//------------------------------//
// Nightly Insertion 
// Story: Return of the Guardian 
// by Requiem17 
//------------------------------//

	Darting from cover to cover, Shadow lived up to its namesake, moving as if they themselves were a living manifestation of the dark night. The squad moved quickly across the relatively flat ground, having already snaked their way down the slope towards the mountain entrance. The troopers had gone radio silent to prevent their channel being intercepted by prying ears. Seeing as they didn’t have their scrambler set up nor did they have the time to set up the machinery for it, they were forced to communicate with nonverbal cues. Luckily for them, they had plenty of practice and moved as if they were of one mind. 

As they approached the road leading to the gate, the ODSTs made sure to take care of their steps, emitting nothing but pure silence. The soldiers creeped down into the ditch and waded carefully through the water until they reached the slope of the road, keeping their heads down as they moved. Ale was practically crouching due to his much taller stature, the Spartan looking rather comedic as he crouch walked while bending his torso over to keep his armor out of site.

When the sound of an approaching engine rumbled closer from behind them, the troopers dropped and pressed themselves against the side of the ditch, staying in the shadows as a bright pair of headlights swept right over their heads. The ground vibrated slightly and a few stray pebbles rolled past the soldiers as the heavy vehicle quickly passed, having never seen nor revealed the presence of the soldiers. Ale and the other troopers quickly got back up and continued hustling quietly down the waterlogged ditch. 

The area near the concrete tunnel was lit up by a giant pair of fixed spotlights sitting stationary to either side above the entrance. Shadow stopped at the perimeter of the spotlights and carefully looked over the edge of the ditch, assessing the situation.

Four guards were posted by the entrance with another two standing above the concrete tunnel. The truck that had passed them earlier had been stopped and was being checked by one of the guards while another talked with the driver. Knowing that there were two less pairs of eyes watching the road, Shadow moved.

Captain Luna and Corporal Eton flanked left, staying low and hugging any available darkness as they crept towards the entrance. Meanwhile, Sergeant James and the chief petty officer found a large drainage pipe nestled under the road. They moved through the pipe, their feet splashing in the water. They exited the other side and continued to push forwards alongside the ditch. The rest of Shadow placed themselves in the tall grass lining the road in supportive positions, ready to cover their squadmates should something go awry.

Luna and Eton hid in a shallow recess in the ground while Ale and James were able to hide behind a cluster of boulders. The elite soldiers waited until the guards finished clearing the vehicle, watching as the guard who had been talking with the driver stepped back and waved the driver through. Eton holstered one of his suppressed pistols before tapping on his arm and lifting two fingers, pointing to the two guards on overwatch.

Luna nodded and watched as Eton crept away, slowly making his way up to the same level of the guards on the mountainside. To the opposite side of the entrance, James crouched beside his boulder and kept his finger clear of the trigger on his Assault Rifle. Ale stacked up behind him, his own specialized Assault Rifle clamped on his back as he instead drew out his security knife. Luna held one suppressed SMG in each hand, waiting until everyone was in position.

Three green acknowledgment lights winked in her HUD, the captain responding with her own action light. She pushed up onto her feet, using her springing action to boost her forwards and out of the depression. Ale however, was already sprinting halfway across from his starting point and his targets.

Four low and quick weapon reports echoed from above the tunnel, the two bodies of the overwatch falling to the ground with a loud thud, adding to the confusion the ground level Rebels felt as their brains were only just starting to register the incoming threats. Unfortunately for them, it had been a long shift and their reflexes were not up to par. 

Luna’s SMGs were already lined up as she closed the distance. The weapons coughed and jerked in her hands, her countless years of training and experience holding the bullet spraying machines of death relatively still. Hearing two of their squadmates fall caused Ale’s targets to briefly pause, the Spartan punishing them by throwing his knife into the far guard’s chest. Its momentum carried it through his armor and buried itself to the hilt in his flesh, the force of the throw resulting in him being lifted off of his feet and to the ground. The other Rebel quickly refocused and turned back to Ale with his rifle raised, but it was far too late. The Spartan’s fist met his face in a loud meaty smack, the audible crunch almost wince inducing to those who witnessed the destruction.

With the targets down, James hustled out from his supporting position after having spotted an external terminal by the large metal door hanging adjacent to the entrance. The rest of Shadow moved out of cover and moved at a decent pace towards the rest of their squadmates, weapons raised in case a patrol showed up. Luna and Ale hustled the bodies into a nearby thicket, doing their best to cover up the evidence. After doing so, Luna and the arriving Shadow members, sans Ale and Eton, rallied up nearby James.

