"Listen up Squad!" Mack shouted through his helmet microphone over the roar of the Falcons engines, "A few hours ago the covenant forces started an assault on New Alexandria, evacuations have already been started but they need more time. We're headed to the northern part of the city to stall the Covenant's assault allowing the buildings behind us to be evacuated."
Mack put a few markers down on his VISR and highlighted a part of the city, "Our drop point will be at the red waypoint, as evacuations proceed we'll slowly pull back into the city towards Traxus tower, that's the extraction point. Everyone got that?"
A set of indicator lights in Mack's helmet, one for every member of the team signaling that everyone understood.
"Good, everyone get ready. We're almost there."
The Falcons raced over the city towards their destination, explosions, and flashes from plasma fire could be heard and seen coming from the streets below. Lowering their altitude the craft came around a building, reaching the square where the group was going to be dropped off.
It was full of Covenant.
"OPEN FIRE!" Mack shouted as the 20mm cannons on the two Falcons opened up on the aliens in the square.
Combined fire from the turrents and autocannons quickly and efficiently cleared the square from any hostiles allowing the squad to disembark.
"Change of plans everyone, Savage, Woods, you're on overwatch. The rest of us are going to check for survivors in the buildings before falling back into the city." Mack ordered, Tyler and Woods staying outside and taking up positions covering any entrances to the square.
Twilight had gone into one of the buildings, Mack on her heels. holding her DMR in telekinesis as she swiftly checked room after room looking for survivors. The only thing they found were bodies, Human bodies.
As Twilight got to the top floor she heard a sound from a room at the end of the hallway, slowly advancing with her rifle pointed at the open door. That was when she heard the sound of a charging plasma pistol in the room followed by a scream, Cursing herself for being too slow Twilight made a dash into the room finding a Jackal with a shield and the offending plasma pistol facing two humans that were lying on the ground.
PHAT PHAT
Not giving the Jackal any chances to respond to her presence she shot the creature two times, one bullet in its torso and another in the head for good measure. Quickly she ran past the alien corpse to the two humans, no pulse, they both had taken the full plasma blast straight to the torso.
"Sparkle, Status?!" Mack shouted through the radio as he heard the shots from coming from the floor above.
"Green, found a jackal. The Bastard had just killed two civilians" Twilight replied venom dripping from her voice as she had just come a few seconds too late to save the humans.
"Damn, T-" The rest of Mack's sentence didn't register in Twilight's mind as she heard a noise coming from a closet behind the two dead humans, holding her DMR in telekinesis pointed at the closet.
Quickly yanking the door open and pointing the rifle at the potential threat, an ear defining scream came from the closet as Twilight saw she had a little girl in her crosshairs. As she continued to stare, the girl broke down sobbing thinking that the pony was going to kill her. Twilight, getting out of her little stupor, slowly approached the little girl only causing her to try to sink into the wall further and sob even harder.
Attaching the DMR to a clamp on her armour under her wing before removing her helmet, "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you." She softly told the child, moving even closer to the point that she was next to her.
The kid looked up at her, eyes red from the crying, and suddenly grabbed onto Twilight and started lightly sobbing again, "Mommy and d-daddy said I had to stay in the closet and be quiet." She sobbed.
Twilight looked over at the parents, they had probably stepped in between the plasma bolt and the closet to save their daughter.
Mack came walking into the room looking around for a moment before spotting Twilight and the girl, "Twilight." He said gaining her attention, "We need to move, if the Covenant already made it this far in then we might be overrun if we stay any longer."
Twilight nodded before turning back to the girl, "Can you walk?"
"Yes" the girl weakly answered.
Twilight picked up her helmet and put it on again and started guiding the girl out of the building, trying to keep herself between her and any bodies.
Outside they found that the others had already returned. "Found anything?" Mack asked them.
Lucy nodded, "two squads of marines, they died defending a group of civilians that they were probably evacuating."
"Damn, okay we're going to go to fallback point alpha to see if we can find friendlies to extract her." Mack pointed to the little girl next to Twilight.
