Through my visor: IV

Something's off

_{Reach highlands, Planet Reach}

0300 hours we boarded the Pelican, full gear, with a week's worth of rations and TTR ammunition and lock recovery wands. Alexa, Randal, Nicko and I, along with another squad boarded the same Pelican, we chatted and exchanged stories as the Pelican flew to Reach's famed mountain ranges.

It was a three hour trip, over cities, a few outposts and lakes. Once we got there, they were going to dust off as we clamber out of the blood tray of the Pelican and dropped into the knee deep snow.  The wind blew all around us and we couldn't hear a thing besides the roar of the Pelican's thrusters.

And as quickly as we disembarked, it flew off, the sound of the engines fading while the Pelican disappeared to the other side of the mountain.

The mountain peaks of Reach were capped with snow and ice.  Freezing and frigid, it was perfect for training special ops personnel. We were marines, not spec ops, something was off.

The comm channels squawked to life with a squelch and then sarge's voice. "Alright marines, this is your combat survival training scenario, your objective will be to rally with your platoon, locate and collect several designated encrypted map codes with the other squads, go through certain check points after you've completed the map and then reach the top of peak Kilo 4 within  three days. Afterwards, we'll fly you home. Varga out."

We looked at each other in bewilderment, "that's it, that doesn't sound too hard." Randal remarked.

Alexa still felt something was off, having a simple exercise like this in this scenario didn't make much sense, why do it here, where more difficult things could be staged.

"Right, you heard the man, get moving marines!" Alexa barked; letting her MA5B rest on her shoulder "Jonathan, you take point!"

"Aye ma'am" I responded, wearing my pack and gear and levelling my MA5.

"I heard some other Pelicans flying to the south of us, further down the mountain"
one of the marines from the Richards' squad piped up.

"Right, we'll head that way, we need to gather the rest of the platoon"

So I took point, leading the eight-man squat down the rocky and forested slopes. Trudging through snow and ice, often raising a clenched fist telling them to freeze, scanning the area for movement, and went on trudging through snow once more.

Finally, movement, I signalled them to freeze, and got on my knees, the others followed suit. From where we were positioned near some bushes, giving us ample cover from whatever was on coming out of the woods in the clearing in front. Figures from behind the bushes shuffled, and the 8 armed men came out of the bushed. It was McClusky and Rajah's squad.

I signalled the squad to stay put while I crept a little closer, "McClusky! Rajah! Is that you?"

That got the men's attention, raising their rifles at the bushes, "whose there?"

"Castillo, I'm coming out" I declared.

The men relaxed as I emerged from the bushes. "This is all?" I asked, scanning their squad.

"Yeah, pretty much."

I looked back to the bushes and waved my hand. Then the rest of my squad emerged from the bushes.

"Four squads, five more to go"

We compared notes with each other, trying to figure out where we can find the map codes and where the others are. We spent the rest of the day working our way on the face of the mountain, collecting two more four-man squads. That makes it twenty four marines. Not a bad start.

We set camp in a clearing at 1900 hours; it's too dark to continue the search. Some men from Rajah's squad were on guard duty while we set up a camp fire.

Alexa was a bit worried, something doesn't seem right, still. "Hey, do you think it's a good idea to start a fire?" she asked Gomez as he tries to start a fire with his camping kit.

"I think so, if the other squads see this, they will know where to go." He reasoned with a distinct Latino accent to his voice. Makes sense, no further questions.

Then an unmistakable whistle of an incoming artillery round broke the silence.

"Incoming!" Someone hollered.

Everyone dropped what they're doing and hit the dirt.

The shell explodes just a few meters above our camp. Practice rounds, designed to detonate and disintegrate before impact to the ground. They may not be that dangerous, but they're scary.

"Put that damn fire out!" Alexa barked as we threw snow and wet sheets over it.

More shells whistled towards us, each one detonated just meters above us, I could feel the thump as each shell bursts over our heads. Hot residue from the exploding shells rained all over us, and then quickly disappeared in the cold night.

Well, looks like we'll have to spend the night shivering in the dark. Looks like Alexa was right, there is a catch. But their surprises are just starting.

Arcadia had a tropical climate, warm sunny days and lovely weather with rain showers. Here on Reach's highlands, it's cold and bitter. I can see why this was a good place to train the UNSC elites.

Moring came as we woke up from our cold night. I picked myself up from my dugout and gathered my gear for the day's trek.

"Day two" I thought to myself.

"Move out! Derrick, you take point!" Richards barked.

I grabbed my weapon and started off along with the rest of the squads, we had three squads left find before we could complete the map, accomplish our objectives and assemble on peak Kilo 4 before tomorrow sundown.

The bright morning sun gave us the view of the side of the mountain; dark blue green patches of trees covered the sloping land with clearings of white snow.

