Dawn Squad

Marie kicked the door of the pod from the inside. It sent shocks of pain up her leg, but after a few kicks one of the explosive bolts finally lined into position and the arming light went green. Marie slammed it with her palm, hearing the familiar 'CHUNK' noise of the bolt exploding. She kicked again at the corner, the door giving way and curling up away from her boot. She grinned under her visor, grabbing her weapons from the secure areas to either side of her seat and poking her head out through the gap she had created. She groaned. She was at least four storeys up, stuck in the side of a building. Marie brought her head back inside the pod, sending a hail across squad-net.*

"Dawn-Two. Squad, report."

After getting over the initial disorientation of the botched insertion, the first thing Erika noticed was that she was inside a building. Second, she noticed that she was on her back, the pod's door facing the ceiling. She ejected her pod door, and climbed out, bringing her M7 up with her. A quick scan of the room revealed that she was alone, at least on this floor. She looked up at the ceiling, a large, SOEIV-shaped hole running through the two floors above her and through one of the walls. It seemed like she was in an apartment building, though it seemed to have already been evacuated.

"Dawn-Three. Still alive." She replied over the squad-net once she was certain of her safety.

Marie gave a breath of relief.

"Location Three?."

She poked her head out of the gap again, looking around. She was a sitting duck here if any Covenant patrols passed by and saw her pod.

"Unknown. Appears to be a residential apartment building."

Erika moved over to one of the windows, carefully taking a look outside. She couldn't see any contacts, friendly or otherwise, though she could see signs of fighting. She heard a crash from one of the rooms on her floor, raised her weapon, and slowly moved to investigate, flicking her SMG between the entry points she could see.

"Copy. See if you can link up with City-net and get a map."

Marie judged her situation, taking stock of what she had to work with. She took off one of her shoulder pads and gauntlets and set to work.

Erika paused at the door, moving her left hand to the control panel while her right kept her M7 trained on the opening. She pressed the button, and as the door slid open, she quickly scanned the room on the other side, moving through. Whoever or whatever was in the building with her likely knew that she was here already, and if they didn't, they probably weren't a threat. Another crash, from the same direction, gave her a target to move to. She paused at the door she thought it was, opened it and stepped through. Inside, there was a human, armed with an older-issue MA5, several grenades, and a sledgehammer. He was swinging frantically at the wall, where Erika could make out the edges of a weapons case.

"Hands on your head. No sudden movements." She ordered, training her SMG on his back.

Marie stripped her other arm of armour too, taking her combat knife and cutting the arms free on the fabric of her undersuit. She re-attached the armour, feeling significantly colder for the loss of the fabric and began to cut the two strips in half length ways. After this, she tied all four pieces together. It wasn't much, she had created a length of make-shift rope about as tall as she was, but it would help. She tied it to one of the handles inside the door and threw it out of the gap.

Marie poked her head out again and took a deep breath. She'd have to put all her weight on her rope and hope that it would hold, as there was no way for her to test it. She clambered out of the pod awkwardly, holding the rope incase she slipped and began to descend. When she reached the bottom, she was still three storeys up in the air. She swung on the rope, giving herself momentum for a minute until she felt she had a good enough arc. Then she let go of the rope at the apex of the swing, crashing through the glass of the apartment below her and tumbling head over heels.

Slowly, the man complied and raised his hands, placing them on top of his head. Still with her SMG trained on him, Erika reached over and moved his rifle, and after quickly frisking him, removed an M6 pistol and two frag grenades from his person.
"You're in a warzone." She stated flatly, placing the weapons well out of his reach as she moved across the room, to a position where she could see both the rebel and the door.

"Everywhere's a fuckin' warzone when the UNSC get involved," He spat back at her. She could see him eying his weapons. Her finger twitched, but she couldn't kill him. Not yet, at least.
"You're an Insurrectionist, then?" She asked, flicking her eyes to the door. She continued, not waiting for an answer. "How many of you are in here?"

"I'm alone," He answered. Erika opened her mouth to speak, when a voice cut her off, coming from the stairs.
"Jones!" It shouted, "Did ya get the package out yet? We gotta take care of that ODST!"

A man ran into the room, armed with a shotgun. Erika didn't hesitate; firing a burst into his chest. Her prisoner moved for his weapons, but Erika made sure he never reached them. She opened her comms channel, and relayed an update to anyone conscious.

"Be advised, Insurrectionist presence in the city. Confirmed hostile."

Marie clambered to her feet groaning. Her comms unit crackled to life and she swore.

"Fuckin' serious?"

She took stock of her current location. She was in an apartment that had been hastily packed up. She noted the door and took her SMG off of her thigh holster, moving to it.

