Fireteam Phoenix: Operation S&D.
The team was working efficiently. The Jackals and Grunts were dealt with right away. Seth smirked, maintaining his aim up the hill the covenant was shooting at them from. A squad of about five Elites materialized and started shooting down at the Fireteam, all while yelling in their mother tongue. “Go for cover, Team!” The beams of their plasma rifles made lashing noises against Seth’s armor, lowering his shield a bit before he got to cover. He waited for the now familiar sound of his shields regenerating, and whipped out his sniper rifle from his back. The Spartan took two shots at an Elite, bringing it’s shields down. A third shot through the head and the target was down. “Keep those hinge heads under fire! As soon as we take them out, we climb that cliff and scout ahead!” He switched back to his battle rifle and kept shooting at the elites. “We’ll need to clear out a way to those AA guns fast!”
A glancing shot off of Echo’s left shoulder caused her to side roll into cover, now fully cloaked in the vegetation of Requiem. Out of habit, her active camo clicked on and she began to trek through the brush to get a better shot. Weapon ready, Echo began peppering a spray of coordinated bullets at one such Elite that stood a mite too far apart from the rest of the squad. Her heart and respiratory rate remained level as the Spartan III turned IV boredly but methodically downed the shields of the elite before firing off a few rounds in the neck and skull.
“Aye aye, sir. One target down,” A pause as Echo reloaded, before glancing over to get a sense of the squad’s location. An idea lurked in Echo’s mind, but she remained unsure. After some hesitation, the Spartan finally spoke as she provided cover fire for Phoenix. “Sir, permission to speak candidly? A diversion might be a useful tactic. We draw off the bulk of their forces from the AA guns, allowing one or two of us to disable the guns.”
“She’s got a point, Seth!” Andrew spoke, a plasma shot burning the top of the rock he took cover behind. “We’ll be playing patty cake with them all damn day, otherwise.” The Spartan hurled a concussive grenade over the top of his make shift fortification, ducking back down as he was met with the sound of an elites death cry, who was unlucky enough to be caught in the blast.
Andrew offered a glance to the side of the cover, only to be forced back behind its protective embrace by a few shots from the enemy force. He dug his feet in the loose soil beneath, firing off a quick burst to the side of the rock. Andrew felt collected, almost as if the world was slowing down around him. It had always been like this. The world was going to hell around him but he couldn’t help but feel at peace.
Reece quickly ducked behind cover as a plasma grenade was hurled in her direction. She counted the seconds internally before the blast shook the ground surrounding her, the rock she resided behind shielding her from the explosion. Moments later, when the tremor stopped, she pulled a grenade of her own from her belt, pulled the clip, and quickly looked out from cover, hurling the grenade in a fluid motion toward an elite. She didn’t hesitate to duck back again to wait for the replying blast.
“I’d have to agree. We aren’t going to get in where we need to be like this, picking them off one by one. We’d be sitting ducks.” She leaned out once again and fired off a few more rounds while waiting for further instruction.
Tikhon mentally hummed to herself. She wasn't much for offering stratagems unless everyone else ran out. Or others were just stupid, but she really hadn't had to worry about that too much. Her previous encounters with orders and strategy had all been with mostly brilliant people. It made her the weak link. Echo's idea did sound good.
For now she was just focusing on corralling the hinge-heads into her team's fire. Keep them from diving into cover with a hail of bullets. A shepard with a gun and a flock full of big ugly aliens. The mental image amused her; she laughed.
