"This is Kilo One-Niner, tangos are pushing hard. Requesting CAS on grid one-five-five-six, how copy?"<br/><br/><em>"Affirmative Kilo One-Niner. Big bird is en route. ETA two mikes."</em><br/><br/>2nd Lieutenant Michael Sibley had his face pressed into the rubble as he crawled over to his radioman. He had to shout to be heard over the immense din of outbound gunfire. "Krasnivich! What's status on close air?"<br/><br/>"Yeah! Two mikes sir!" The radioman fired another burst from his MA-37, then scrambled back into cover as the weapon clacked empty. Sibley gave him a slap on the shoulder and proceeded further down the line. After their Pelican had pancaked out in the big apple, every Covvie small-fry in the area had scrambled to try to wipe the Army troopers out. Twenty had climbed out of the wreckage - they were down to thirteen able-bodied and a handful of wounded. Their first big step had been pulling the M247 out of the Pelican wreckage and getting a healthy stream of twelve-point-seven slugs down range.<br/><br/>Running out of ammo would probably kill them faster than not having enough guns blazing, realistically. The Lieutenant slid behind a wrecked sedan that their medic, Otto "Doc" Fischer was posted behind. He was probably the most ammo-conservative of all of them, but even now he was glad to receive the few magazines Sibley had to offer.<br/><br/>The ironic part was that the lieutenant couldn't even use the same magazines he was distributing, carrying a heavier M392 and a pistol. At close range, he would be reliant on the "burp gun" he'd picked off one of the dead pilots. The other, Warrant Officer Archer, had simply taken up a discarded MA-37 and joined the battle. She had given good support to Sergeant Ward as he ran the SAW.<br/><br/>What could he say? When the shit hit the fan, some just did their job. Not that anybody was skimping out on effort - in their tight perimeter amongst wrecked vehicles and the rubble of collapsed buildings, there was nowhere to avoid the oncoming Covenant. They had been fortunate the covvies lacked the assets to use their wraith mortars, and the banshee fighters were struggling against UNSC aircraft for control of the sky.<br/><br/><em>"Kilo, we spot your IR beacons. Hold onto your seats."</em>There was a low rumble that announced the arrival of the UNSC fighters - much smaller than Longswords, high, rear-mounted wings and prominent cannons marked them as Skyhawk ground-attack fighters. There was a deafening belch as the first made a strafing run, tearing huge craters into the ground and slaughtering exposed covenant. Damaged and intact vehicles alike detonated under the barrage, even as antitank missiles ripped into the packed road. Sibley spotted a final Skyhawk pulling up hard, then a set of oblong weapons separating even as drogue chutes deployed to stabilize them. "Oh,<em>shit</em>. Get down!"<br/><br/>He dove behind the nearby wreckage of a civilian vehicle and exhaled sharply. The bombs detonated with a bone-rattling slam that hurled Sibley away from the vehicle and showered the entire area with debris. The Lieutenant pushed to his feet and spat out some of the dust that had settled in his mouth. Moments later, his head was nearly clipped off by a haphazard plasma blast. The officer reflexively shouldered his rifle and squeezed the trigger. Through the weapon shook, he couldn't hear if it was actually firing. Sibley realized the ordnance had left him nearly deaf. "MOVE UP!" he shouted, hoping his men could hear him.<br/><br/>The Army's finest fell a skirmish line and pushed through the debris, using the dust cloud of the bombing run to mask their advance even as they laid down an unforgiving hailstorm of gunfire. Sibley fired at any target that presented itself - one moment he was ventilating the methane pack of an unlucky grunt, the next he was taking the hat off of a weakened sangelli warrior. Rockets and grenades were used liberally to clear out dug-in covenant warriors, accompanied by whoops and taunts as the army troopers advanced. When they were halfway down the road and the dust begun to finally settle, Sibley got a notification in his HUD that Krasnivich was patching the CAS pilots to him.<br/><br/><em>"This is big bird. What's the BDA, kilo? Need another pass?"