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Prologue - Jungle Raid
Posted By: Tyrian<esmile@myclearwave.net>
Date: 10 January 2004, 8:06 AM
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Two Covenant Phantoms glided low overhead, their propulsions systems rattling the ground as their twin Plasma cannons twitched around, as if itching for an Infidel to destroy. The low hum continued to decrease in pitch as power was bled from the engines in the braking maneuver.
After what seemed like hours for the small detachment of Marines hiding in the underbrush, unseen below, the target of their well-planned Op had arrived. But as they all knew, even the best planned missions had the disconcerting tendency to go to pot when it really mattered.
The First Sergeant flicked his fingers forward in a gesture to his men. They moved as one, snaking silently through the foliage towards their objective, careful not to make any noise, in the event that sonic sensors had been set up, which the pukes running Intel had doubted.
Perhaps they wouldn't be so damn confident if it was their asses on the line, the Sergeant thought, Maybe we should have put their lily rears up on a pole as bait.
He was a tall man, not a hair over 30, but still old to a war in which many of his charges where new, fresh out of training. His dark brown hair, black by most people, was matted on his head by the suffocating humidity of the trade planet's atmosphere. Mud stuck to his boots, making walking difficult, while brush tugged on his pants and made rasping sounds on his standard issue Titanium-A breastplate and shin plates.
Through the infrared view him and his men, and two women, received through their heads up display unit mounted to their helmets, they could just barely make out the outline of the "Shade" stationary defense weaponry against the temperate jungle thermal reading, which tended to obscure the image, even making it useless on the hottest of days.
As they neared the boarder of the camp, a small red-armored Grunt, diminutive even by the standards of his species, stood relieving himself against a tree. With a sign across his neck, the nearest marine, an Alexander Michaels, crept slowly behind the diminutive being, employing the stealth that was the trademark of the Marine services training.
With the minimum of noise, he quickly drew his knife and slid it into the back of the neck of the Grunt, severing its spine and dropping it to the ground in an instant, where it lay, its eyes wildly looking around, as it's brain slowly died from the lack of the precious methane its heart would normally be circulating.
Wiping his knife on his pants, Michaels spared a quick glance around, and then signaled the "All Clear" hand movent to his commander, who in turn moved up the rest of the detachment.
The Marines, 25 in all, quickly infiltrated the camp, putting two Jackals out of business with deft blows to the animals soft skulls, and then finally removing the Elite pilot of the Phantom, slicing its neck just below its fearsome mandibles, at the weakest spot in its protective shielding.
As the Elite sank to the ground, drowning in its own blue blood, the Sergeant directed his men to round up and surviving enemy, and police all documents, memory crystals, or anything else that the Intel pukes might shit themselves over.
The unexpected came just as the last few pieces of "Covenant Data" were being loaded into the storage section of the Phantoms.
A grunt emerged from the forest, turning over a small object in its stumpy hands, a piece of fruit from one of the native trees. It had nearly wandered into the center of the camp before its was noticed, and a trigger happy member of the squad shot it out of the excitement of the moment, without either silencing his weapon nor taking the animal out in a sneakier fashion.
The overt action alerted nearby patrols, and as the hoots and barks of the mixed Covenant forces reached the Sergeants ears, he realized just how much this mission might cost and how much more still it might be worth.
The young Marine, a man by the last name Jenkins, who's whole damn family seemed to be in the Armed services at last count, would pay for his transgression later.
But the Sergeant needed to get him and his men out, preferably alive, although the "No man left behind" mantra still echoed in his mind, even after years in the service.
And to accomplish both that and his mission, he needed to move, and that meant now. And that is precisely what Davis Young, Sergeant, First Class, was doing.
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