(3rd Pov)
The past few days for the cadets and men of Corbulo Military Academy had been the worst days they had experienced in their entire lives. Despite the fact that many of the staff were veterans themselves, they'd never seen war- no, this was no war, it was pure carnage. Each day, they woke up to see another act of a massacre occur.
With every person hit by the aliens' weapons, one is rendered dead or completely unable to fight. The plasma liquified and vaporized flesh and bone. Their med kits were useless against the power of the star that cast light on this tragedy.
Medics seemed to take this fact worse than even the wounded, realizing that they were effectively useless in the majority of instances. They were unable to even render pain relief, as the nerves that had sent pain signals had been instantly melted away. And God forbid any got hit by the plasma mortar from the purple tanks. Some cadets had watched as their teammates were simply evaporated by a plasma globule. One minute, they were laughing and joking about the absurdity of their situation; the next, only a black smudged crater indicated where they had been standing.
Thomas Lasky was one such of the cadets stuck in the fire.
He stood, dragging a body by its arms through muddied grass. A dirty cloth was tied around his mouth and nose to block the smell of death that radiated at his destination.
Glancing around, he was reminded of the toll it had taken on the academy grounds. Half the buildings the campus had been operating with had been completely leveled, victims of fighting or artillery fire. The rest were standing, but still damaged; windows on multiple levels of each building had been knocked out or shattered. Scorch marks, bullet holes, and tungsten spikes were impaled and impressed upon the outer exteriors.
Inside the buildings were similar states. Each that was still standing had been converted into mini-bases or fallback rally points. Salvage barricades made of desks, tables, and any surface that could slow down the coming Covenant forces. Some cadets and officers constructed rudimentary traps, trip wires attached to grenades at doorways, even mock pressure plates that alerted soldiers of an enemy's position so that they could fire through a surface and get a drop on them.
"Huup," Lasky exhaled as he heaved the body, finally arriving at his goal.
Beside him was a crudely dug rectangular hole at the very back edge of the academy. If Lasky had to guess, its dimensions were probably 7 feet long by 5 feet wide and 6 feet deep. The walls had flecks of clear crystalized glass, while the rest was dark brown soil with pebbles and sporadic rocks mixed into it. In places, it was uneven, evidence of its happenstance creation.
It appeared the morning after the first attack. Then, it started as a crater made by an overshoot plasma mortar cannon. Over the past day, it had slowly expanded either by other various explosives or by some of the survivors who'd had to use shovels to personally expand it.
Lasky placed a set of dog tags into his pocket in his uniform. As his hand dug in, the pocket jingled with the sound of many metal pieces jiggling in the wind around him. He sighed. He couldn't hold back his curiosity; he had to look into the hole.
He'd fought back the urge for most of the morning, but now, with the last drop off, he simply had to.
Looking down into the hole, Thomas couldn't help but exhale as he saw the pool of corpses. Bodies were packed in a pile that seemed to shift like tides in the wind. There was blood caked and splattered sporadically around the trench, and no two members of the dead seemed to have the same wounds.
The only comforting thought to be found in the scene was that it didn't appear that any of the bodies had been or were trying to climb out.
His curiosity filled, Lasky exhaled and turned around to walk away. He kept his eyes on the ground as he traced his way back to his post, following a familiar set of footprints that had left deep impressions in the grass.
Not long after, he stopped at a back door leading into one of the various schooling halls. He lifted up his fist, rapping it in a specific pattern, and within moments, it opened. Michael Sullivan appeared in the doorway.
Sully had seen better days; his eyes were sunken, revealing his exhaustion, and he seemed to have a perpetual sweat reflected with the glistening of droplets on his face. His armor had small pieces of shrapnel embedded into it, and the same with his helmet.
His face remained impassive as his eyes relaxed in recognition, and he let Lasky inside. Neither of the two said anything, and after Lasky entered, Michael closed the door before locking it and following behind. He grabbed a metal chair and stuffed it underneath the knob. If a Brute or Elite came, then it wouldn't matter, but it would be able to hold back a grunt or Jackal.
They ascended a set of stairs before stopping in a corridor on the second level. Sleeping bags were spread out on the ground with tens of wrappers of MREs already eaten. Scattered military equipment was also present, its owners deceased and no longer returning to claim them.
Against one of the walls was Chyker asleep. Her eyes were closed as she remained holding her MA5C tightly. Her hair seemed to hang down into her face from under the helmet, not that it seemed to bother her. It helped to hide the dirt and grime stuck to her face. Like Lasky and Michael, her armor had been battle-damaged from the extensive fighting.
