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MAROONED Chapter 7
Posted By: Steve Ollett<sollett@clydematerials.co.uk>
Date: 13 December 2003, 4:29 PM
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M A R O O N E D
CHAPTER 7
0500HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
MAKESHIFT CAMP, NEAR DROPSHIP LZ.
The Albatross-Class dropship lay as a charred and twisted mess of metal out on the lakebed LZ. The reinforced cross sections of the craft curved upwards, exposed like the open rib cage of an animal that had been devoured and picked clean by vultures. All that was missing was a bunch of bird-like Jackals to make the scene complete. Although the fires in the wreckage had now died down, grey-black smoke continued to ascend into the rapidly brightening sky.
Long streamers of wispy-white clouds stretched overhead - high altitude Cirrus clouds consisting of ice crystals - their long trails following the route of the prevailing winds high over the planet.
Sergeant Ryan and Corporal Stocks weren't concerned with such things as the weather as they slowly moved along the cliff edge overlooking the LZ.
Ryan moved ahead of Stocks whilst in a low crouch, holding his sniper rifle mid-way along the Stock, making his way towards a group of large boulders.
Stocks crept along in a crouching position following Ryan - shouldering his S2 AM sniper rifle, scanning the LZ in slow sweeps - his face taking on a familiar pale green tinge in the light of the rifles' scope.
"These should provide some temporary cover." Ryan hissed as they finally reached the boulders.
"I know" whispered Stocks, whilst still engrossed in his rifle scope, "We'll have to move after a couple of shots. Although they might not see the contrails from each round in this light, they will see the muzzle flash as we haven't got any suppressors fitted."
"We don't need those anyway," replied Ryan, "the reduction in muzzle velocity caused by a flash suppressor at this range could change what would normally be an instant kill into a severe wounding instead."
Stocks got down on the ground in the Prone position, laid on his stomach with his legs spread in a 'V' with his toes pointed out, bending his right knee slightly. His rifle butt was pressed firmly into his right shoulder with his upper arm, lower arm, and rifle stock forming a stable triangle as his right elbow rested on the ground. His left arm held the underside of the rifle stock, whilst the rifle rested on it two-legged rest. Stocks took deep, relaxed breaths, preparing to shoot as he continued to survey the LZ through his rifles' scope.
Only three of the eight Grunts were visible. One of them paced slowly around the wreckage, plasma pistol in it's claw, whilst the other visible two sat motionless on the ground, obviously sleeping. The Elite was not evident, probably on the other side of the wreckage.
"Where is O'Shea?" asked Stocks irritatedly, "He should be providing the diversion by now!"
As if on cue, the tranquillity of the LZ was transformed by the deep growl of the Warthog as it began it's run along the top of the cliff edge.
A series of cries of alarm came from the Covenant camp as the Grunts spotted the Warthog and fired their weapons, the green plasma bolts hopelessly missing the Warthog which was out of range of their plasma discharges.
"Ok, Let's do it!" said Ryan, who also lay in a sniping position several feet away from Stocks.
John Stocks gave a slight nod in acknowledgement, and as he slowly exhaled, he gently squeezed the trigger of his rifle using the ball of his finger end. The shot rang out, and the Grunt that was unfortunate enough to be crossing Stocks' sights at that moment collapsed to the ground, it's head ventilated with an extra nostril that passed through both temples of its' head, courtesy of the 14.5 x 114mm armour-piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot round. Bright blue blood lay splattered over the blackened hull of the Albatross.
In quick succession, Ryan and Stocks cut down the other two Grunts facing their position. The bodies' of the small aliens twitched uncontrollably, convulsing as they asphyxiated in the oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere after Ryan and Stocks ruptured the Grunts' methane-fed breathing apparatus with several well-placed shots.
Sean O'Shea, reached the end of the cliff overlooking the LZ and swung the Warthog round and down the scree slope towards the lakebed below.
Murray laid down diversionary fire from the Warthog's Light Anti-Aircaft Gun (LAAG) as the Warthog descended the scree slope, the yellow-white tracers gave an impressive display as it arced across the LZ in response to the green and cyan Covenant plasma discharges.
Ryan and Stocks got up from the ground and made a crouching run to an new position overlooking the LZ, both men loading fresh magazines into their rifles as went. The last thing they wanted was to stay in a position where the Covenant could locate them either by the contrails given off each time the sniper rifle was fired or by the rifles' muzzle flash.
"Where is it?" said Stocks impatiently, checking that the fresh magazine was loaded correctly into his S2 AM, and cycling the rifle's bolt to cock the firing mechanism. "Where ar- There you are!" said Stocks as the main target presented itself.
The blue Elite emerged from behind the Dropship, barking orders and directing the remaining Grunts.
"Look at the arrogant bastard!" Stocks continued, "Got to be the centre of attention, hasn't he?"
