The Truth of the Rings - A Halo story

Part 6 - Assault on the control Room Part 1

The snow fall was quiet. Almost silent, as flakes hit other flakes, landing all around the trees and rocks. A land that was likely once a beautiful Arboreal land, covered by the Frigid Tundra and suffocated away. The cold metal of the ring's structures, only made colder by the Snow and Ice that littered the area. And as the silent snow fell, covering the once living ring-world... A layer of green stuck out.

A layer of green that could perceive the shape of every snow flake that passed its Golden-orange glass face. Hear the snow land on its limbs, and feel the harsh, frigid rock face it held onto.

Looking down below, the Spartan eyed the opening. He was part of the force recon that was scouting the other half of the structure while John took his half. Floyd thought this was a horrible idea from the second he heard "the captain isn't responding, likely an equipment failure." Operating on assumption like that was never a good idea, and seldom worked. However, there's very little the Spartan could do.

The Marines arrived by Pelican shortly later, being 2 teams. The Pelicans had gone back to the fall back point to restock at the Forward Operating base they had set up, and it was clear they didn't waste their time as the Marine teams dropped in with a Warthog and more impressively, a Scorpion Tank.

Floyd dropped from his perch, landing a bit harshly not far from them and approaching as the Sergeant in command of the groups nodded. "Sir, down in that direction on the fly down, we spotted a small defense post stationed outside of what looked to be an entryway. They from the sky we could see a few vehicles, a tank maybe and some Mounted guns."

Floyd had learned a neat trick in his days training against other Spartans. Anyone can plan on paper, but a good tactician doesn't think one or even two dimensionally. Expect the resistance, and especially expect unorthodox tactics and incorrect intel. He quickly looked at the canyon in question and got a basic layout from where he was, unable to see deeper into it without getting spotted.

"Good catch. Mount up in the tank and form a small convoy, hog in front to draw a bit of fire from their tank. Stay on the move, the hog isn't strong enough to take a hit from the tank but it fires like an extremely slow mortar. You should be able to outpace it long enough for the Scorpion to get a shot off and cripple it. If you have snipers, send them to that ridge up there." Floyd lifted his arm and pointed to a natural rock climb formation, very easy climb, leading to a ridge. "I want 4 soldiers sitting on the treads of the Tank, the Hog full, and anyone else following behind the tank on foot."

The Sergeant nodded "Yes sir." Then turned to his troops and began relaying the orders to his group.

Somewhat quickly, they were on the move. Floyd walked with the troops behind the scorpion, and as they made their approach, his plan came to PERFECT fruition, just as he planned.

The Hog began driving in zig-zaggy, unpredictable patterns. It threw their tank off and gave the scorpion just enough time to neutralize the threat. Then it and the hog began destroying the vehicles, with Floyd and the Marines taking out their infantry. Floyd separated from the marines quickly and threw a large rock he broke off a boulder at the grunt on the gun, not wanting to waste ammo without it being necessary. It died immediately as he hopped on the gun and destroyed the other.

The Commander of this force was clever. Even without knowing their defense was scouted, he put reflex troops hiding in a cave incase they were attacked to flank their attackers. When the tank was destroyed, a group of elites and jackals approached from the caves to assist. But Floyd had anticipated this, and the snipers took most of them out quickly. He knew there was no way any decent commander would be guarding the control room, it would be one very sound minded. It wouldn't be as simple as overwhelming a force in an open field. Low and behold, a small extra force came from the entryway itself, moving forwards into his view. 5 Elites, 8 Grunts, and 2 Hunters. The snipers immediately took cover as they were fired upon, which opened up a place for the tank to fire. Most of the grunts were down in one shell, as Floyd fired at the Hunters with the mounted gun, which admittedly did very little but distract them.

Floyd quickly got on Comms, jumping off the gun as they fired at it and caused it to flip into the air, damaging it heavily. "Snipers, get off that post, they have eyes on you. Ill draw their fire." He landed and looked up, rolling immediately to Dodge the now flying rubble that was once a mounted gun from crushing him.

The Snipers seemed to ignore this order, but almost for a noble reason. As the Hunters fired on Floyd... Their backs were exposed, where there was no armor. They quickly fired their Sniper rifles at them, killing both Hunters. The forces then all slowly wiped the rest of the covenant force out and regrouped outside.

Floyd approached the snipers. "Why did you not follow what I said? You were in the sight lines, could've been killed if they had sniper support."

The Snipers smirked as one responded. "They didn't. We checked. Plus we had clean shots on the Hunters. How could we resist?"

Floyd sighed and shrugged it off, before perking up as one of the Marines yelled out "Medic! Need a medic here!"

Floyd quickly made his way over to check it out. There was only one wounded Marine in the assault, as most of them used their cover adequately or were protected by their armor. This one however had taken a single hit from a mounted gun, and it burned a bit into his side. Nothing that would kill for now, but if left untreated too long in this weather it was absolutely lethal.

The Sergeant returned with a med kit, looking at Floyd as he knelt. "Sir, help hold him steady."

Floyd put his hand on the Marine's shoulder, forcing him to keep still. "Look at me Marine." The Marine struggled to stop his panicking but eventually managed to keep his eyes on Floyd, calming down a bit. Floyd continued. "I'm not letting you die today. Goes for all of you. Hold still so we can fix you up."

Before the Marine could even nod, the Sergeant was done. And he was back up and in the fight, which luckily, there wasn't one. Once they regrouped, Floyd laid out a plan.

"Sergeant what was your name?"

"Johnson sir."

"Alright. Sergeant Johnson, hold this entrance. Im going to press forward with Master Chief when he arrives, but I need you to hold this entrance as best you can. Use anything you can. Cover, the remaining mounted gun, the vehicles, anything. But make sure we don't get anything flanking us."

The Sergeant nodded and regrouped everyone to formation. One of the few things a Sergeant can do that a Spartan can't is give speeches, and it was about time for a good one.

"Alright men, Spartan here has been good to us, leading us with a perfectly laid plan to squash every alien in our path to take this tunnel entrance. Now we are gonna do right by this Spartan and cover his and the Master Chief's asses while they take over this very ring we stand on today! We may not know what this ring even is, but our best guess is the Covenant wanting another Anti Son of a Bitch machine led them here! And if that theory is even remotely possible, these Spartans here ain't gonna let them have it, so while they march into the belly of the Galaxy's biggest Hula Hoop, we are gonna keep any Alien Bastard off their backs! I'd be willing to bet that some kleptomaniac Alien bitch wants this entrance back, so they can travel underground and scramble over each other to their inevitable deaths, but we aren't gonna let them have it! Am I right Marines?!"

"SIR YES SIR!"

"Damn right I am. Now get into positions and be ready to defend, because God knows they already are coming, and we're here to give them hell!"