HRP - Theta Company - Act I - Operation: Grasping Maw

"Sorry." Jake would say to his injured team mate when he saw Nikki's hand signal to create a perimeter. Something Rosie would have had to order. Of course she answers Nick Jake would think as he moved to secure a perimeter.

With eyes watching our perimeter, I could a little easier knowing that if we were attacked, it wouldn't be completely by surprise.
"Skippy? What's the extraction plan?" I repeated, unable to tell whether she was silent or I'd missed it. I waited ten seconds more, before I opened my mouth to repeat myself. Cut off by the sound of somebody yelling "Contacts, left."

I spun on the spot raising my rifle. Two Hunters marched into the room, shields and cannons raised. Seeing the green glow slowly growing larger as they prepared to fire, I dropped comms with Skippy.
"Everyone get down!" I shouted, lowering myself to the ground.

"HUNTERS!" Nikki yelled as he dived behind what looked like a sturdy barrier.

Jake turned to Rosie Yelling and saw the two Hunters as they entered the room, his body moving on his own to dive onto the ground and behind what looked like good cover. "Fuck."

Through pain, shock and blood loss, Molly limped on down the hall. Her SMG lay on the floor behind her, no real way of reloading it one handed when there was no way of telling if another enemy would be on her. So her magnum would have to do. "Hector, Jordan, Bianca, do you copy?" she said over the private channel. No response.

Lizzie took cover her pulse beating rapidly in her ears. Part of her wished that they opened fire on the Hunters as soon as they entered but their weapons wouldn't pierce their armour. Besides they needed to hit the gaps in it if they wanted to bring those monsters down.
She hid as best she could behind a sturdy looking column and hoped that the Hunters didn't notice her or the rest of her squad.

The stream of green Incendiary Gel flew over head, completely destroying everything in its path. No casualties so far, but I couldn't expect that to last if we didn't act; the Hunters clearly knew we were here.
"Lure them in and flank!" I shouted to the squad, getting up and dashing for better cover as a mortar-like flash of green flew past and exploded behind me.

Things had been going well. Well, not well. Not well at all in fact. They'd managed to take down the grunt squad without a problem and move to the server room. They'd just finished clearing the data out and movin towards Karmas location when they'd been hit by a group of Elites. Now there was only her and one other spartan left, she was missing her left ear and half her helmet thanks to a plasma blast, meaning she had no comm unit even if they survived this. Skippy could feel the blood pounding on the side of her head as she blind fired her MA5K around the corner of the hallway, dropping the gun as soon as the clicking of the empty clip started and sprinting after Jay. The two of them ran as fast as they could through the hallways towards Karma squad.

I heard two screams from behind me. Turning, the first one had come from Jared, now nothing more than a scorch mark on the floor, completely vaporised by the Hunter's arm cannon. The second had come from Lily, both of her legs missing from the knees down. Suddenly, the odds of surviving this didn't look good, even if everything else went perfectly. Any hope at all was shattered as a Covenant Lance entered from the front.
"Omega-Three!" I shouted over the squad's comm, "Fall back, get to the inner wall!"

Lizzie popped out of cover firing her weapon one handed in short inaccurate bursts at the closest Hunter. It did little more than irritate the armoured monster, the spartan just managed to vacate the area before her cover was destroyed by a blast from it's fuel rod cannon. Lizzie slid into a fresh piece of cover fumbling awkwardly to reload. It was difficult to reload with just one hand, especially when she happened to be hurrying as her squad needed her back in the fight asap.

Skippy and Jay charged down the corridor, coming out onto the balacony above where Karma squad was. A quick glance told the pair all they needed to know and Skippy made a quick hand gesture before both Spartans vaulted down from the balcony. Skippy landed atop the Elite leading the lance, jamming her knife deep into its neck twice whilst Jay dropped a pair of frag grenades in the midst of the grunts. Skippy rode the Elites body to the floor, unshouldering her launcher and firing both rounds directly into the midsection of one of the Hunters before diving to the side as the frags exploded.

With the odds suddenly evened by Skippy and Jay's timely arrival, I could breathe a small sigh of relief, but we weren't out of the woods yet. One hunter dead, but that was only going to enrage the second. It charged, roaring as it raised its shield to crush the Spartans. I raised my rifle and opened fire on the Hunter's back, orange blood flying out, though it wouldn't be enough firepower to bring it down before it reached Skippy or Jay.

She had, so far, survived the onslaught. The casualties of Lily and Jared came and passed too quickly for her to process. The only thing she knew was she had to sire on the enemy forces. With the surprise arrival of Skippy and Jay adding more firepower for their side, she would pop up from her cover that she had gained as the attack began, to see the second Hunter, back to her, becoming enraged. It rushes in and raises its shield and as Rosie would start opening fire on the back, she would follow suit. Barking out.