After a round of nods, the group got moving at a moderate speed to make sure their civilian charge could keep up. On a few occasions, the group had to hide in buildings as banshees and phantom dropships came flying overhead. Coming up to another square they could hear an exchange of gunfire and plasma fire, Mack taking a quick peek of the square to see what they were up against.
"Well fuck, they have a wraith." Mack said after getting back into cover having seen the floating tank with a large plasma cannon.
"Woods, get a good position and take out any snipers you see. Sparkle you're on marksman duty, kill anything that doesn't die when Woods hits it. The rest of us will push up and try to kill the wraith with grenades." Mack ordered everyone before turning to the little girl, "you stay put over there in that store, we'll come to get you when we're finished." The girl nodded and sprinted into the building she was pointed to, allowing the ODST's to start doing their job.
Woods now in a good position brought up his sniper rifle, aimed at a jackal sniper and fired. The shot alerting the other aliens of the ODST's presence causing a group to turn around to face the soldiers, a group of grunts charged the group spraying them with inaccurate fire. Scootaloo leaned from her cover firing off controlled burst from her SMG taking down two of the grunts before dropping back into cover, plasma flying past where her head was moments before.
Mack and Lucy also popped up from cover putting short bursts into the grunts, Lucy also managed to hit a shielded jackal with her assault rifle.
"The wraith is still firing on those marines!" Twilight shouted at Mack as another shot from Woods's sniper could be heard.
"The fucker is after the civilians!" Tyler shouted back while firing his SMG killing a jackal, "We need to lob a grenade into the thing to kill it, not enough firepower otherwise!"
By this point, the square had been cleaned enough for the marines to return fire between shots from the wraith at their position. Another shot from Woods's sniper could be heard and the shield of the Elite in the gunner seat of the wraith flared, Twilight immediately responded by putting two more rounds down range eliminating the gunner. But this drew the attention of the driver of the tank, the wraith turned around with alarming speed and fired a shot off at the cover where Tyler and Scootaloo were hiding.
"Scatter!" Mack shouted, everyone dashing in a direction away from the blast zone giving the wraith four separate moving targets instead of one stationary one. The remaining grunts and jackals seeing their chance to kill the ODST's started overcharging their plasma pistols, but with the lapse of fire from the wraith and infantry the marines previously held up on the building were now getting out of cover opening up on the remaining aliens mowing them down in seconds leaving only the wraith.
Scootaloo stopped behind a new set of cover hoping the wraith didn't see her stopping. Peaking over her cover she realized the mistake she had just made as she was now the only stationary target for the wraith to fire on, and it was taking it.
A bolt of plasma fire erupted from the artillery piece in the tank arching through the sky towards her, quickly starting to run again. A large wave of heat threw her off her feet as the ball of plasma impacted the street behind her, Scootaloo got back on her feet almost immediately as her armor protected her from any nasty bruises she would have gotten from a fall like that. Shaking off the little daze she had gotten she looked over at where the wraith was,
'Oh horseapples'
The hulk of armor was using its boost to charge at Scootaloo to finish her off. Remembering what Tyler had said She quickly pulled out a grenade and jumped back so the inertia the wraith had wouldn't flatten her. The speed that the tank hit her at still was enough to knock the wind completely out of her but she was able to activate the grenade and drop it into the driver's compartment via the gunner's seat. The movement of the tank immediately became erratic as the driving elite presumably tried to get the grenade out of the tank, seconds later an explosion could be heard from within the tank and plasma fire started erupting from the hull as the grenade took out the driver and important control systems. Scootaloo had already started running towards the marines as she expected the wraith to explode which it did seconds later hurling her towards the marines and hitting the wall of the building they were held up in.
"SCOOTS!" Lucy shouted as she made a quick sprint to Scootaloo, sliding to a halt next to her biofoam at the ready to see if she had any injuries.
Scootaloo having been thrown around by an explosion twice and hit by something the equivalent of a train only felt pain running through every bit of her body, felling her stomach turning she ripped off her helmet and threw up on the street before lying down on her back, "Give me a few minutes." she groaned.
By this point Mack, Woods, Tyler, and Twilight with the little girl on her back had also reached the building where the Marines were held up.
