Halo - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Feet First into Hell ❯ Battle of Planet Gyut ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter Two: Battle of Planet Gyut

Planet Gyut, it consisted of one large landmass, surrounded completely by sea. Half of this world was land, the other half was sea. I had landed on the sandbanks of the ocean. The beach that led to a forestry area was his destination. The helljumpers job was to secure the beach, so that the army could have a foothold to use against the Covenant. Not that it mattered, in all the engagements planet wide against the Covenant, they lost. Not because they lost the ground battles, no, because they lost the space battles. The Covenants superior space tactics led the planet to being "glassed" every time. Everyone knew it was hopeless, but I'll be damned if I don't make sure, that for every UNSC soldier they killed, they lost twenty of their soldiers. After all, one helljumper or marine was equal to at least twenty of these Covenant bastards.

I shook my head and returned my focus to the battle as Sarge started yelling at me to get my ass moving. I peeked out of the cover my drop pod provided and immediately hid behind it again. An entire, never-ending line of Covenant soldiers. Against a force of almost a hundred helljumpers. The Covenant were beginning to form a semi-circle, to surround us as much as possible. Hmm, to me it seemed like almost even odds. I checked my battle rifle, reading the ammo counter. Having not fired a single round, my rifle read that I had a full thirty two bullets left in the cartridge. Instead of immediately firing, I took the time to release, and reload the cartridge. The new cartridge slid in place with a reassuring 'clack'. I was ready; reloading gave me the mental stability for the fight. I spun around out of my cover again, only to feel insulted. "They're all grunts!" I said in disbelief. The entire formation of Covenant, three lines total, all surrounding us in a semi-circle, was made entirely of grunts! Then the unexpected happened.

Screams roared over the speaker and I hid behind my drop pod again. "Screamer?!" Daring to peek my head out, I saw several grunts were setting up a perimeter with several Shade turrets. The turrets would melt away what little cover we had. "Shit!" with that, I stepped out of my cover, in a crouch, and fired round after round into a line of grunts that was setting up the turret. "Eat that you little sons of bitches!" One turret was down, but other grunts started surrounding the shade, working furiously at getting it set up. He heard several volleys of needler fire, as well as overcharged plasma pistols. He quickly ducked behind his drop pod as the shielding blistered and melted, several shards got stuck in the side of the pod. "Shit!" I knew what happened next. The side of his pod exploded, sending the heavy pod, not up into the air luckily, but onto it's side. I quickly crouched behind it. I made myself as small as I could, the extensive cover I once had was gone.

That's when I heard it again, as several Shades began firing. Screamer, he was whooping and hollering as loud as his lungs would let him inbetween breaths. I heard a loud crash, several grunts screaming, and some of them yelling "Oh no, oh no!" I looked up over my pod once more to see what had happened, and was rewarded with quite a peculiar sight. Screamers pod had landed right in the line of the grunts, destroying three of the Shade turrets, and mangling the rest. Needless to say, the shades were out of the battle. "All right Screamer!" I yelled pumping my fist into the air before retracting it suddenly. Of course that was an idiotic idea, but it was in the mood of things. Screamers landing had turned the tide of the battle completely! It was unbelievable, the grunts had broken ranks and were running everywhere they could, rather then keep formation. It was the ODST's turn to take this battle. He heard someone yell charge as Screamer kicked open his drop pod. Kyle quickly reloaded his battle rifle and climbed over his fallen drop pod. "Move move move!" he could hear Sarges booming voice over the sound of bullets through his COM link with the squad.

There was no doubt who had won this battle, as the grunts were mopped up by the now eighty-six helljumpers. About ten were able to escape into the forest area, and a few ODST's gave chase out of wanting for a thrill. I sighed softly watching them go after the few grunts that remained, before mowing them down. It was a welcoming sight I saw, we had won this battle against the Covenant. But something had been off, why did the Covenant only throw grunts into the battle? It was normal to see several Elites keeping the grunts attention and throwing orders everywhere. It was then that I realized, if there had been Elites, we would not have survived this battle.

I let the fact go, the most important thing to me right now was that I was alive. I sank down to the ground and put a hand on my head, setting my battle rifle on the ground next to me while clicking on the safety. I heard Sarge call my name “Kyle! Get your ass over here! We've got to establish a perimeter!” with that I was shook out of my daze. I shook my head to clear my thoughts before shoving all thoughts out of my mind that didn't have anything to do with the battle. I jumped to my feet, grabbing my gun quickly before running over to where Sarge stood, shouting orders at a few helljumpers who were busy stripping pods. “Sir! Private Kyle Frensa reporting for duty!” with that I smartly saluted to Sarge. Screamer then started walking over to me and Sarge, laughing slightly at the events that had unfolded during the battle.