James had a tac pad plugged directly into the terminal and was rapidly scanning through lines of code and different system functionalities. Luna stepped up to him, “What do you have Sergeant?”

James tapped on the different glowing notifications and typed in different commands as he continued to work the system over. “Camera’s are offline. The feed was slightly delayed, so I was able to head off any recording of us. That is, of course, as long as there isn’t a coded archive downloading the data and broadcasting it onto a monitor. If that’s the case, we had better hope someone was on coffee break.”

“As long as we can get in before they find us out. We’ll be safer in the city.” A few ODSTs mumbled agreeance. “Anything else?”

James scrolled for a few more seconds before nodding. “I’ve found a different way into the city. There’s a maintenance corridor that travels alongside the tunnel before splitting off into a massive network of utility causeways surrounding and burrowing underneath the city. If we’re careful, we are less likely to be found in there than we are traveling along the tunnel.”

Luna nodded, “Sounds like a plan.”

Meanwhile, Ale was bent over in the thicket containing the deceased Rebels, retrieving his knife and checking them for anything of use, especially intel. After searching through their pockets and finding nothing of relevance on their mission objectives, Ale began to shuffle out of the underbrush. The pitter patter of light footfalls and the sound of heavy panting gave him pause, the Spartan turning to look into the tunnel.

A shadow was thrown up onto the back wall where the concrete curved out of sight. It was hard to make out as it was incredibly disfigured, but the mounting evidence fell into place as a dog and its handler rounded the corner. Ale immediately sent out a warning ping on the team’s communications before he slowly crouched back into cover, his slow movements less likely to catch anyone’s attention. The exposed ODSTs moved into the large shadow cast by the metal door and hunkered down, ensuring to hide anything flashy.

Ale and the rest of Shadow stayed still as the guard and his canine approached the checkpoint. The guard slowed down as he came within a few feet of the entrance, noticing the absence of the sentinels. He carefully raised his Battle Rifle as he took careful steps forward. The dog smelled the air carefully before growling, its gaze lingering over the hidden position of Luna and her troopers. His handler followed the dog’s lead and began to approach out from the tunnel, his rifle sweeping over their hiding spot.

Ale carefully drew his pistol, purposefully rustling the underbrush as the dog’s ears perked in his direction. The canine swung his head to stare in Ale’s direction, his hackles raising as he spotted Ale’s movement. The guard immediately turned and zeroed in on Ale’s position, his gaze locking onto Ale’s visor. His eyes widened as he recognized the iconic armor of the super soldier, causing him to drop the dog’s leash. 

Feeling the leash drop, the dog did as it was trained and bolted, growling threateningly as it raced towards Ale. Hearing the dog’s growling, the guard snapped out of his fear and sighted in on Ale. However, a small shower of dirt and pebbles rained on his head before a series of coughs echoed above him, causing the guard to gurgle before Eton dropped on top of him and rolled onto the ground to bleed his momentum, his dual pistols crossed above his head.

Ale slapped his magnum onto his thigh before catching the charging dog into a head lock, snapping its neck swiftly and painlessly. The dog’s struggling ceased, a now deathly silence ruling over the checkpoint. Ale carefully set the animal down before moving out from his cover. Eton was rolling the body of the handler into the ditch before he joined the rest of Shadow as they quickly stood up. Luna looked over as Eton and Ale linked up with them, the two soldiers nodding. The captain lifted her rifle before pointing towards the entrance in a ‘move out’ gesture.

The troopers filed past her and into the tunnel, sticking close to one side. There was no place or shadows to hide in if they encountered resistance, the ODSTs having to rely on their ability to hear their enemy before they themselves caught them.

Other than a few scarily large rats, the troopers made it safely to a metal door tucked into one side of the tunnel. “James,” Luna called as she stepped past the door, sighting down the rest of the tunnel, covering the sergeant as he moved to the door. The half robot half human pulled out a strange looking card before swiping it through the key card slot. The light didn’t immediately turn green, but didn’t deny him as well. Instead, the lights turned orange and flickered for a few seconds before a cheery chime preceded the lights turning green. James opened the door and stood clear as Alex, Lilly, Leo, and Ale moved past, clearing the entrance for any possible threats.

“Clear,” Alex said lowly as he continued pressing forward. The squad followed, closing the door behind them. 