Erika checked the 'package' that the Innies had referred to. It appeared to be a rocket launcher. Not really much use to her in her current situation, but the Innies couldn't have it. She dragged one of the corpses over, and using some clever placement, rigged a grenade to explode should it be moved. Hopefully, it'd be enough to trash the launcher as well as whoever moved the body. Having set her trap, she moved out.

Marie thumbed the door open, her SMG pointed ready to go. She followed the hallway down, passing by apartment door after apartment door. Eventually she came to the stairs, which she followed down. In the main lobby area, there was a phone on the wall. Marie grinned underneath her visor and picked the handset up.

"Code Zero-Nine-Five-Alpha."

A small bar appears on the bottom of Marie's HUD. A download of the city-wide map.

Erika didn't like running down the stairs. There was too little cover, and too many angles that she could be fired at from. She did her best to keep her footsteps quiet, but with the echoing, it was difficult to maintain a good pace and remain quiet. As soon as she reached the ground floor, she breathed a sigh of relief, quickly scanned the reception area, and ran shoulder first into the exit doors, swinging them open as she ran through. Outside, she immediately ran for cover in an alleyway between the building she'd just left and the one adjacent.

Once the download completes, Marie brings it up on her VISR. She finds her own IFF tag, placing a marker down on it.

"Three, have you linked with City-net yet?"

Erika didn't immediately respond, taking her time to make sure that there were no Snipers in the area. Once she was confident she wasn't going to have her head blown off, she moved over to a phone terminal, uttered the code into the receiver and began the download.
"Downloading now." She said over her squad-net.

"I've marked my location on it. When you've got it up, give me a regroup marker."

Marie keeps an eye on the door to apartment block, making sure no hostiles are sneaking up on her.

As soon as the download was complete, Erika opened her map and placed down a squad waypoint.
"Waypoint's up," She said over Squad-net, as she quickly moved through the city towards the rendezvous.

*Connor slowly gains consciousness putting a hand to his throbbing head, he rights himself in his pod, due to the harness snapping as he hit the interior of the building before coming to a jarring halt.*

"Ah my freaking head." *He says, trying to focus his gaze on the explosive bolts to open his pod's hatch. He takes another moment before beginning to press the explosive bolts one by one, until with a rather large *BANG* the hatch blows off and sails into the distance thudding to the ground after several seconds of silence. Slowly he brings himself out of his pod and surveys his surroundings. He is on a tiered garden veranda that goes down each step about five feet, this is part of a larger atrium he has found himself in. After taking this all in he turns around and begins to free his gear from the pod, acquiring his MA37, M6D pistol, ammunition, and a few frag grenades and a canister of C12.* "Well...it's either get busy moving or get busy dying." *He says to himself as he begins his way down the many steps to the bottom of the atrium.*

"Copy that Three. This is another hail to any surviving member of Dawn Squad. Link up with city-net and RV at the designated waypoint."

Marie brought up a small map on her HUD and localised her position before moving to the apartment block door and outside into the street. She inched her way along the edge of the building, taking her utmost care to not provide a clear visual for any rooftop watchers.

*Connor's attention perks up at the sound of something coming in over comms it's very heavy with static, and he can't make out much other than,* "Citynet" *Among the static he quickly retrieves a datapad from one of his pouches on his belt and begins setting up the download boosting its rate via the wifi of the building. While this is happening he removes his helmet and finds that the comms array on the side has been basically smashed almost to pieces, it's not repairable by any means he has access to right now so merely tugs the helmet back on and continues on his way checking the download every so often to make sure its working.* "Well, this is great Comms are busted and I'm alone, what more could go wrong?" *As he finishes this sentence a pair of jackals stalks their way into the building, probably lured by the large crash from his pod.* "God damn me and my big mouth." *He quickly ducks behind a solid looking piece of modern art and primes a grenade, before tossing it high in the air above their heads, As it draws their attention by detonating about 12 feet above their heads he brings his MA37 to bear releasing a quick set of short bursts catching them in the chest, and arms. He then quickly rushes over puts another burst into each of their heads and quickly vacates the area running towards a close alleyway and into the ensuing maze of streets to follow.*

*As Connor trudges along through the garbage and gore strewn street that was the sight of a recent firefight, he continues to check the map headed towards the waypoint on his datapad, his helmet now of little more use than that of a targeting reticle. He continues following along the street keeping low and in cover slowly closing in on his destination.* "Poor bastards." *He says as he passes what used to be a fortified position controlled by marines. He continues walking and notes the large amount of covenant corpses around the position.* "Least you took them with you."