”Whoo! That was some battle eh Kyle?” Screamer asked giving my helmet a good hard slap. I stumbled forward slightly, and then returned my head up to glare at him viciously. “Hey! That hurt you bastard!” I yelled angrily. “Enough” Sarge had stepped in to break up the fight. “Well he started-“I started to say before I was cut off by Sarge. “Son, this man saved your life, all of our lives. Now Screamer, next time you save our asses, I want you to do me a favor.” Sarge said crossing his arms.

“What would that be Sarge?” Screamer asked smiling behind his helmet. “Take a god damn breath mint, I could smell your breath through the damn drop pod, matter of fact, it was probably your breath that scared the Covenant away.” Sarge said smirking slightly. Sarge was one of the people who took his helmet off immediately when he landed. He looked around forty, with some of his dark black hairs at the top beginning to turn white. His face had started to wrinkle, but you'd have to study his face to tell, and lord knows Sarge wouldn't let you study his face. The most noticeable feature however, was the eye patch. He wore an eye patch over his left eye that covered a blank hole where his eye had once been. A needler round had hit him in the eye during one of the engagements, he'd survived of course, but he had a steady lack of depth perception that caused him to “misfire” at a bunch of marines feet when they pissed him off enough. Needless to say, people quickly stopped pissing him off.

Screamer laughed at this. “Sorry Sarge! Next time I'll be sure to take a breath mint, while we're at it, let's have the Covenant suddenly start trying to make piece with us. Then you won't have to smell my god damned bad breath because the war will be over.” I stood there, listening quietly to the conversation the two were having. I began to get lost into my own thoughts, of what I wanted to do if the war suddenly ended. Truth be told, I wanted to go to Earth, the planet I had previously lived on had already been glassed by the Covenant. From there, I would try to open up a small restaurant on the - “Kyle! Snap out of it son! Go over to those engineers there and try to get the Shade turrets that weren't mutilated up and running, MOVE!” Sarge yelled, causing me to jump five feet into the air before I landed and saluted. I started walking over to the Shades when I heard Sarge again “DOUBLE TIME IDIOT!” with that, I immediately began running. He sounded pissed enough already.

Upon arrival at one of the seven Shade turrets that had not been destroyed, I noticed that the two engineers there were confused, wondering just how to fix the scrap of metal they were studying intensely as they conversed among each other. I took a few steps closer to them and studied what they were looking at. They had opened the control panel to the Shade, to find most of the parts the Covenant used to power the Shade to be fried and broken. “What's wrong?” Kyle asked kneeling down next to them. “It's busted; the energy source used to power this thing is busted. It's going to be down until we can get some better parts to repair it with.” The engineer said sighing softly.

“Of course.” Kyle said sighing as well. The Covenant were no doubt planning some kind of counter-attack on their position, the Shades would have been a great asset to their defense. But of course, this left only six up and running.

The next few hours were spent stripping the drop pods of all the titanium armor that held them together during the flight. They dragged the Shade turrets to strategic locations, using what little they had to defend the corners of the area. I did my part, using the parts from the pods; we were able to construct small barricades to duck behind as cover around our perimeter. Overall, the battle was won in a timely manner, fifteen deaths total, eighty-three helljumpers left. Our only concern now was to wait, no survive, until the marines arrived.

Only a total of four Shades had been spared during the assault. So they were used to fortify the front and sides, the beach behind the group was left exposed. If the Covenant decided to attack their unguarded flank, there wouldn't be much left of the ODST's. I decided it would be best to rest for the next battle, as there would undoubtedly be one. I sat down near one of the Shade turrets and yawned, tilting my head up slightly to look at the sky. The space battle would not be over yet, and I knew that that battle would be one they would lose.

I shook my head clear of such thoughts, dismissing them as `depressing' rather than dwelling on it. I lowered my head again, closed my eyes, even though my helmet blocked that little detail. I slowly drifted off to sleep…

Two hours later, the warning klaxon blared suddenly, pausing every second to take a breath before blaring again. It woke me up, dazed, I looked around. The shade I was near was still operational, but heating up. “Oh shi-“ I dove to the side quickly, someone was firing the Shade, for some purpose I didn't know about. It appears that while I was sleeping someone had set up a warning klaxon. “A drill…” I said quietly, before realizing I had left my battle rifle on the ground over near the Shade.