The maintenance tunnel seemed to stretch on forever, the miles of pipes along the walls all meeting into a single point at the limit of their view range. Low yellow strobe lights were the only source of illumination in the steam clogged tunnels, the troopers relying on the condensed gas to hide them if someone were to step around any of the numerous intersections. At one point, the shrill whirring of a small engine echoed towards them, the squad hustling into another hallway before ducking under the pipes on the wall. Luna raised her Assault Rifle, “Let them pass….”

A few moments later, a small yellow maintenance cart drove past the intersection, civilian workers dressed in engineer fatigues talking loudly on the machine. They continued moving and disappeared into the steam. The troopers stood and continued on their way.

“To your left, 12 meters,” James reported after having glanced at his tac pad. The squad stopped at a small service hatch, Brenden stepping up to the door. He let his shotgun hang in its sling as he grabbed the large wheel on the door. With a strained grunt and a sharp squeal of metal, the wheel turned and the locks slid out of place. Grabbing his shotgun with his right hand, Brenden slowly pushed the door open while having his shotgun at the ready.

The door opened to reveal a long mound of dirt that stretched into the distance on either side of it. The troopers carefully stepped out onto the small dirt road between the door and the sloped dirt wall. Ale looked around in the dark gloom, noticing that the door was built into the cave wall. Luna gained his and the squad’s attention when she clicked her tongue, the captain crawling in prone position up the sloped wall. Ale and a few of the other troopers joined her.

Ale paused as he crested the ridge, his eyes widening a bit as he took in the sight. The cave he had originally thought that they were in was in fact a massive cavern, bigger than any he had ever seen. Nestled further below them and in the center of the giant space sat a massive urban sprawl, the dark city emitting enough light to reach his position, but not powerful enough to pierce the endless ceiling.

“Damn,” Ryan whispered.

Leonardo looked through the scope of his Sniper Rifle, combining both his HUD and the scope’s zoom ability to get a detailed view of the city. He looked into what he assumed was downtown, judging from the tall flashy buildings, heavy traffic, and air transports flying between the numerous buildings. He turned his attention away from that part of town and scanned towards his right, passing the more governmental district until he encountered the industrial park. Almost half of the park seemed to be in disuse, some of the buildings were burned out while others were simply abandoned.

The sniper spotted a suitable area to set up operations and tagged it on his HUD. “Captain,” he drew her attention. “I see an abandoned office building. Looks clear of activity and discrete.”

Luna synched up Leo’s marker to her and her team’s HUDs. “We’ll take it.” She looked left and right before she got to her feet and began shuffling down the hill, her speed slowly increasing until she was running at a good pace down the dark hill, Shadow following right behind her. They ran for a good 20 minutes before the large bowl shaped sides of the cavern began to flatten out. They didn’t stop however, continuing to move at a good clip across the large dusty plains.

Ale continued to scan along the city’s edge as they approached closer to the industrial park, noticing a distinct lack of military patrols along the edges of the city, sans for the occasional Rebel marked Warthog moving amongst the traffic on the busier highways near the more active part of the city. 

The squad was only a few hundred meters from the outskirts of the city when a Falcon suddenly appeared above one of the high walls of a factory. The ODSTs dropped quickly into the dirt, relying on the dark gloom to cover them. The bird continued to take off before making a few lazy circles above the active factory, gunners lounging in their seats. Corporal Sergey traced the Falcon with his newer SRS99-5 variant, targeting all of it’s weak spots. The Falcon was soon joined by a Pelican before they both moved off deeper into the city.

Ale and his fellow soldiers got up and sprinted towards the industrial park. Dirt quickly turned into concrete and asphalt as they ran across an outer road and stacked up onto a building. The soldiers split up into smaller groups of three, with the exception of Ale, who soloed as he moved further away from the squad as a forward scout. If he encountered heavy resistance, he would be the most likely to survive the encounter.

Fortunately, the ODSTs and the Spartan were able to navigate through the concrete playground with little effort on their part. Their was very little Rebel patrols out and they had yet to encounter any civilians at all. The squad quickly moved towards their objective, darting across open spaces while covering each other. It wasn’t long before they reached the large office, Leo having picked correctly as the building was almost an exact clone of the many other buildings surrounding it, making it a suitable place to hide from the Rebels.

Ale was crouched on the corner of the intersection across the street from the targeted office building. Checking the streets, he quickly ran across and vaulted through one of the numerous broken windows, his feet crunching on the long since broken glass. The immediate room he was in possessed the burned out remains of a work desk and a few filing cabinets. The super soldier checked it for traps before moving towards the door, slowly peeking his head through. The large circular room turned out to be an elevated rotunda, both a spiral staircase and an elevator leading to further rooms on the different levels of the building.