The pod door fires open and thrusts itself into the opened area, a hand emerges from the now opened entryway and finds itself on the side of the doorway. The rest of the body the hand was attached to finds its way out of the pod and into the night sky. With a thump, the person lands from their pod onto some flooring. With a quick motion, they unholster their pistol and look around for any hostile forces. Once they make sure the coast is cleared, they activate their arm mounted datapad and begins to download the map of the city. They take another glance around in order to get a feeling for where they are. From her position, she can see highrises close to wherever it is she is. They walk away from their pod and after a few dozen paces, they find they are on top of a highrise themselves. The ground is barely visible from their position. Position confirmed, residential district highrise roof. Status confirmed, no injuries sustained from drop and impact they think to themselves. They access Dawn Squad's frequency and makes an attempt to hail their squad members. "This is Dawn-Four, residential dis-" A feminine voice says quietly before being interrupted by a piercing sound coming from her communications unit.

Communications are jammed from this position she thinks to herself as her brow furrows and a scowl appears on her face. She double checks her equipment one final time before making her way to one of the doors leading down to the level below.

Jacob's eyes began to flutter open as the nagging whine of the drop pod's warning systems kept sounding off. He lay there, still for a moment, then it flashed back to him in an instant. He breathed in deeply, taking in a gasp before grabbing the assault rifle and side arm that lay at either side of the pod's threshold. The beeping that he had heard from his communicator stopped all at once, and upon further investigation, the short range unit in his pod had been damaged in the landing. It would seem as though it was the order of the day. With little reason to stay put, and even less to wait for the Covies to find him, he triggered the release on the pod door which shot free and into the dull landscape that made up the skeleton of an unfinished office building. The walls hadn't even been installed, and he was certain that any patrols in the area would have seen him hit the powdery concrete from miles away. He had to move, and fast.

Stepping through the metal thresh hold and onto the hard concrete, he glanced around for only a few moments before running to the dusted stairs to begin his descent. He was sure that each level held a waiting horror that would blast him into oblivion before he could even process the fact, but luckily, the area was quiet.

"Where the hell am I?..."

A short look at the datapad strapped to his arm would reveal that he was in an industrial district, not all too far from the residential apartment buildings that had been their goal... It was his best bet.

D4 takes a bit of time making her way down the stairs, each step bringing her further and further down to danger. Her primary objective is to link up with the rest of her squad, but doing that may prove to be difficult. She runs through her head the escape routes she can use through the building by using the map once it finishes downloading. After that, she would need to escape the jammed area or find the jammer itself and destroy it. Not only would it help her, but it would help her squad mates as well. She makes this second option a priority mission in her head as she finishes descending the stairs.

At the foot, the hallway ends at a wall with a window facing the stairwell as well as the outside world. She takes the cover under the window and peers out of it, activating the optical zoom in her helmet as she does. She begins scanning the layout of the area first. Building layout confirmed, multiple buildings linked into this one. One central courtyard below acting as the link. She says in her head as her scan stops. On the far building through a lit window she can see an enemy covenant trooper. Covenant presence confirmed. Pod led by a Brute soldier. She follows it for some time before seeing it call out an order as it passes into a lit hallway. She has seen this order before, and confirms it to be a rush command.

Down the hallway, to where the Brute had issued his command, D4 can see Insurrectionist soldiers taking cover and beginning to exchange fire with the Covenant forces. Three way battle between UNSC, Insurrectionist and Covenant forces. Situation confirmed. With this, her intel gathering on the greater scale had come to an end, her optics return to normal as she turns to face the stairwell once more as the faint sound of footsteps can be heard followed by a voice.

He moved down the stairwell quickly, checking his corners at each intermittent threshold, until he neared the mid levels. It was here that he began to hear gunfire, and it was close. The sound of covenant arms was unmistakable, but the sounds of multiple familiar weapons to his own arsenal caused some confusion to spur to his mind. Had the rest of the ODST's linked up in such great force? It could always be the insurrectionists but he would hardly think they might stick around to fight off the Covies for long.

His boots thumped harshly against the concrete stairwell once more until he finally chose a floor to exit on. It was his hope that he might be able to get a better handle on the situation when a friendly marker flashed onto his HUD. Nevertheless, he moved in quickly rifle raised at the armor clad figure that he would soon recognize as Dawn 4. His rifle dropped away and he pointed in the direction of the shooting.

"Are they ours?"

D4's pistol raises as a soldier's head pops up, she quickly notices it as a fellow ODST. Her pistol lowers and in response to his words she shakes her head. Voice confirmed. Dawn Seven. "Insurrectionist forces trying to hold their ground against Covenant forces. I'm assuming there is something the Insurrectionists want here. I suggest we continue with our primary objective and link with the rest allowing them to kill each other off." She says, changing her plans now that she has been approached by another member of her squad. She glances at her datapad to see that the download was complete. A waypoint appears on her HUD telling her where to go.

"Let's move." D4 says, moving past D7 and down the stairwell following the marker.