"Is she good Lucy?" Mack asked, The medic just finishing her inspection for shrapnel or burn marks.
"Nothing external, she is probably the luckiest bastard in the entire galaxy." Lucy answered, "By the way Scoots that move with the grenade was awesome, just please for the love of god never do that ever again."
"Wasn't planning on it." Scootaloo said as she begrudgingly got back on her feet.
While the conversation was happening a few the marines had been staring at the pony that had just taken out the wraith, not believing that they had just been saved by a pony of all things.
"Who's the highest ranking officer here?" Mack asked one of the marines that was staring at Scootaloo.
"Oh, um, Corporal Murray!" he shouted to one of the marines that was getting the civilians prepared to move. The corporal looked over in Macks direction, seeing the sergeant stripes on Macks torso he quickly came over.
"Sir, whaddya need?" He asked Mack.
"For one I want to know where our front lines are, we dropped further North thinking that we were behind our own lines only to find there was Covenant scattered all over our LZ."
"You dropped further up north? Damn, we got hit hard there. Our lines are at least a block further back south if not more."
Mack nodded and activated his radio, "Starfire do you copy?"
Seconds later Zoey's voice could be heard coming from the radio, "Loud and Clear. Need a ride, Sarge?"
"Not me, we need an EXFIL for a group of civilians. Can you swing by with the pelican?"
"Copy that, I'll be there in fifteen." Lucy responded.
Mack put away the radio and turned back to the corporal, "Corporal! Get the square secure, we've got a pelican inbound!" He shouted.
Corporal Murray immediately got the marines securing the square, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the pelican.
Fifteen minutes later the pelican landed in the middle of the square and loaded the civilians, the troop compartment a little overcrowded but nothing the pelican couldn't handle.
"I'll take them to the starport, they've been loading civilian transports for evac." Zoey told Mack, "I don't know for how long I'll be able to operate, the Covies have been setting up AA turrets on rooftops and banshee squadrons have begun appearing in force."
"Then you better get back up there before flying becomes impossible." Mack said.
"Will do." Zoey answered before spotting Scoots, "Hey squirt! you look like shit." She shouted
"Tends to happen when a Wraith tries to roadkill you!" Scootaloo shouted back.
"WHAT! I've got to hear that story when we have time!" Zoey shouted again as she got back into the pelican and blasting off.
"How are things going in the rest of the city?" Tyler asked Mack as he came back into the room of the apartment the ODST's had hunkered down in to get some rest.
"Shit, Groups of jiralhanae have been entering the city en masse but despite that, we've been able to stop further advances." Mack answered, giving the breakdown of his conversation with local command.
"So the overgrown gorillas have decided to show up, fucking fantastic. Anything else?"
"There's a small Covenant fleet in orbit if they send down ships this city will quickly turn into a deathtrap."
"Well, crap. Was there any good news in there?"
"The CSO supercarrier discovered a few days ago had an 'unfortunate' accident with a slipspace drive and will not be joining any attack any time soon." Mack said with a grin, "Or ever for that matter."
Tyler shared macks grin, "A batshit insane plan like that could only have been attempted by Spartans."
"Probably but they didn't give any specifics, anyway where are the others?" Mack asked not seeing any of the others with the exception of Woods who was posed by the window on overwatch.
"Scootaloo and Twilight are further in the apartment working on Scoots her flying, and Lucy was in the bathroom with a few of the things she got from a store she looted." Tyler answered
Mack nodded and walked to the back of the apartment where Scootaloo and Twilight were practicing.
"Why is this so much harder with bigger wings!" He could hear Scootaloo complaining from the hallway.
"because with bigger wings, you actually have to make a flapping motion, not furiously beat your wings." Twilight answered Scootaloo as Mack stepped into the bedroom the two ponies had requisitioned, all the furniture had been stacked in a corner of the room and pillows and matrasses covered the floor.
"Seriously, I can't even hover anymore Twilight." Scootaloo said as she fell on her haunches and spotted Mack, "Hi Sarge, any useful news?"