</em><br/><br/>"Negative, big bird. Good effect on target. Do you have eyes on what's down this street?" Sibley asked tersely, scanning the relatively still battlefield.<br/><br/><em>"Going in for another pass... shit, we've got a lock signal-"</em>A lone fighter hurtled just meters above the infantry and pulled up hard, dumping a blinding array of flares and chaff. A purple Banshee flyer speared through the cloud and matched the human pilot move-for-move, filling the air with long bursts of plasma fire. A few of the superheated bolts ripped at the lightweight structure of the Skyhawk, and suddenly one of its engines burst into flames. The pilot fought to maintain altitude, but the human fighter rolled once and exploded across an apartment building.<br/><br/>There was a moment of terrified silence, and the advance rolled to a stop. Sibley looked to his left, then to his right. Doc policed covenant grenades and weapons off corpses. Krasnivich poked nervously at his "spanker" while his buddy Ward fed another drum into his SAW. Archer had her eyes glued to the sky. They all flinched as a fuel rod exploded across the street, and another Banshee screamed for altitude, a vengeful Skyhawk close behind. They weren't going to have much support from here on.<br/><br/>"Fuck," Archer said with finality<br/><br/>The lieutenant sighed. "I don't know about you, but I want to get off this fucking street. Hooah?"<br/><br/>The response was unanimous, if ragged. "Hooah!" Kilo platoon, Delta company, 7th regiment of the 22nd Airmobile Assault Brigade moved out in earnest.<br/>____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________<br/><br/><br/>Lieutenant Sibley plopped into his face for what felt like the dozenth time that day. As soon as the radioactive projectile exploded behind, he stood back up, mashing trigger on his DMR and pinging rounds off the thick armor the hunter. When the weapon ran dry, he ripped a grenade from his web gear and hurled it high into the air, watching the explosive impact at the thing's feet and engulf it in shrapnel. Needless to say, it wasn't happy. It spun to aim at the officer, and the giant cannon on its arm glowed a sickly green.<br/><br/>He took a running leap over the nearest object and rolled into a pile of rubble as the projectile streaked past him. "Krasnavich! Ward! Lock them up!"<br/><br/>"Hooah!" A moment later the staccato of an automatic 7.62 started up again, and the covenant shock trooper growled with anger. Sibley changed magazines in his DMR, took a breath, then took off running. He emerged from cover with his trigger finger working fast, trying to nail the exposed flesh at the side of the hunter's armor. When it turned to face its tormentor, the hunter was blown apart by a well-aimed rocket. Sibley safed his weapon and took a long drink from his canteen. The ragged elements of Kilo platoon were emerging from cover and doing similar. The battle to rendezvous with the cut-off units they were to reinforce hadn't been easy. They had lost another three men from a combination of brutal covvie bombing. One was killed by a grunt that had tackled him with a live grenade in each hand.<br/><br/>They were all on edge, and the break was much needed. Sibley removed his helmet and poured the rest of the canteen over his head before stowing it. When he looked down the road again, he saw a sight that made him forget everything he'd seen in the past day.<br/><br/>Something that looked like it had been a human body was flying through the air. It lingered in his sight for a second before it met a wall with a sickening crunch. A moment later, an ear-splitting roar filled the air, and the ground shook with the pounding of a very big, and very pissed off covenant beast. There were frantic shouts from the other troopers as another green projectile arched through the air and exploded across the terrain.<br/><br/>Sibley had forgotten a very simple rule; hunters always traveled in pairs. He peered around a corner, and found the enraged covvie feet away, leveling its assault cannon at the flimsy cover he was behind. The soldier's mind went to all-out survival mode, and he stepped aggressively from cover, skipping a grenade at the hunter's feet as he fired round after round into the beast's face.