Ale glanced around one last time before brushing past the rubble in the room to the main entrance of the building. He stood close to the edge of the door, aiming down one side of the street while standing far enough back that his rifle didn’t stick out of the building. Three troopers stacked up on the corner of the building across the rough road, briefly checking their sectors before hustling across. They brushed past Ale and moved into the building’s main room, stopping before they became too spread out. The building hadn’t been cleared yet and could still hide threats.

Luna was in the next group of three to rush over, the captain positioning herself on the other side of the door to help Ale cover the rest of the troopers as they made their way across. The last group ran into the building just as a Falcon lazily moved through the sky a few blocks down. Pulling away from the entrance, the squad rallied up by the rotunda. Silently, Luna used hand signals to divide the team up into two man teams, the ODSTs nodding in confirmation before arming themselves with the closest CQC weapons they had. The squad split up and began moving through each floor of the seven story building together.

As expected, the building was trashed and empty of hostiles, the inhabitants having abandoned it long ago. Luna lowered her weapon before meeting back up with the other troopers at an intersection on the top floor. She ensured everybody was there before depolarizing her visor. “Chronos, James, and Eton, you’re going to set the perimeter defenses and early warning systems. Leo, Sergey, and Vega are on overwatch. The rest of us will be setting up camp on the fourth floor; there was a decently sized and intact room on the east side. Remember, radio silence until James gets it secured, clear?”

The troopers and Spartan all consented to her orders before moving out. The troopers who hadn’t been assigned a specific task headed down to the room the captain had specified. Ale followed after the ODSTs, watching the troopers disperse after stepping into the room. They took off their larger equipment bags and set them down on the floor.

“Man, this place is a dump,” Chuck stated. The private kicked the burned out husk of a sofa.

Brenden walked past, having made a makeshift broom out of a steel pole and a wooden board to push the scattered debris on the floor out of the way. “Well then quit complaining and help us make it look pretty.” Brenden put the ‘broom’ in Chuck’s hands before moving on.

Rico took a deep breath, sitting back and lazily laying against a trash pile. “I don’t know what you guys are talking about. This is just like home!”

He looked up as someone kicked his foot. “C’mon, you’re not making this any easier,” Lilly said in aggravation, beginning to chuck Rico’s trash pile towards the far wall. The hispanic man huffed before getting up and assisting the private.

Luna looked towards private Dan. “Hanson, you’re going to help James set up when he gets back.” She pointed towards the inner wall of the room. “Grab some of the tables and set them up there.”

Ale watched everybody working before he secured his weapon. He unsnapped his equipment vest and moved towards the other bags. Dropping the bag, he then helped Dan move the tables, the Spartan effortlessly grabbing two at a time while Dan was stuck with only being able to move one. The two quickly finished, the private heading towards the pile of bags. He grabbed any and all computing and monitoring systems that James would need at his workplace.

Meanwhile, Ale helped clean the room. He picked up some of the broken and worn furniture and pushed them aside. Surprisingly, he found a large sofa in relatively good condition buried under more trash. Knowing that the squad would like something like this to take a load off on, he pushed it into the center of the room. He could already see some of their eyes lighting up and competitive glances being shared between them. He also set aside a rickety coffee table and a partially broken office chair. Wiping his armored hands in satisfaction, he looked around.

The troopers were mostly done with their tasks and the other ODSTs soon returned. They scattered around the room, low murmurs being shared between them as they claimed their own personal areas to settle down in. Ale, feeling a little out of place, leaned up against a wall. His view allowed him to see the entire room. James and Dan were setting up the computers with Luna standing near them, Rico, Brenden, and Ryan were talking to one another while looking at the sofa appreciatively, Chuck, Sean, Alex, and Lilly were finishing laying out their bed rolls, both Chronos and Nisitra were sitting on their bed rolls in silence, and the three man recon team were scattered near the windows, looking out into the urban rubble.

Having nothing more to do at the moment, Ale sat down, propping his knees up. He opened a small compartment in his armor and pulled out a small yet durable nylon bag. Opening it, he browsed over the weapon cleaning kit. The Spartan balanced it on his knee before grabbing his Magnum and beginning to disassemble it. He listened to the small amount of noise the troopers made as he occupied himself. He would enjoy the peace while they still had it.