"Yeah, but not for much longer!" Ryan replied, and with that he aimed and fired. A split second later a similar round was launched from Stocks' rifle.
The round from Ryan's rifle pierced the helmet and skull of the Elite, killing it instantly - half of it's head blown off as the round messily exited the other side of the Elite's helmet.
Stock's shot followed up by tearing through the Elite's neck, with the remains of it's head flopping over, hanging pathetically from a piece of skin whilst it's still twitching body slumped to the ground.
"Nice work." said Ryan as he aimed at another Grunt that appeared from behind the wreckage.
"None too shabby yourself, mate. But just watch this!" replied Stocks, who had waited until two Grunts were lined up in his sights. He calmly squeezed the trigger again, and watched another two enemies topple over. "How about that Ryan? Two birds with one stone!" he grinned.
"Hey let's not get cocky, alright?" Ryan laughed in reply.
Ryan watched as the Warthog raced towards the downed dropship, LAAG blazing.
"O'Shea, how are you doing down there?" yelled Ryan into his helmet comms.
"Just fine." replied O'Shea over the roar of the Warthog engine, "We'd be even better if Murray had actually hit anything yet! The last three Grunts are bugging out, making a run for the rough ground towards the openings of those canyons. We -" A burst of static interrupted O'Shea's statement.
"O'Shea? You still there? Copy?" Ryan shouted.
Another burst of static followed.
"Ryan? Ryan? O'Shea here. The Warthog took an overcharged plasma shot, temporarily distrupting the onboard electrical system, I think. We got one of the last three Grunts, it's wrapped around the front passenger-side wheel. The other two made it into the canyon. There's too many large boulders to get around. I've never seen those guys move so fast!"
"They got away?" Ryan yelled incredulously, "What was Murray doing? Fucking Sightseeing?"
"I was going to mention that to you" O'Shea replied. Murray took the hit. I'm not sure how bad it is yet."
"Fucking marvelous!" Ryan exclaimed, and punched the ground with his fist.
"Hey that's my line!" laughed Stocks.
Ryan shot Stocks a look that could turn someone to stone.
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0521HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
MAKESHIFT CAMP, NEAR DROPSHIP LZ.
"What do you think happened, O'Shea?" asked Ryan as he kicked a piece of the smouldering remains of the Albatross with one of his steel-toecapped combat boots.
"I mean this thing was more heavily armoured than the Pelican."
"If it wasn't for the Covenant here" replied O'Shea, "I'd have been tempted to put it down to some kind of equipment failure, maybe a catastrophic failure of the onboard hydraulics system, or an electrical failure."
"That could bring it down?" said Ryan, peering into the jumbled mess of twisted metal.
"The problem is that this is new technology," said O'Shea examining a section of the Albatross's engine air intakes. It was damaged almost beyond recognition. "It's a design that hasn't been out in the field more than nine months, if that. It could have been equipment failure, or simply that the pilot tried to get it to do something it wasn't designed for."
"For example?" asked Ryan, cocking his head on one side, and folding his arms across his stomach.
"For example, take this air intake." said O'Shea, "Like the Pelican, the Albatross is configured for two flight modes. One of them is for space and non-oxygen atmospheres where this air intake is automatically sealed and the engines burn the fuel with O2 from stored oxygen tanks. The second flight mode is where the air intake opens and the engines operate as a typical turbine bladed jet-engine."
"So where are you leading with this?" said Ryan.
"Without the benefit of analysing the on-board black boxes for telemetry and cockpit recordings, I'd say that it was a mixture of pilot error, and the Covenant catching the crew unawares that caused this. It then led to a catastrophic failure of the engines. I reckon that the Albatross was attempting a lift-off at the time the failure occurred - look at the way the thing is resting with it's nose in the air - it definitely looks like it took off too steeply and stalled."
"So our guys fucked up then?" said Ryan dismissively.
"Erm, yes," winced O'Shea, "The pilot should have never attempted such a steep takeoff using the turbine engines alone. Without a rolling start to get a decent airflow through the engines, the dropship would never have had enough thrust to stay airborne. The guy probably forgot that he was flying something three times larger and heavier than the run-of-the-mill Pelican!" Looking closely at the air intake again, O'Shea continued, "Looks like the Covenant got lucky with a plasma grenade thrown straight into the air intake. When that thing went off, it would already have been sucked right inside the engine turbines and torn the ship apart from the inside! If the pilot had closed the air intakes, and switched to spaceflight mode, the engines would be operating at full power and the grenade probably wouldn't have hit at all."
"Yeah, and we wouldn't be sat here in this mess now!" said Ryan.
"Correct." Said O'Shea.
"Fucking great. Now what?" Said Ryan.
------
Author's Note: Apologies for the delay this being due to writer's block.
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