<br/><br/>When the grenade went off, Sibley fell onto his ass, and a burning sensation on his legs told him he had gotten shrapped by his own weapon. But he had to kill the hunter. He rose and immediately dove forward, narrowly evading a haphazard swipe directed his way. He ran behind it as it fired wildly, unloading the rest of his rifle magazine into the orange flesh between the thing's armor plates. In the frantic battle, he hadn't even stopped to consider the gunfire had died down from his men. The DMR went empty, and no longer capable of protecting him, it went discarded on the ground. Sibley ripped an M7 from its holster on his side and fell into a dead sprint to get around the lumbering beast.<br/><br/>He was out of ammo, and quite nearly out of time. His lungs were burning, his legs were leaden, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to operate the fine controls on his weapons. Sibley gave one last burst of speed and rolled past the hunter, spraying wildly into the orange flesh on its back. He fired and fired until the M7 too, ran empty. Though the covenant beast was still on its feet, the soldier saw he had tore a gaping wound into its back. He grasped the last grenade on his suspenders and lurched toward the pained hunter. With a grunt, he shoved the grenade deep into the wound channel, trying to ignore how the orange worms flowing in the thing tried to grasp his arm. He mashed the arming stud and staggered away, but the hunter spun and clipped his shoulder with its cannon.<br/><br/>That was enough to send Sibley hurling through the air, until a brick wall finally stopped him. He fell slack onto the ground, his vision flashing white.<br/><br/>The next thing he knew, Doc Fischer was kneeling beside him, peeling away the armored undersuit in his uniform. His side didn't hurt as much as he thought it would have, but he couldn't move his arm very well.<br/><br/>"You alright, Mike?"<br/><br/>"Yeah, I think..."<br/><br/>"You fried that covvie shit, el-tee. You should be proud."<br/><br/>Sibley nodded dumbly, only cringing as Fischer pulled shards of the grenade from his leg and administered spurts of biofoam. It took him a couple seconds to formulate a coherent question. "How bad am I fucked up, Doc? Don't bullshit me, either."<br/><br/>Fischer paused, adjusting the blood-soaked gloves he wore. "You're not bad, considering. DeMarco, Haley and Scott got killed instantly by that thing. We have four critically-wounded and one fading fast. We called in a CASEVAC for them, Mike. You're flying out with them too."<br/><br/>The lieutenant shrugged free of the medic and looked for his rifle on the rubble around him. "Say again, doc? I don't think I heard you correctly."<br/><br/>"Mike," Fischer started quietly. "We lost almost everyone."<br/><br/><strong>"Fuck!"</strong>The lieutenant took his helmet and threw it, watching it feebly bounce off the wreckage of a sedan and roll to a stop. "One stupid cockup and we lost everyone! God<em>damn</em>it!"<br/><br/>"<em>Mike,</em>there's wounded and battle capable that need you to lead them. You can't lose your cool like this."<br/><br/>"Bullshit, doc. We're fucked anyway." Somehow, Sibley managed to stand, though he immediately collapsed against the wall. The sound of rotors chopping into the air was apparent, and he craned his neck upward. A single UH-144 with a prominent red cross on its side pulled over the street and flared for landing, its single spotlight searching the area. He realized that he hadn't even noticed it was dark out until the light had come on, and it was plain he was in no state to lead. "Get those casualties loaded. We're going to move out soon."<br/><br/>"Roger." Fischer collected his medical equipment, then left to help the evacuation.<br/><br/>Sibley watched as the crewmen aboard the Falcon loaded the limp corpses of Kilo company, then the wounded on metal stretchers. They shoved out several crates of supplies and took off moments later, leaving the area shrouded in darkness. He forced himself to his feet again and limped over to the surviving troopers. Krasnivich, Doc, Archer, Ward. "Lick your wounds people. We're going to move two klicks before we set down for a six-hour sleep rotation. Unpack those crates, strip ammo off abandoned gear and get moving."<br/><br/>This time, there were no 'hooahs.' Just nods and knowing glances as they got to work.<br/>