Even now, Lasky thought she looked beautiful, like a rose growing in abandoned ruins.
He bent down and gently shook her shoulder. Instantly, her eyes snapped awake as she gripped her rifle to fire, only relaxing once she saw Lasky.
"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty," he said with the ghost of a smirk. He sat down beside her, unbuckled his helmet beneath his chin, and placed it down on the ground to his left. He reached over and grabbed a canteen to take a sip, as a comfortable silence set.
Occasionally, he glanced over at a building across the courtyard from him. Some Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODST) had dropped in to provide support and were set up in that building.
Sully, who had been sitting on the wall adjacent to them, noticed and spoke up.
"The ODSTs came by while you were gone," Michael said, keeping his eyes on the floor. Lasky couldn't help but think that they had lost a bit of light in them.
Knowing that he wasn't going to like what he heard, he still asked, "What did they say?" his words almost came out as a whisper.
Michael half-chuckled; it sounded as if he realized that the universe was unfair, or that it was playing a cruel joke on him. "Their Captain said, 'We are gonna make a push to the city. Try to draw their fire away from you guys. If we make it, we'll send back transport, and hopefully all of us will be able to get off this rock, if not… then you're on your own," Michael recited as if the exact words were burnt into his memory. Lasky knew the feeling.
Lasky gripped his hair tightly, a habit he had when he was stressed, 'There goes our support,' he wanted to remark, but bit back his tongue.
He wanted to sink into despair and spew all the negativity that seemed to be drowning inside him. God- he wanted to climb to the roof of this building and shout to the sky to go ahead and end him. At least then it would all be over, but he knew he had to keep going. If he died, no big deal, he didn't value his life anyway, but if Chyler or Sully died? He didn't deserve to live, but they did.
"They'll make it," Chyler spoke up for the first time since she woke up. Lasky was thankful for her optimism because it seemed that Michael was at his wits' end.
To further sidestep the depressing subject matter, Lasky decided to ask about something he'd just remembered, "Michael, during the morning of that final test. What was that video you found?"
Michael looked up. He paused before deciding to answer truthfully. At this point, it didn't matter much, and the probability they'd survive was low, so what was the point in at least having a conversation to pass the time?
"Believe it or not, it actually had a bunch of those aliens," he said, getting Chyler's attention. Lasky's eyes also narrowed, "Yeah, apparently Alpha Corvi wasn't having that blackout we thought they were," he chuckled self-depricatingly.
Lasky thought that was it, but Sully continued, "But that wasn't the only thing surprising in the video. The video was taken by a big robot. It wasn't like anything I'd seen, and it was a killing machine when it came to those aliens, literally."
"Like a drone?" Lasky asked, intrigued. If the UNSC had something like that… then frankly, where the hell was it?
"If you mean like a UAV, then no. It was more like the Terminator crossed with one of those astronauts from the textbooks,"
"If something like that exists, then maybe we aren't in as bad a position as we thought," Chyler offered, glancing at Lasky's reaction.
"Maybe," Lasky said, not really believing in her optimism.
"Who knows," Michael said cynically before getting up, "I am gonna go take a piss," he said, grabbing his rifle from the wall where it was leaning against and walking off down the hall.
Once he could no longer hear the sound of Michael's boots, he turned to Chyler, "He's scared," he voiced.
Chyler sighed, "Sully has always been gifted when it came to numbers… he's probably run them, and it doesn't look great," she said, lifting her thin veil of optimism for a moment of reality.
Lasky nodded. He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. General Black and most of the high command staff had been wiped out in the initial attack, and with each subsequent attack, more died, as evidenced by the mass grave he'd been making trips to. Now, there may be two or three more small squads of cadets still alive in the few scattered buildings. Not that it helped much, for some reason, comms had been spotty, and based on how pinpoint a few of the artillery strikes there was a risk they could be traced. Thus, there was silence unless there was a major emergency.
In a sudden outburst, Lasky reached over before throwing his helmet at the opposite wall with all of his strength. The helmet bounced off the wall with a new dent before rolling to a stop at his feet.
"We're fucking screwed," finally, Lasky said what he'd known for the past two days.
Chyler spoke up, trying to reassure him, "Calm down, we can still-"
"We can still what? Fight? Survive?" Lasky shouted, standing up and looking down at her, "We are one plasma mortar away from being buried underneath this damn building."