D7 froze as the sights of D4's pistol snapped to his head. He might've shouted down a warning before he stepped off the threshold if only to reduce the risk of friendly fire, but the sheer fact that their drop's confidentiality had already been compromised was reason enough to stay silent. The relief that came with the pistol falling was immense to say the least, and at the short briefing that she gave him, he could only nod and follow her back towards the threshold, being sure to keep his weapon trained behind them in their descent.

"Sounds good... You got lead."

The pod door would burst open.  Dawn-Five would kick the door and jump out.  He grabs a suppressed SMG and pistol, quickly aiming at surrounding areas.

"Dawn-Five.....can anyone tell me their locations....." He'd say over the squad-net, he was drowsy after the botched fall, hitting the corner of a building, flipping him until landing on the ground next to the hospital upright.

"I'm....I'm at the hospit-.....the hospital...dear god...." over the sqaud-net again.  He'd fall down onto his knees and lay down, hoping to lose his headache, throbbing with pain.  He'd get up slowly, listening to the plasma blasts and gunshots in the distance.  He'd run inside the hospital, it was quiet.  "I...-"  he'd start to lose his headache.  "I..will shoot....you bastards if you try and kill me!"  His voice would echo throughout the hospital hallway.  He'd walk out of the hospital, suspecting nothing was in there.  He'd see an Elite's back turned, grabbed his knife, and stabbed the Elite, dragging into the hospital.  "Here lies Elite, he was a bitch, and deserved to die."  He'd walk up the stairs, and find a hospital bed.  He'd lie down on the bed, and take a quick little nap.

He'd wake up to the sound of an Elite downstairs.  He quickly grabbed his SMG and sneaked down the stairs, and aimed at the Elite.  The Elite had no weapons.

"Stop!  Do not shoot me!  We must work together!"  The Elite exclaimed.  Ryan would smirk under his helmet.  "You're saying....that I...we..must work together?"  "Yes, we're both out here fighting the other demons and Covenant?"  The Elite questioned.

Ryan would shoot the Elite until he has nothing more of a bloody carcass.

Lwiri, please be aware that this RP is set during the Fall of Reach. The UNSC is still at war with the Elites, and the Halo rings and the flood haven't been discovered yet.

Fox slipped through the empty city, stopping for only a few seconds to check corners. Her movement was near-perfect, never becoming predictable and taking the quickest routes back into cover. An observer would think she was perfectly calm, like that of a predator stalking its territory. In reality, her heart was in her throat, and the only thing keeping her sane was the vision of a sniper setting his sights on her. She was almost at the waypoint, a relatively small police station overlooking a train station. Erika rounded one final corner and-

She felt her heart stop dead.

(edited post, I get confused about dates in Halo)

"Anybody here?" He'd say over the squad-net. "The covenant will do anything to kill us it seems..". He'd walk out of the hospital, quietly, checking if any URF troops or covenant were around the corner, and then run out onto the street. He'd scan the area, and run into a hotel, quickly looking for any enemies. "I'm at a hotel near the hospital, please respond and tell me where you are if you are there..." He'd ask over squad-net.

"Dawn-Eight, I'm still alive." He called over squad-net. He releases the door to find his pod patrially embedded into an apartment building. He gathers his equipment before heading into the building.

He starts to clear the building with his silenced SMG, with a holstered M6C/SOCOM. He carries along with him a BR55HR and a field medic kit along with some handy bio-foam.

He'd hear footsteps on the upper floor, and he slowly went upstairs. He'd turn his flashlight on and saw the armor. He quickly realized it was Dawn-Eight.

Quickly snapping to the source of light, he would turn to Five. "You scared me for e second there...." He said as he lowered his weapon. "Have you found anything of interest?", He'd ask.

"A hospital's over there, and there was a suicidal elite that walked in. I helped his problem, by killing him." He'd reply. He'd quickly scan the rooms.

"It would be best if we find the rest or our squad. I'll take point." He'd say. He'd start moving towards the stairwell and dwons the steps very cautiously.

"Yeah, I think Dawn-One is dead though..or his/her squad-net isn't working, he/she would have spoke over squad-net by now."

As they moved down the steps, Lawrence murmured to himself, "When I die please bury me deep, place an MA5 down by by feet..."

He'd hear a few words, though knew what he was saying. "Hopefully I'm married by the time I'm dead. Life isn't worth fighting each other."

He'd hear the words but would keep murmuring the marching song to himself. "...Don't cry for me, don't shed no tear. Just pack my box with my PT Gear. 'Cuz one early morning....."

"Quiet, I hear an Elite.." The Elite would jump out of a room, and he'd fire.

He would fire into the elite as well, hoping to kill it before it fires its first shots.