We met up with the remaining three squads who have joined up together. We set up a makeshift tent and gathered the pieces of the map codes and plugged it in the tact-display. It glowed to life and gave us a three dimensional map of the mountain range, three yellow stars dotted that map.

Gregory Aldrich who was platoon leader pointed at those three stars, "We'll split into three teams, each team will have a designated objective to take, and this will cut the time we need to get each objective if we do it all together."

"Nené, McClusky, Richards, you're team one, you'll take the one on the East route. Rajah, Ramón, and Gomez, take the objective near junction R. Nicolai, Welsh, you're with me. We're taking junction D. Pop smoke when you've taken objectives and then meet up in our objective. We clear?"

The squad leaders nodded and grouped up. Their teams followed suit, everyone was prepping their gear, checking their weapons, cleaning their rifles. Some were eating their rations, others boiled snow to for drinking water.

I slung my rifle to my back and walked to Alexa, who was talking McClusky and Richards and the rest of their squads.

Then the order was given to move and the platoon separated. We moved through the snow covered pines and sloping landscape. No enemy fire. So far, all quite, something was off. Snipers? An ambush? It's too easy, aside from the bom-bardment we had last night, nothing opposed us, why did we bring weapons loaded with TTR? Alexa was a bit on edge about the ease of this mission, so were the other squad leaders.

We finally got visual on the objective, east route. It was a narrow trail through the forest overlooked by what seems like a low ridge cut in the middle for the path.

Richards looked through is binoculars, he didn't like what he saw. He called us up to report what he found.

"Alright guys, looks like there's a catch after all. The two sides where the path cuts through the ridge is covered by two M247H MGs, a dozen or so well entrenched infantry ready to lob grenades at anyone who plans to make a mad dash through the path where the MGs can't reach, and since we don't have that kind of numbers to actually stage a mad rush, that's out of the question."

"Is there any way around the ridge?" Nicko asked.

"It's on the other side of the mountain, care to take a hike?" Richards answered with sarcasm.

"Right, how do we do this?" Randal inquired.

"I suggest we split up. We climb up the ridge, its low so it's not much of a problem." Alexa suggested.

"You'll be sitting ducks while your squad is climbing."

"That's why you're going to provide covering fire. Keep them off us by drawing fire away. We climb, then shoot them in their backs" She explained, raising a clenched fist.

"Right, it's settled, we'll move up to the foliage near the ridge while you climb
up." Richards agreed. McClusky nodded and signalled his squad to move out.

"Alright kids, let's go rock climbing", Alexa declared, moving out to the far side of the ridge. We followed and got to the base of the rock face. Twenty foot climb on cold icy rock, no harness with only standard marine BDUs and CH252 helmets for protection; it was a dangerous climb.

"Wait for the signal" Alexa ordered with an almost whispering voice.

Shots rang out as we heard the MGs open up, their heavy thumps pounding the snow covered pine trees below, answered by the familiar triple bursts of the BR55 rifles.

"Right, let's go! Climb!" Alexa ordered as we slung our rifles on our backs and grabbed the rock face. We climbed while our guys distracted the enemy. My boot lost its grip on one of the ice covered rocks and I slipped, only managing to grab a tree root before I plummeted to the ground below, dangling on a tree root with only one hand. NIcko grab my other hand and lifted me up, I clung to the cliff face. "It's no fun without you, y'know" he said.

We got to the top of the ridge and made our way to where the action is, running through the woods and snow to neutralize the objective before our guys below get ripped to shreds.

Below, Richards and his team are on their bellies under the trees and bushes, avoiding the constant pounding of the MGs above. Two of his guys are already hit with TTR and lay stiff in the snow.

"Dammit! Where the heck Nené! We're being torn to pieces here!" Richards demanded.

McClung was held up in the other side of the path leading to the ridge, also taking cover from the MGs while the other guys on top shot at them.  Tree bark and snow chipped and exploded around them as the relentless pounding of the two machinegun emplacements tore the bushes they were hiding in.

We made it behind of the hostiles' position and as we suspected, they had their backs turn.  We hid under the snow and trees in the woods which was cut though the path in the middle of their position in the ridge. Alexa signalled me and Nicko to take the opposite side of the woods. We across the path and dove to the other side and we moved to their position silently.

"Pick your targets, and fire." Alexa ordered.

Then we let loose on the unsuspecting enemies. They didn't have time to react and were quickly decimated. One managed to turn and lob a Training Concussion grenade at us before being shot with TTR and stiffening up in the snow. The TC grenade landed right between Alexa and Randal and they both dove out from their cover before the grenade detonated.  Alexa picked herself up and walked over the edge and popped her head out for a look.

She was met with a stream of fire by the guys below and she stumbled back-wards.

"Cease fire, dammit!" she screamed.

What remained of McClung and Richards' squad came out, of the eight men, four got through.