"Concentrate your fire onto the back!"

When the hunter charged, Nikki seized the moment and bolted behind the cover behind the Hunter, and held down the trigger, emptying his gun into its back.

Jake had taken cover and waited, his eyes turning to Lily and the now missing Jared before the words fire and back reached his ears. Coming out of cover, Jake would aim at the hunters now exposed flesh and shoot whatever remained in his clip until he could hear the sound of clicking.

"Hector, Jordan, Bianca, anyone there?" Molly tried again. This time, she got a response; the door ahead opened, her squad coming through with weapons raised. "Crap," one of them, Jordan she recognized, snarled under their breath. While Bianca and Hector covered him, Jordan moved over to Molly with a small med-kit. Nothing much beyond bio-foam and basic dressings. "Don't bother," Molly growled between clenched teeth. "Plasma cauterized the wound. What's the word? I think my radio got busted."

"Word's bad," Jordan whispered. "Heavy fighting elsewhere in the base; we heard what we thought were explosions. Managed to wipe the servers, but we had to bolt when a Covie fireteam entered." "Where's the fireteam?" Molly asked. Suddenly, a rather loud explosion echoed from down the hallway, to which Jordan chuckled. "If I'm right.....I'd say all over the server room. Hector couldn't resist but string some grenades into a trap." Sighing, Hector then said "Yeah, all of my grenades. Hope you don't need a pineapple thrown anytime soon, I've got nada."

The Hunter fell, but its momentum kept it going towards Jay and Skippy. I didn't see who it was, but one of the two ended up beneath the dead Hunter.

She stops firing as soon as she sees the Hunter go down. She flinches back slightly as she sees the Hunter drop on one of the Spartans. Hoping it wasn't their squad leader, she waits to see what happens as the dust settles, both figuratively and literally. She does a quick reload in case they're ambushed again.

Jay dived off to the side as the Hunter lumbered towards the pair. It fell like a large tree that had been cut at it's base creating a plume of dust as it hit the floor.

A few silent seconds passed slowly as the dust settled back to the floor.

Jay climbed off the floor, looking over to see a small, child-like hand reaching out from underneath the remains of the Hunter.

By the time Lizzie had managed to reload her weapon, the fight was over. She froze as her eyes drifted over the remains of her mangled left hand.

It was a minute after their conversation that Molly and the rest of her squad was up and moving, heading for the fighting. They didn't have any new orders, at least none that Molly was aware of. And with her comm busted, she couldn't hail Skippy for orders. That left Jordan or one of the other two to try. "Requesting orders, over?" Jordan whispered into her mic. "This is Jordan T-003, my squad leader is severely injured. Cole Protocol enacted; request new objective."

She could see a Spartan standing on the other side of the Hunter. This person confirmed her fears. The one under the hulking corpse of the Hunter was their squad leader and the person left standing was Jay. She closes her eyes and lets her breath and her mind catch up. She still stands at the ready as the voice of Jordan comes through her helmet. She leaves them hanging until further confirmation of their situation comes to light. She calls to Jay.

"Jay, status?" Her voice wavering ever so slightly.

Jay flashed a green light on her HUD, the standard okay response for the Spartans. She looked at the squad that she didn't know outside of basic wondering who was in charge now and how they were extracting. Neither Ralei or Hammer's leaders had given them any information on extraction.

Nikki tentatively walked over to the hunter and kicked it. "It's dead, right?"

"Kick that thing again and the canon might go off." She says in a very deadpan manner.

She turns and looks to Rosie.

"What's the current objective?"

Nikki frowned and tried to check on Skippy's status.

Jake reloaded his gun as the hunter fell. Once done he looked to where it was and noticed a small detail, only one spartan remained and it wasn't their cap. "Skippy?" Jake would only say as he stared at the hand. His mind then reminded him of Lily and he rushed over to check her pulse. "No. Not Skip."

I moved to Lily, checking her pulse. Alive, but barely. My mind was racing, with Skippy dead, we needed a new extraction plan. Think. Think. THINK.

ONI Base. Base meant that it wasn't just offices. There'd be a Pelican, at least, somewhere. That could get them away from the surface. They needed a place to find a pelican.
"Does anyone have a map of the base?" I asked, looking up from Lily, who was still barely conscious.

"Nadda." Jake would say as he knelled near Rosie and Lily, his gun kept pointing at entry points. "Hope you got a plan Rosie. I don't want to see Karma gain another loss." Jake would say in a worried, sad and angered tone. Karma Squad was like a family to him, he didn't want to lose any more brothers or sisters.

Jay spoke up.

"I still have my link to STARS up. I can download a map from there."

"I can do it," I answered, "Somebody carry Lily. As soon as I've got the map, we're moving."