A few seconds later, as I scrambled to try and get it back, a plasma grenade was stuck to the Shade, and the helljumper that had been on it jumped to the side, off of the portable turret. He landed next to me and the shade erupted in a shade of blue plasma. The fire danced in front of my eyes as I realized, the Covenant were obviously attacking. My rifle was now a smoldering pile of scrap of course, having been caught in the blast radius. “Shit!” I cursed loudly, the only other weapon I had was the magnum I carried as a sidearm. This was the time I spent wishing I had brought a better weapon for my second choice then the pistol. After all, the pistols bullets were weak in comparison to the battle rifles, it could barely punch a hole through a grunts methane tanks.

I sighed; I'd have to make do with what I could. I ducked behind the little smoldering cover that my drop pods parts provided for me and the fellow helljumper beside me. I peeked over the top and looked; it was a platoon, or two, of brutes and elites. This sent a chill through my spine. We had just started feeling a bit of relaxed. Then we get attacked by the worst, I even spotted two Hunter pairs in the back of the group. Which was definitely odd.

Everyone was firing blindly into the mist of the enemy platoon; there was no focused fire, which meant only one thing, panic. If the helljumpers continued like this there would be no more helljumpers here to keep the fight going. I sighed, before realizing that the ODST that had jumped off the plasma cannon next to me had had his leg blown off in the explosion. He was already in shock. “DAMMIT! MEDIC!” I yelled loudly, I scrounged towards him and pulled him into cover next to me. One solitary helljumper rushed towards me and the wounded ODST next to me. He began treating the helljumper with care. Then I realized that the ODST had a submachine gun strapped to his chest. I grabbed it off quickly for my own.

It wasn't much compared to the battle rifle, but it was better than that shitty pistol. Though where the hell was our reinforcements?! A rather large elite jumped over the barrier, they were too damn close. I aimed up at the elite and fired, emptying a clip into the elite, watching the shield shimmer before my eyes. As the clip neared being empty, his shield gave out and two bullets lodged in the alien's thigh. It was by no means dead, by all means pissed off. It turned to me and grabbed me by the neck. It squeezed as I struggled to pry its hands off my throat. I could feel my lungs burning in my chest, realizing I needed oxygen badly. I took what little energy I had left, and swung my leg back, then forward into the Elites chest, watching the armor it wore crack under the power of my kick. It was enough to make it let me go.

I dropped to the ground and drew in deep ragged breaths as the Elite staggered backwards from the blow. I quickly reached for the pistol I had left on the ground and snapped it up, firing three times at the Elites head. Only one of the shots connected however, considering that I was still a bit woozy from the loss of oxygen. The Elite collapsed dead at my feet, a small device clattered to my feet, obviously off the Elites body. I picked it up, noted a switch, and turned it on. The energy blade crackled with life as it appeared. I smiled, this was getting interesting.

“Wort wort.” I heard the Elites behind the barrier think that their comrade was still alive and fighting. I braced myself, flattening against the makeshift barrier, waiting for any elites to pass by me so I could slice them in half. I heard thundering steps, and worried for a moment, what if a Hunter had decided to come along to? I'd be screwed worse than that slut I used to live next to. I realized, that it was not a Hunters steps, but something almost as bad. A brute was coming up to check the situation out, not an Elite or Hunter. I had a slim chance, surprising it, I sprang out of my cover to face my opponent, and the brute howled with rage as it saw me. I quickly, without thinking, slashed a vertical slash at the Brute. It moved backwards but not in time, a large gash appeared on its chest as the aliens blood dribbled down its body. It did nothing, only tossing aside its weapon and glaring at me with a ferocity that told me I was screwed. It charged, I dived to the side, back behind cover. It didn't get far until it rounded itself, aiming for me once more, the medic was gone, the ODST was dead at my feet. One less person to protect, but it was still bad that he died.

The brute was close now, and I dived again, hearing it howl in pain as it slammed into the makeshift cover. I sprang to my feet once more, and sliced horizontally at the beast, this time, it didn't dodge in time. Its head was cleaved off.

It was then that an explosion near me sent me flying, letting me land in the dirt near the broken Shade turret. My vision blurred, and I felt an Elite step on my back. This couldn't be the end for me, it just couldn't…

I blanked out then; the battle was finished for me.