"What took you so long?" Richards yelled. "We just got torn up here while you guys
we're dawdling up there!"

"Well excuse me! We could have just took the objective and left you there with your ass in the snow!" Alexa retorted.

Richards sighed "whatever, we took the objective, that good enough."

We then proceeded to finding our stiffened squad members, tapping them with the lock recovery wands we brought with us. We took the objectives and then popped smoked.

Davidson, one of McClusky's men, threw a smoke grenade nearby and watched the cloud of green smoke rise to the sky. From afar, I could see the other teams have also popped their smoke.

"That wasn't so hard" I mentioned.

"'Wasn't so hard', maybe for you guys!" Roué, one of Richards' squad mates, remarked.

I laughed a bit and followed my team while we collected our gear below the ridge where we climbed.

Then, the low whistle of incoming artillery rounds signalled the incoming bombardments as they targeted the area with the green smoke.

"Oh ok! Now they're overdoing it!" Randal shouted as we hit the dirt, shells exploding overhead.

"Move out! Meet up with the rest of the platoon in junction D!" McClusky yelled while we scrambled to collect our gear.

"What about the guys we took out?" Nicko shouted while we ran from the in-coming bombardment.

"The TTR will wear off in a couple of hours! They're fine!"

We moved through the woods, the sounds of the shelling could still be heard from
behind. It took us almost four hours to regroup with the rest of the platoon in junction D.

When we arrived, they had dug in for the night. We dropped our packs and relaxed a while. After a few minutes I started digging my foxhole while Randal boiled snow and tossed some vacuum packed rations to heat them. We could only light small fires in day time to avoid signalling another bombardment.

"Ok, squad leaders pick one of your members for night watch, two hour shifts"
Aldrich ordered. Shouts of names echoed among the squad leaders as they picked their night watchers.

Alexa called me out for lookout duty, first shift. "Yippee..." I thought to myself in sarcasm.

The sun soon set and it grew dark on the mountain face. We put out the fires before we could be noticed from afar. We ate the rations that have already turned cold by the time we wanted to eat them, but at least they're not frozen solid.

The night on top of the mountains of Reach was quite as I stood watch over the dark forest.  There was a faint light coming from the stars and the two moons of Reach, Csodaszarvas and Turul.

We couldn't move through the night because we can't use your flashlights. If we do, they'll just shell us again and moving in the dark woods where moonlight can't penetrate would risk marines getting separated. Night vision was out of the question since they removed it from our helmets before going to the mission.

I could overhear some of the men chatting quietly as they lay in their fox holes. Some slept, while those who couldn't sleep because of the cold chat with their buddies in their foxholes. This is how we formed our brotherhood, you being there with your fellow marines through thick and thin, they relying on you and you relying on them.

A tap from the back startled me as I quickly turned around raising my MA5

"Easy, Jon" Randal's voice came from the darkness, "It's just me. My shift's starting."

I sighed and lowered my weapon, walking back to my foxhole. I slumped down in the bottom and relaxed my head on the walls of my foxhole.

"Ever wonder what's out there?" random question came from Alexa as she looked up to the stars. We were sharing the same foxhole together. When she couldn't sleep, she'd often chat about things like that.

"Hm?" I replied nonchalantly

"I mean, what's out there, humanity has reached the stars and has expanded throughout the galaxy, and yet, they haven't seen anything yet. I mean, are we the only ones?"

"I can't say." I said having nothing better to reply.

"Heh, maybe God's just hiding there somewhere."

"What brought that up?"

"You know, you being a Bible boy and all"

I gave a quick laugh and let the thought pass. "Get some sleep."

The sun rose slowly as we woke up. A thick layer of fog covered the mountain face and we couldn't see more than fifteen meters away from us. As if fate just threw a sucker punch at us.

"Fan out! Keep visual contact with your squad mates!" Aldrich ordered as we moved up to peak Kilo 4 for pick up. This was the final stretch; we hiked through the snow and woods, constantly keeping each other in check, and staying in touch with the other squads via short bandwidth helmet radios.  

We reached the clearing leading up to our objective and our platoon leader called a halt. "Squad leaders, head count! Make sure no one's missing!"

Shouts of the different squads performing head counts echoed through the thick fog.

"First squad, all members accounted for!"

"Second squad, all here..."

Squad leaders checked in on Aldrich via radio as the completed their head count.

All of a sudden, a faint rumbling from above could be heard, getting louder and louder, like in coming fire. Everyone scrambled and hit the dirt, some diving for cover in the woods nearby. The rumblings soon turned into roars like a distant jet getting closer and closer. It continued to get louder and at the point when it was almost unbearable, it stopped with a loud crashing noise.

It repeated sixteen times in quick succession, whipping up snow to form an even thicker cloud to add to the already obscuring haze. A meteor shower? No, highly unlikely, if it was, it wouldn't have been that concentrated on a singled area, it must have been something more precise.

