Halo: Gauntlet

Chapter 10

An elite ultra shouted at a pair of jackals loitering near a transport, ordering them to go back to their posts. They couldn't allow anything to breach their defenses, or the ground troops would lose their supply line and be pushed back to the desert. If the human forces reached the sands, then they could lose the sacred ring.

All the more reason to stay vigilant and steadfast in their aggression. The humans couldn't last much longer anyway. Their ships were crippled. Without them able to fight, victory would be on the horizon for the Covenant. He looked over at the hill to the east and saw a figure with a rifle. At least one of the jackals was doing their job. He growled and turned away, waiting for the next batch of cargo to come down while supervising the transports as they prepared to leave. He glanced at a drone repairing a damaged one, and looked at another, watching the driver leave. 

And then everything exploded. 

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When Evans pulled the trigger, it set off an explosion far greater than even he anticipated. The one transport he aimed at was slowly creeping past another fully loaded one, causing that one to blow too, which ignited plasma batteries that were going to be loaded, exploding the ring of turrets, making fire and plasma spraying all around the circle. Body parts flew about, heads rolled, and limbs landed with a soft, bloody squelch. Grunts and Jackals screamed in pain before collapsing to the ground in charred heaps. Elites roared in shock and rage before running out of the fire and searching for whoever was responsible. Smoke and ash, all colored a muted blue, bloomed into the sky, wrapping around the underbelly of the cruiser. The Spartans looked in awe at the carnage, before readying themselves and charging full speed at the survivors. 

"Engage, engage!", Chase shouted. The group of five sped down the hill, firing out into the flames. Several elites and jackals pushed through the smoke, growling, and roaring. They fired back, bolts of blue and green whizzing past the super-soldiers. Emily slid under an elite, firing her shotgun right under it, blowing its top half into pieces of slightly charred meat. A grunt turned to flee, but Emily grabbed it from behind and ripped off its methane mask. Gas poured out, and the grunt struggled to breathe, grasping its neck and making strangled noises, eventually going limp. Emily dropped the body and grabbed her shotgun again, tearing through a jackal. Jakub popped a grunt in the head with a single burst, then another, then an elite, all within seconds of one another. A smirk crept up his face. "Triple kill."

Carly was fighting a squad of jackals, her bullets bouncing off of their shields. She took cover behind a large piece of debris, aiming for the hole where their hands poked through. As more and more survivors joined the fight, Carly found herself pushed back to the outer ring, isolated from the rest of her team. She turned around, looking for an escape, but instead found a near intact but functional turret, with an Unggoy trying to climb in. When it saw that it had been noticed, it tried even faster to climb in, but it was stuck between the bits of metal that made up its structure. Carly strode to it, bolts whizzing past her head. She grabbed the grunt with one hand, ripping it out of the turret. It shrieked in fear before being silenced by a gunshot through its head.  Carly dropped its corpse, confused as to where the bullet came from. Turns out that it was Evans, who stayed decently far back on the hill, firing off into the grey cloud, hoping he hit something with every shot. Carly was brought back into focus when a plasma pistol bolt hit her in the face. "Oh, now that one hurt," she said. She hopped into the turret and proceeded to fire it at the crowd in front of her. The purple lasers annihilated anything they struck, tearing apart bodies and charring the ground. She turned it to the left and right, killing everything that once tried to kill her. Dirt and mud were kicked into the air. When the air began to smell like a barbeque and the guns began to steam, Carly knew that she was done.