"For the moment it's relatively quiet but that could change, Brutes have been flowing into the city." Mack answered, "I suggest that you two get some rest before those bastards inevitably start causing trouble."
Twilight and Scoots nodded and started making a bed as Mack left the room looking for Lucy, finding her in the place where Tyler said she would be.
"Hey Mack, have Scoots and Twilight stopped practicing yet?" She asked as she noticed Mack coming into the room, "I've been meaning to do something ever since I looted that store."
"They just stopped practicing, What is it you want to do?" Mack asked curious of what Lucy had thought up.
"You know how Twilight and Scoots have their wings and tail poking out of their armor? They're massive giveaways when trying to sneak." Lucy said as she grabbed a brush and a bowl of a black substance, "So I thought it a good idea to pick up some black dye to stop them from standing out so much."
"That's actually a good Idea, I'll get them." Mack said as he walked back to the room where Scootaloo and Twilight had bunked in finding the two ponies trying to get comfortable while wearing their armor.
"Can you two come over to the bathroom form a moment before you get some sleep?"
Scootaloo groaned as she had just gotten in a comfortable position. "Fine." she said as she and Twilight walked to the bathroom with Mack.
"Ah, you're here. I've already told Mack what I want to do but you two also have to agree to it." Lucy said as she sat down lowering to the ponies eye level, "I'll be blunt, your tails and wings are too colorful. They're going to give us away if we ever are going to try to sneak. So I got some black hair dye to recolor both of them."
"Okay, how long will it take?" Scootaloo said, surprising Lucy. She had thought that Scootaloo would put up a bit more resistance.
"Uhm, about half an hour. I'd thought you would put up more resistance to the idea."
"I can't even hover right now so it doesn't really matter if the dye interferes with flying since I can't do that anyway right now and my tail can be dyed green for all I care." Scootaloo said as she shrugged.
"Okay, any objections from you Twilight?" Lucy asked
"I'd rather have black wings and tail than get shot because my one of them stood out too much." Twilight reasoned, also not to bothered by the plan.
"Good, let's start then so that we can all get some rest before we have to move again." Lucy stated as she got the brush out and started dyeing Scootaloo's wings.
Over the next forty-five minutes, Lucy applied the dye and let it sit for a bit, by the end the ponies wings and tails were nearly completely black with the exception of a few spots near the base of the wings but even those were darkened to the point that you wouldn't notice them.
With they dyeing complete everyone went to get some rest with the exception of Tyler who had already got some sleep and relieved Woods from overwatch.
"Wake up you two!" Lucy said as she roughly woke the two ponies, "we've got Covenant activity outside"
The two ponies both shot up from their sleeping space at hearing that there was Covenant nearby, grabbing their weapons and sprinting to the main room where Mack, Tyler, and Woods were standing by the window overlooking the street outside.
"Brute pack, four strong. Seven grunts." Woods said while looking through his sniper scope.
"How are we on explosives?" Mack asked everyone.
"I used one on the wraith so I'm down to one" Scootaloo said.
"I've got two canisters C7 foam but that's for demolition" Tyler followed up to Scootaloo's answer
"Large explosions might attract other brutes nearby, are there no other alternatives?" Twilight asked
"I can take two with my sniper but the others would have to be done by you guys." Woods said.
Mack took a moment to consider his options, "Twilight give a grenade to Scoots and take up a position at another window next to Woods, the rest of us will try to sneak up and lob grenades at their feet. You two kill anything that survives, clear?"
Everyone nodded, Twilight tossed Scootaloo a grenade and took up a position at a window next to Woods as the rest of the group snuck outside, their black suits blending into the darkness, and splitting up in two smaller groups.
Twilight could see Lucy and Tyler take the right side of the road while Mack and Scoots crossed the street to the left side, Woods all the while was giving status updates to where the brutes were at any given moment.
"Shit!" Woods suddenly said, "One of them is smelling the air, he might have picked you up."
Twilight saw that everyone outside stopped moving as they all held a grenade in case they needed to prematurely throw, raising her DMR she picked one of the brutes and lined up a shot waiting for the grenades.