"But we are still alive," Chyler said, standing up in front of Thomas, "We can't just give up when there is still a chance-"
Lasky interrupted again, "Oh, just save it! You said the same shit to April, Vickers, and Dima,h and look where they are,"
"While you were here sleeping all cozy, I've been putting the bodies of our classmates in a giant pit. I moved 23 no 24, or maybe it was 25 bodies, I'm sorry I stopped counting at 15," he yelled before reaching into his uniform and grabbing and throwing a ball of dog tags onto the ground. The tags themselves were tangled and notted in a rat nest of tungsten; they rattled as they hit the ground beside them.
"Maybe you can help me figure out just how many tombstones we'll need, but make sure to add three to that final count."
The moment the works came out, he wished he could take them back, but a deeper part of him said he needed to continue to keep pushing and to get it all out.
Chyler paused before bending down and picking up the ball of metal and putting it into one of her own pockets, "You're not the only one who's lost friends," she said quietly in a low voice before pausing again. "I know you are hurting after losing your brother and… this, but don't take your anger out on me as if I am just some target," she spoke with a firm expression, but her gentle expression remained.
"Don't say anything else that you know you are going to regret later."
The words took the wind out of Lasky's sails on his ship of self-destruction. He breathed deeply, his eyes sharp as if he was going to blow up once again… but they never did. His tense body language slowly relaxed as the fire that had fueled his rage had run cold. His eyes remained sharp, but there was now a hint of shame in them.
He turned and made his way over to his sleeping bag, forcefully slipping into it before turning over and saying something as he shut his eyes.
"Wake me up only if we're about to be rescued. Otherwise, I'd prefer to die in my sleep,"
With that, Chyler could only sigh, picking up her rifle and moving to stand guard, watching the courtyard with the radio communication equipment beside her.
…
Elsewhere in the building, Sully looked up as the shouting he'd heard clearly from Lasky seemed to go silent.
"Trouble in paradise, huh?" he said as he tucked a cigarette he'd hidden for himself into his lips. He was in one of the few classrooms with a busted window on the lower floor. He used the glass as a focus to light up the end of the white tobacco stick, due to his lack of a lighter.
He shrugged after a moment, blowing out a puff of smoke, "Well, none of my business. Let those two love birds figure it out," he turned to watch the surroundings outside the window.
…..
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…..
"Let's see, maybe if I change the frequency to 12.5 MHz.." Sully spoke to himself as he tinkered with their radio as a way to pass the time.
Currently, the group they had no way of contacting anyone outside the academy grounds. They were still first-year cadets and had no idea what frequencies the UNSC used for planet-wide communication. Earlier, they had no time to look into it, but now… desperate times called for desperate measures.
"Man, I wish Vickers were still here, comms were his schtick," Michael muttered to himself.
"-northern part of the city lost over. Sierra Zero-Zero-Three, what is the status of your evacs at Monroe Plaza over?"
"Huzzah!" Michael threw his hands up as if he'd just won the lottery, but quickly shut his mouth to listen.
"En route," a young but distinguished male voice spoke, "The Covenant has been stalling us with tanks, but we'll make it on time, over."
'That's rough, those tanks are damn near invincible,' Sully thought to himself, 'Wonder how many they've lost so far,'
"Roger. The Pelican will be there when you arrive…. If you don't mind me asking, "Spartan," how many of those tanks have you taken out today?" The operator spoke as if they were nervous to ask.
"The hell's a 'Spartan" Sully asked aloud to no one.
"Nine, why, over?"
"NINE!?" Michael couldn't help but shout before quickly covering his mouth, glancing over his shoulder. Seeing the still sleeping form of Lasky, he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Me and the boys up here had a bet going on how many you would take out today," the operator clarified, sounding notably more relaxed.
"Solid copy," the voice said. Michael couldn't help but feel as though it had the edge of being robotic. The voice maintained the same tone, inflection, and lack of emotion, but it still sounded human. Even the response 'Solid Copy' wasn't anything he'd expect from a soldier being told that he'd effectively been responsible for a betting pool on how many asses he would woop.
Crack
The line suddenly went dead, static only pouring through the headset.
"Damn it," Sullivan looked around, trying to find what the issue was, only to stop as his eyes caught a glimpse of light through the window.
He paused, taking off the head setting it to the side as he picked up his M392 DMR. His eyes widened as he recognized the yellow and cyan glow of a pair of Jackals' shield gauntlets.
The two led the pack of what seemed to be a dozen aliens that slowly made their way around the edge of the building in the distance.
