Halo_ The Fall of Reach - Eric Nylund [1]
They were about as smart as dogs, too. But what they lacked in brainpower, they made up for in sheer tenacity. He had seen them hurl themselves at their enemies until the ground was piled high with their corpses . . . and their opponents had depleted their ammunition.
These Grunts were unusually well armed: needlers, plasma pistols, and there were four stationary plasma cannons. Those could be a problem.
One other problem: there were easily a thousand of them.
This operation had to go off without a hitch. Blue Team’s mission was to draw out the Covenant rear guard and let Red Team slip through in the confusion. Red Team would then plant a HAVOK tactical nuke. When the next Covenant ship landed, dropped its shields, and started to unload its troops, they’d get a thirty-megaton surprise.
The Chief detached the optics and took a step back from the rock wall. He passed the tactical information along to his team over a secure COM channel.
“Four of us,” Blue-Two whispered over the link. “And a thousand of them? Piss-poor odds for the little guys.”
“Blue-Two,” the Chief said, “I want you up with those Jackhammer launchers. Take out the cannons and soften the rest of them. Blue-Three and Five, you follow me up—we’re on crowd control. Blue-Four: you get the welcome mat ready. Understood?”
Four blue lights winked on his heads-up display as his team acknowledged the orders.
“On my mark.” The Chief crouched and readied himself. “Mark!”
Blue-Two leaped gracefully atop the ridge—three meters straight up. There was no sound as the half ton of MJOLNIR armor and Spartan landed on the limestone.
She hefted one launcher and ran along the ridge—she was the fastest Spartan on the Chief’s team. He was confident those Grunts wouldn’t be able to track her for the three seconds she’d be exposed. In quick succession, Blue-Two emptied both of the Jackhammer’s tubes, dropped one launcher, and then fired the other rockets just as fast. The shells streaked into the Grunts’ formation and detonated. One of the stationary guns flipped over, engulfed in the blast, and the gunner was flung to the ground.
She ditched the launcher, jumped down—rolled once—and was back on her feet, running at top speed to the fallback point.
The Chief, Blue-Three, and Blue-Five leaped to the top of the ridge. The Chief switched to infrared to cut through the clouds of dust and propellant exhaust just in time to see the second salvo of Jackhammers strike their targets. Two consecutive blossoms of flash, fire, and thunder decimated the front ranks of the Grunt guards, and most importantly, turned the last of the plasma cannons into smoldering wreckage.
The Chief and the others opened fire with their MA5B assault rifles—a full automatic spray of fifteen rounds per second. Armor-piercing bullets tore into the aliens, breaching their environment suits and sparking the methane tanks they carried. Gouts of flame traced wild arcs as the wounded Grunts ran in confusion and pain.
Finally the Grunts realized what was happening—and where this attack was coming from. They regrouped and chargeden masse . An earthquake vibration coursed through the ground and shook the
porous stone beneath the Chief’s boots. The three Spartans exhausted their AP clips and then, in unison, switched to shredder rounds. They fired
into the tide of creatures as they surged forward. Line after line of them dropped. Scores more just trampled their fallen comrades. Explosive needles bounced off the Chief’s armor, detonating as they hit the ground. He saw the flash of
a plasma bolt—side stepped—and heard the air crackle where he had stood a split second before. “Inbound Covenant air support,”Blue-Four reported over the COM link.“ETA is two minutes, Chief.” “Roger that,” he said. “Blue-Three and -Five: maintain fire for five seconds, then fall back.