The brute grunted something to his fellow packmates and continued walking down the street, "Twenty meters." Woods announced.
Waiting a few more seconds Mack signaled for everyone to prime their grenades and throw them, the brutes saw four grenades land at their feet and just managed to let out a roar before they exploded.
BOOM
All four grenades exploded severely wounding the brutes but to Twilight's astonishment, one of them was still standing and immediately charged.
Blam
The skull of the charging brute caved in as Woods fired his sniper rifle, Twilight snapping back to reality took aim at one of the brutes that had tumbled over and was in the process of getting back up and put two rounds into its head.
The others had also popped up from their cover and were shooting at the remaining two brutes finishing them off and followed up by spraying into the crowd of grunts that were panicking.
The entire engagement took less than fifteen seconds.
"Sparkle, Woods get down here. I want to be gone before any more of them show up." Mack's voice came over the radio, Both Twilight and Woods grabbed their gear and ran out of the apartment hooking up with the others outside before running off from the site.
"Damn those Corvettes." Mack said as he was looking up at the sky. The Warships had practically grounded any large transports, which was a problem since they still had a few large transport vessels that needed to clear the city.
The group had traveled to the starport on day five at the instruction of Kilo Dispatch who had been coordinating the forces in the city as the covenant were deploying jammers throughout the city.
"Any word from the Stalwart Dawn?" Lucy asked, the UNSC warship had been remotely helping the forces in the city but due to the three corvettes it was unable to get close in without risking getting shot down.
"She's out over the ocean waiting for the civilian vessels so she can escort them to orbit for evac." Mack answered.
"That's not going to help us here, those corvettes need to buck off before those transports can safely take off." Scootaloo interjected.
"The only thing I'm getting from command is 'we're working on it' so until they deal with those ships we have to defend the transport." Mack told Scootaloo, "Woods, Sparkle, spotted any covenant forces?"
"That's a negative sarge." Woods replied.
"Nothing here either." Twilight reported after Woods, "Wait, I think I saw movement a block away."
A few seconds of silence later Twilight spoke again, "They're here and they brought the big guns! I can see two hunters at least forty brutes and a load of jackals and grunts leading the charge."
Gunshots could be heard from the position where Twilight had set herself up as she and the remaining marines opened fire on the other aliens.
"They're here too! Sarge, they are just going to overrun us within minutes with these kind of forces!" Woods shouted over the radio as fire also started to come from his position.
"Fuck, Twilight, Woods get the marines and pull back to the secondary position!" Mack shouted over the radio, the noise from the firefight starting to get louder.
"Tyler is your surprise ready!?" Mack shouted at Tyler who was sitting further up the barricade.
"Armed and ready!" Tyler shouted as Twilight and a group of marines came running through the hallway of the spaceport that conveniently acted like a chokepoint.
"We lost two of our guys on our way over here and he needs real medical attention soon!" She shouted at Mack while pointing at a marine that was being dragged along by one of his mates.
"Woods where the fuck are you!" Mack shouted as the first grunts came running into the hallway
"Contact!" one of the marines shouted as everyone opened fire on the aliens.
"Almost there!" Woods replied and further up the hallway the group of marines along with the ODST came running towards the barricade.
"Covering Fire!" Mack barked, Twilight and a few of the other marines started to let loose controlled bursts at the hallway the grunts had come from.
The group of marines got over the barrier and took up a position next to everyone that was already there as the covenant send more grunts to their position.
Twilight looked over at Woods only to find that a large spike was sticking out of his upper leg "Woods! Stay still." She shouted as the sniper slumped against the barricade.
Running up to the downed ODST she removed parts of the trousers around the spike finding that there was a significant amount of blood coming out of the wound causing a small puddle of it to form under the leg.
Quickly checking his heart rate and blood pressure she found that the first had hightened and the second was way too low, "Woods, talk to me!" She said as she started digging through her saddlebag.
"I'm fine Twilight! I can still fight!" he shouted as he tried to get back up only to be pushed back down by Twilight who immediately stabbed him with an anesthetic and took out a tourniquet to block off blood flow to his leg, twisting the device earning a scream from Woods as the anesthetic hadn't taken effect yet.
