts know English?"
"Minor side effect, sir," McManus' voice crackled over the COM. "Looks like the Marines' translating software leaked into our networks when I patched them together. We can understand the Covenant perfectly, now."
"For better or worse," O'Shea said, and cut the transmission.
"OK," Jack whispered into each room, "As soon as those tanks go by, do your thing. Medics, wait for my signal, then stay on this side of the street. The snipers will cover you."
"Sir, be advised," Corporal Parsons voice sounded over the COM. "Tank cannons and turrets up and operational. They'll be on your position in about a minute." That was both a blessing and a curse to O'Shea; it would be easier to destroy the tanks now, but a plasma barrage on the manhole group could keep the Minuteman above ground and in big trouble.
The Marines moved as one, following a Corporal down the stairs. O'Shea and his Minutemen started out the door but stopped when the previously passed-out Marine in the corner got his attention.
"Sir," the wounded Marine said with effort, shaking off a medic, "permission...permission to stay behind."
"Denied, Marine," O'Shea answered quickly. "We came back for you, and you're going to extract with the rest of your men."
"Sir, with respect, that's bullshit. I won't make it fifteen meters like this. Let me cover 'em. Please, sir, let me cover my buddies. You'd stay behind for your men, wouldn't you?"
No question, O'Shea answered his mind. But I won't willfully leave a soldier here to die, no matter what he feels. The veteran Captain looked that the UNSC soldier and regarded him closely. The Marine stood at attention, though O'Shea could see the boy was under a lot of pain. Fuck, Jack thought, he's staying here regardless of what I have to say. O'Shea nodded gravely at the Marine. "All right, Marine, permission granted." The commander of the Minutemen looked at the Marine's battle rifle. "How much ammo you got?" He asked.
"Enough to kill every one of those motherfuckers, sir."
O'Shea slung his battle rifle and pulled a grenade off his webbing, as well as two extra magazines. He handed them over to the Marine with one hand and patted him on the shoulder with the other. "Kill 'em twice." The Captain replied. The Marine saluted, a smile spreading across his face.
"Hoo-rah, sir." The Marine's chest swelled with pride, and he limped over to a window, establishing his final firing position. O'Shea signalled to the Minutemen and the medics, and they left the Marine to his fate.
At the ground floor, O'Shea watched the Marines get ready. The entire force of Covenant had passed, but apparently they weren't far enough yet. The three tank-specialist Marines had two battle rifles and one SMG between them, polished M6C Magnum sidearms strapped to their hips. Each seemed to have a belt full of grenades. No one in the townhouse spoke. Even the approach of the medics with the heavy stretcher made little noise in the creaky, bare, and cold room. The relative calm of the early morning was broken by the approaching Covenant armor. O'Shea peered around a corner of the staircase, listening to the growing din of the Covenant force. Among the gruff orders of Elite officers, O'Shea could hear the unique sound of the gravity propulsion drives. It echoed off the walls of the townhouse and, despite two years of close contact with Covenant forces, chilled Jack to the bone. The three tank-boarding specialists never looked at the street; they stared straight ahead with faces set, one Marine even nodding to himself as if assuring himself of the plan they had just formulated. O'Shea watched the two tanks move past, two small plasma turrets mounted on the front of each, scanning for enemy. They found none as they drifted by the door to the townhouse.
Without a word, without a signal or warning, the three Marines scooted out the door, low and fast into the coming dawn. For a moment, O'Shea wanted to call out to them as if they were his own deceased children, telling them to come back to safety and wait it out. There was no need for them to jeopardize their lives. Jack would have done it for them. Yet just as quickly as that yearning came to O'Shea, it left. The Captain flicked off the safety on his Battle Rifle, waved quickly to his two Minutemen, and patted the top of his helmet twice.
"On me," the Captain ordered, and the humans took the fight to the streets once more. In the back of his mind, Jack O'Shea knew he was never getting back to that manhole.
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