Jake allowed his gun to lock before moving to carry Lily the best way for her, his magnum, while not effective for elites would still pack a punch when aimed at the heads of grunts would be soon found in his hand. He wasn't too happy with Rosie ignoring him again but she must have just been only hearing the words needed for their survival. Everything else was a distraction.

She thinks to answer Jordan before the group gets moving.

"This is Evangeline T015 of Karma. Our Squad Leader has been KIA and current orders are immediate evac. If you have a layout of the base, make your way to where you'd think a few Pelicans would be. If we're lucky, we'll run into you."

She makes sure her weapons are fully loaded and waits for Rosie.

The map appeared on my HUD, giving me a clear, bird's eye view of the base. The hangar was on the far side of the base. We were going to have to fight our way there while carrying our wounded, and probably going to lose more on the way. I set a waypoint on the hangar.
"Nikki, take point. Everyone else fall in. Double time to the waypoint."

"Roger that T015, we'll make our way there now," Jordan said before snapping off the comm. "Alright, we're good for evac. Bianca, Hector, you're gonna cover me while I help Molly here," she ordered the pair, Bianca being the better shot and Hector armed with an MA5K and not a silenced SMG. Plus Jordan was the closest they had to a medic, so if she went down they'd all be in trouble.

As for Molly, she remained quiet, the painkillers from the bio-foam bringing some soothing to her pain, but she felt that just talking would send her over the edge and back into blinding pain. So the group began moving, Hector and Bianca standing at the front and back of Jordan, weapons ready while Jordan stayed between them, helping a limping Molly move.

"Alright, on me." Nikki looked the map. "So, do we want to go straight there or do we want to take the path with the least number of aliens?" Why me...?

She falls in line with the group, covering their six once again. The waypoint flashes on her HUD and for a second she finds a little bit of hope that they would make it out. Of course, they'd have to continue fighting through the base to get to the hangar, but that's something they'd take care of as it approached. This internal relief, however, is short lived by her realistic side of thinking taking over. Anything can happen and she needs to be prepared. The mission is a success already in the eyes of the bigwigs, but for her, it's only a success when she's back with her family.

"Head straight there. Hopefully, we'll regroup with the other squad on the way."
I need to get them out. I can't lose anyone else.

She takes a glance at Lily. Her survival chance wasn't too great and if they do manage to get her back, what would they do with her? She had watched as the gruesome event had been displayed and every time she thinks about it, it slows in her head. Jared, at least, had the better outcome. He died outright, but Lily is still alive. She couldn't have done anything, she tells herself. The same way she couldn't do anything when Chris had died, or when Skippy had been crushed. She shakes herself out of her thoughts as the group begins moving.

"Alright, straight there." Nikki looked at the map to determine the straightest possible route. "Let's head out."

The way was clear so far, as Jordan and her group kept moving. Down the hall and then a right, they had to make it to the evac before it either left....or the evac was destroyed. "Okay, should be just past that next door," Jordan whispered as they came to a stop. She moved to check Molly's status while Hector and Bianca covered her. Molly wasn't getting any better, but neither was she getting worse; again, the cauterized wound kept her from bleeding out. But in a sense, she had still lost blood. Whatever was in her arm was still there when the arm got lopped off, and so she was short roughly......750ml. It wasn't bad, meant she could still function. But she had sorta gone too far on the painkillers, so there was no way Jordan was gonna trust her--superior officer or not--with a loaded gun.

I saw it first, a shadow on the wall at the end of the hallway. I pulled Nikki to the side, activating my suit's camouflage. It dawned on my that we couldn't stay here, not with the wounded who'd be unable to cloak properly. I flicked my hand at the door on the opposite side of the hallway, before I took up a firing position next to it.

Camouflage activated. Nikki stacked up where Rosie had pointed. Readying up for when she gave the signal to breach and clear.

I whispered to Nikki over comms, barely more than a breath as I prepared myself for combat,
"Move in, quickly and quietly."

Camouflage activated, Nikki, gun raised, moved through the door as if his feet were cats' paws.

"Everyone, follow Nikki." I ordered, keeping my eyes glued to the shadows ahead, "Get the wounded through first.

She hears Rosie's order and waits for the large group of Spartans to maneuver through the door, wounded first. In precaution, she activates her own camouflage.

Jays camouflage flickered and spluttered thanks to the damage she had taken earlier in the mission. It held out, but it would pass nothing more than a cursory glance. She followed the Spartans, this group she didn't know, through the door

Jake activated his camo before activating Lily's and made his way to where he was told to go and he did so as silently as possible. He didn't want to risk the lives of anyone right now so his thought was on orders and team. Zoning out any quips and general talk. This was a battle until evac, no time for anything else.

As soon as the squad were inside, I followed. I flicked my hand towards the door on the north side of the room. It led to the same hallway that we'd just avoided, but we had a better chance if we were behind the Covenant.