Alpha One - Chris Burton [130]
The AUSWAS ship must be in the hands of Alpha, thought Carla.
* * * *
That was not the end of Kryl resistance. There were thirty Kryl onboard in addition to Winterburn. They were highly-skilled, well-armed and heavily protected foot soldiers, who would lay down their lives for their Queen and their Kronan. That meant defending the ship and their Kronan, down to the last man.
The Kryl held three key positions on the AUSWAS ship. They still controlled the bridge, had a contingent of ten soldiers in Engineering, and a further ten in the cargo area, whose sole purpose was to protect their precious cargo.
Major Richard De Vere commanded the one hundred marines who made up the Halo 7’s mobile infantry. He used sixty marines today, thirty of whom took several key positions aboard the ship. Resistance must been limited, although De Vere noted the Kryl were using some kind of adaptive shield technology, meaning that following the initial skirmishes, all the Kryl’ s suits were adapted to form a greater defense against Alpha’s hand blasters and hypercannons. The blasters in particular were proving inadequate, even at the highest settings, and the marines were forced to deploy the much heavier hypercannons to make any impact on the Kryl’s technology.
The Kryl’s weaponry was effective. The marines’ armor plated suits were cut to pieces by the rapid fire laser streams. Vision was extremely limited, and the infrared vision devices were not coping in the smog created by the constant laser fire.
De Vere was an experienced campaigner. He knew he had both the tactical and numerical advantage. The Kryl confined themselves to areas of the ship which were difficult to defend and his marines made advances within the three key areas.
Engineering was the first to fall under Alpha control. De Vere’s subordinate officers took and secured the Engineering deck with no losses, and also secured two Kryl prisoners. The Bridge remained secured by heavy blast doors, with a contingent of three Kryl holding off Alpha’s advances in the badly lit corridor in front of them. De Vere personally led this assault, and patience remained the key. He lost three personnel but the odds were still in his favor.
The battle to secure the human cargo took place in a more wide-open arena. Fifteen marines were joined by Jake Carter, who had landed his Sabre inside the AUSWAS ship, armed himself and made his way to the nearest marine—who had, in turn, directed him to the cargo area. The marines cleared the corridor and exchanged open fire with the Kryl. The storage containers housing human prisoners were in view. Jake, armed with a hypercannon, was in the most-forward position with two marines either side of him.
The lead marine prepared an assault on the Kryl soldiers immediately to the left of the storage containers. He engaged his hypercannon, and stood to commence his advance while Jake and the second marine provided cover. He cleared the twenty meters between his two Alpha colleagues and the containers, but in doing so he took two direct hits. The one to his leg smashed the bone in his knee; the other severed an artery in his lower thorax. He was clearly in agony but managed to control his aim, and held the new position while he waited for his fellow marine and Jake to join him.
* * * *
Alpha was not faring as well as Hoskins might have hoped on the outside. A further Kryl security battery joined the fray and Hoskins was forced to deploy additional Sabres to assist in the battle. It didn’t help that he lost Jake Carter, who, he assumed, landed his Sabre on board the AUSWAS vessel, intent on only one thing: to rescue his loved one. To complicate matters, the freighter was in deep trouble. Hoskins isolated the freighter from the line of fire, and an evacuation was underway.
The Kryl vessels were weakening,