"Woods is out of the fight and needs medical SOON!" Twilight shouted at Mack.
"HUNTERS!" The shout was followed by a large green fireball cutting through the barricade vaporizing a marine that was standing there.
"TYLER BLOW IT!" Mack shouted, Tyler took out a detonator that he had hooked up to the C7 explosive foam he had sprayed over the support struts lining the hallway.
"HAVE A NICE DAY MOTHERFUCKERS" he shouted while pressing the handle on the detonator, A series of explosions went off taking out the support of the roof collapsing it.
A large cloud of dust blew over the remaining soldiers as the building in front of them collapsed causing all of them to back away from the barricade.
Mack turned his radio on to get intel on the situation around the starport.
"I've got six hundred souls on board, Sergeant Major! I can't wait any longer!"
"Negative, Echo Two, I can't cover you! Do not take off!"
The engines of one of the large civilian transports could be heard from one of the launch pads,
"Dammit!"
The group looked out a window at the transport vessel as it started to make some speed,
KABOOM
A missile struck the port side of the transport causing it to lose altitude.
"Mayday! Mayday!"
Six Echo Two, can you maintain altitude?
"Negative! We're going down!"
The radio went silent as the transport vessel hit the water and started sinking.
"Dammit, they've reached the civilian transports!" Mack shouted as he saw covenant forces moving up to the remaining transports.
"We're in no shape to fight anymore Sarge." Lucy said pointing at the marines out of the twenty that had accompanied them five had died at the forward positions and another four at the barricade, almost all of them were wounded to some extent and four of those, Woods being one of them, had critical wounds that needed serious medical attention.
Mack considering his options relented, "Isn't there a military hangar at the east side of the starport?" He asked one of the marines.
"Yes sir, but we don't have a pilot here so I don't see what good that's going to do us." he responded.
"You might not but I do. Scoots! You can get a pelican off the ground, right?"
Scootaloo was sitting on the floor bandaging a flesh wound on her left foreleg as she responded. "If you can get me one sure, but that Corvette will shoot us down if we lift off."
"One problem at a time private." He turned to the rest of the marines, "get the wounded mobile, we're headed for the eastern hangar."
All the wounded were helped up or put on improvised stretchers as they made for the hangar, several more radio messages followed.
"Major, Covenant are banging on my bay door, I got families and wounded onboard. I got to get airborne!"
"Easy, Seven Echo Three. Spartan's going to clear the skies."
A few minutes later another short conversation came over the radio.
"That's it, batteries primed! Now get over to the east complex and fire those missiles!"
"Sergeant Major! The Covies are almost through my door!"
"Steady, Echo Three! That corvette is still up there!"
The group arrived at the hangar finding it nearly empty, "Crap." One of the marines said before spotting something at the back of the hangar "Wait is that a police pelican over there?"
"Yes it is, that's our ride!" Mack shouted as the group made their way to the pelican.
After entering the pelican Scootaloo's rushed forward to the cockpit and started flipping switches and pushing buttons, Mack joined her in the co-pilot seat after he had helped secure everyone in the troop compartment.
"There's the radio." Scootaloo pointed at the radio build into the dashboard, Mack immediately turned it on and turned it to the frequency that they had heard messages on before.
"That's it! They've breached the landing bay!"
"Copy that. It's now or never, Spartan!"
The missile batteries on the shore started firing missiles at the corvette and in a beautiful display the spaceship started venting blue fire from it's hull forcing it to retreat.
"That's our cue to leave Hurricane, punch it!"
Scootaloo carefully pushed the throttles up causing the craft to slowly rise from the floor of the hangar, moving the pelican out of the hangar took Scootaloo a few seconds of careful manoeuvring but when she was outside she switched from hovering to horizontal flight quickly making her way out to the ocean.
"Sarge, could you contact the Dawn for me?" Scootaloo asked Mack who responded by switching frequency and calling for the Stalwart Dawn. While Mack was contacting the Dawn Scootaloo pondered if their efforts of saving as many civilians as possible had paid off, if everything she had done wasn't in vain.