"Shit," Michael's eyes widened as he reached over, grabbing an empty magazine which he threw at Lasky's back.
Lasky stirred from the hit, "What?" he asked, a single eye cracking open.
"We got company," Sully said quickly before turning back to watch the aliens now a quarter of the way across the courtyard.
Lasky immediately sobered up, bending down, he quickly grabbed his helmet with one hand and his rifle with the other. He moved up to the area of the wall below the windows beside. He turned around, hearing footsteps whilst buckling his chin strap.
"You saw them?" Chyler asked, taking a position in line with both Lasky and Sully. She got a nod from Michael as Lasky looked out, seeing what they were dealing with.
'Why haven't our classmates fired on them yet?" Lasky questioned internally, 'They know there is no use hiding from them; they have the smell of bloodhounds.'
Cursing under his breath, he turned back around, "Alright here is the plan. I am going to shoot a strobe in the air hopefully alerting the rest of our classmates. While the Strobe is in the air we are going to hit them with everything we've got," he spoke quickly pulling out a flare gun and loading the flare marked Strobe.
He raised it at an arc and pulled the trigger.
FWOOP
With a burst of light, the flare ignited in the air. It began to blink rapidly, with each blink sounding like a turbine blade cutting through the air. The aliens below shielded their eyes from the bright light, and Lasky, along with the others, let them have it.
Small arms fire erupted from the cadet's position. The unshielded enemies immediately felt the bullets hit, causing them to run off toward a nearby building. A few though were caught unable to continue moving from the wounds and tumbled over, fluorescent blood leaking out onto the lawn, which glowed in the dark night.
Strangely, though, even the shielded enemies fell back to the same building. Lasky noticed this and paused, "Hold fire," he said quickly, making sure to conserve ammo. There was no point firing on an enemy in cover at this point.
'Why did they retreat?' He pondered, 'They didn't seem particularly worried about the lives of their foot soldiers before. Why now?'
He glanced at the other buildings. He'd seen no muzzle flashes from them, meaning that the only ones left were…
He didn't continue the thought, but it still brought more questions than he'd have liked, unfortunately he soon got the answer to his first question.
Another flash in the distance and Lasky's eyes grew to the size of saucers as he recognized the danger, "Shit, we need to move," he said quickly, getting up.
"Why?" Michael asked, unsure what the hurry was.
"Because of that!" Lasky said, pointing to a plasma mortar that soared through the air before crashing feet away from the building they were in. Michael glanced up, seeing multiple more heading to impact.
"Grab the radio!" Lasky barked to Chyler and Michael as they lifted it and began carrying down the hall. The building rocked and shuddered as the three made their way to the bottom floor.
Lasky stopped before the door he'd entered earlier, shoving the chair to the side as he quickly undid the lock, "We are sprinting to the barracks, don't slow down, don't fall back, and don't stop no matter what," he said seriously.
"What about the radio?" Michael asked seriously. The thing was too heavy to be carried by the two of them.
"Mother fucker," Lasky spat out as he realized he'd forgotten about it, "We're leaving it," he said with a sour taste in his mouth.
But before he gave the order for their sprint, he paused, heading to the radio. He quickly booted it up, not worrying about the direction of the antenna, and simply spoke into the microphone on the headset.
He heard static coming through the speakers on the headset, but didn't have time to tune it. This was his final Hail Mary; he needed a miracle, one he didn't think he would get, but one he nonetheless had to try for.
His mind reminded him of what Chyler had said earlier; he couldn't help but give a bitter half-smile as he thought she was right.
"This is Cadet Thomas Lasky at Corbulo Military Academy. Any UNSC station, any unit, any call sign, we are being overrun. We need assistance immediately," he rattled off quickly, the building around him merely moments from collapsing, "Please?" he couldn't help but add the last word as he pleaded for help. Static only remained coming through the line.
Before he could stay any longer, Chyler reached over, grabbing him by the sleeve of his uniform, "We have to go NOW!" she shouted as the building began to rumble.
Quickly, Sully flung the door open, and the three began to sprint to the last bastion of safety. For how long nobody knew, and nobody wanted to think about. Survival was the only thing on anyone's mind.
As they ran away, the building began to collapse. The radio sat alone in a box of electronics and an antenna with a lone wireless headset. The door swung violently in front of it, but from the box a single word could be heard through the sea of static.
"-copy,"
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So this arc is coming to an end, what are your thoughts on it so far?