As some of the fog and whiteout cleared, we could see black tear-shaped silhouettes from around a hundred meters from our location.

"Heh, maybe it is a meteor shower." I heard a remark coming from somewhere to our right, but sixteen meteorites looking exactly the same? Something is definitely wrong.

"Rowlings, Comparzo, move up check out what that is, on the double! The rest, stay down and find cover!" Aldrich barked his orders to the platoon.

The two men moved up to the site where the objects landed. But the fog moved in once again and we soon lost visual contact with them. Aldrich checked their status with the helmet radios.

"Forty meters and closing, sir, can't get a good look at it with all this fog" We listened through our radios anxiously.

"Fifteen meters, it's not a space rock sir; it's manmade by the looks of it." Tension grew as we nervously watch the white blankness of the fog. I caught my finger pulling the slack of my trigger, slowly tightening its grip around it.

"Confirm it, what is it marine?" Aldrich radioed them over.

"Sir! It's a UNSC dro-" their panicked voice suddenly cut off.

"Hostiles! Open fire!" Aldrich yelled hysterically, firing a steady stream of TTR straight into the unknown. We followed suit, the air filled with the sound of weapons firing in unison. Some in short bursts, others in steady streams, tracers flying through the fog and disappearing into the whiteness.

After a few seconds, Aldrich ordered to cease fire, he called out several times before we stopped firing. He popped his head up to take a better look at things. "Al-right, looks like everything's-". A TTR went straight to the middle of his helmet as his armour began to lock. He fell awkwardly to the ground.

Then I heard a low grunt from the left. Then unmistakable sounds of sup-pressed weapons, followed by more sounds of people getting hit by TTR, and then return fire from the remaining marines. They came from all around us.

We lay prone on some nearby shrub as we heard what seems like our platoon being decimated.

"We're sitting ducks here! Move up!" Alexa shouted as we got from our prone position and started running towards the objective. The other squads followed us as we charged through the fog.

Finally getting visual of the site where the pods landed; two marines lay stiff on the snow, taken out by TTR fire. We continued to run towards it, we can now see figures crouched in the snow.

Charcoal black armour, oval helmets with a distinct T-visor, ODSTs, humanity's most elite soldiers. We were fighting against ODSTs. Now we knew what we're in for.

We levelled our rifles and started shooting at them, causing them to take cover behind their pods and some rocks above. We continued to shoot, trying to keep them hunkered down, trying to buy our platoon some time to regroup and overrun them.

There were sixteen of them, and twenty or so of us, taking to account those who were incapacitated earlier.

Then a single distinct muffled gunshot was heard followed by a female voice, "Aaugh!" I turned and saw Alexa down to the snow, armour stiff. I stopped firing ran to her.

What followed is the familiar feeling of being hit by a TTR. A sudden, short and violent nudge to the side of the helmet, followed by a quick but sharp pain, then the feeling of your BDUs gradually becoming stiff and begin to harden, followed by the almost slow-motion feeling of you falling down to the ground, face flat on the snow. Then, it was the long wait for someone to tap the lock recovery wand on your armour before you could move again. You're lucky if you froze in a comfortable position, but if you don't you better hope they unlock your armour soon or your neck will be sore for days.

It felt like hours as we lay there in the snow, incapacitated by TTR fire, when a man tapped our armour free from lock. Luckily my BDUs froze sprawled on the snow, so it's not as uncomfortable as others.

"What happened, did we win?" I immediately asked as I picked myself up from the snow.

"Ha! You still dazed there bud? Those were ODSTs we've been up against. We didn't stand a chance." A man from our platoon said. "But hey, we took out a few of their guys though. Not bad for some Marines who have just gotten out of basic."

So it wasn't a total loss.

I helped unlock the other soldiers who were strewn in the snow covered field. Groans can be heard throughout the platoon as men flexed and stretched their arms after being held in place in uncomfortable positions after hours.

"Ugh... Squad leaders, head count, then form up" Aldrich called out, getting the platoon back together.

We gathered up, listening to the squawk box. "Well men, looks like we had a blitz coming our way and the higher ups didn't even told me about the ODST drop", sarge told to us over the radio. "Anyway, so here's the situation. I called for the Pelican drop ships to come pick you guys up, but my request was denied, saying that you didn't achieve the final objective. Looks like you're gonna hike back to base from here on. Good luck; I'll see what I can do to sort out this mess, Varga out."

We looked at each other with in bewilderment and disbelief. Man, the admiralty must have been pissed because we stole their booze and smokes. The men thought it was funny as we laughed at the thought that the higher ups let us go through all that just so they could get the drop on us for stealing their stuff.

In the end, we have free high quality booze, plus additional training while the guys who sent us on the mountains and shelled us for trying to make a camp fire got nothing. Looks like we still got the last laugh.