Halo: A Soldier's Story

Relic Approach

"I will radio in as soon as we are able to repurpose the jammer," Dain said to Mark as Mark was climbed into the gunner seat of the tank in the middle of the group.

Deciding that, for now, it would be best just to have the tanks travel one behind the other, with one of the drivers from Dain's group, who actually knew these parts Harvest, leading us.

On the lead tank was Dain's soldiers whose names I didn't know, with Oliver in the gunner seat and the twins and I on the treads.

The middle tank had Dain's other driver, Mark in the gunner position and Josh and Daniel on treads.

And lastly Luke driving with Alex in the gunner seat and Dave and Brandon on treads bringing up the rear.

Seem's like my luck was holding up. Not only was I on the tank that enemy would see and hence shoot at first but I was also, quite literally, a sitting duck on these treads since they offered zero protection. And to top it all off it, was still freezing and being on these treads didn't offer any protection from that either.

Man, I wish my bad luck would stop holding up.

-

After little over half an hour of riding those tanks the signs of the battle that Forge was fighting began to appear.

Fallen comrades and enemies littered the ground along with destroyed Warthogs and Ghosts.

10 minutes later the sounds of war could be heard over the loud hum of the tanks.

5 minutes after that we began to roll past the injured Marines who had been put at the back of the force. These soldiers look battered and beaten but as they noticed the tanks, cheers went up from basically every person who could talk.

Hope can heal much better the medicine sometimes.

Soon after we were greeted and briefed. Apparently due to sniper towers and an energy shield up ahead the advance had been brought to a crawl, and now St.Forge was on the front lines trying to break through.

I never felt as important as I did while the orders were yelled to clear way and soldiers saluted us we drove past. A part of me knew they were moving aside for the tanks but with ever salute and 'give them hell' we were given it, I felt more and more like I was about to make a huge difference.

That great feeling started to wither as a heard the cry of an elite in the distance.

Looking through the scope of my gun, I saw a massive Covenant shield in the distance blocking a passageway. About 20 yards from that was what looked like a pair of downed pelicans some Marines using them as cover as they fought the Covenant.

Once we were within 50 yards of the Covenant Barrier, I saw Sgt.Forge run up to us. He was completely drenched in sweat and covered with small plasma burns, but he still had one of the biggest smiles I had ever seen.

"Boy am I glad see these bad boys," Forge said while walking up to us "Sorry boys no time for a welcome back, I just received the radio transmission from Dain not too long ago. We have been pinned down here for a while. They put up an energy shield wall that stops any vehicles or gun fire from passing through it. We have tried sending troops through it, but they deployed lookout towers and have a couple jackals with a beam rifle stationed in each one"

Ah, the deployable lookout tower. It's an anti-gravity-operated tower used by the Covenant. They are mainly used to fortify specific areas on a battlefield.

A deployable lookout tower is made up of a circle base, in the middle of which, an anti-gravity generator is found. Then a circular platform is suspended in the air, given the anti-gravity power needed by the generator directly below. Just step above the generator and you will push straight into the tower that provides cover as you shoot down below.

"What are your orders then?" Mark asked

"Use the tanks to draw the fire of towers and destroy them while a small unit follows behind, using the tank as cover, and passes through the shield and destroys the generator."

"Oh is that all," I said aloud, my voice filled with sarcasm.

"Yeah that's all," St.Forge said chuckling at my comment "You boys better get off the treads, you would be easy targets for the sniper's sitting there."

-

Five minutes later I was behind the tank ready to move out. Each tank had about 7 people behind it, ready to destroy the generators as soon as we got the chance.

The tanks rolled into position. They wherein a basic trident formation with one tank going through the middle of the down pelicans while the other tanks were on each of the other sides of the pelicans. I was behind the tank in the centre.

"On the count of three" St.Forge yelled out from the center of the middle tank.

"1"

"2"

"3"

The second we were in the view of the towers I could hear the panic screams of the grunts as they ran away from the tanks.

Then that sound was replaced by the explosion of the scorpions main gun firing and presumably destroying the towers.

Then marines from behind the tanks rushed forward toward the energy shield.

"When you get through don't waste time shooting any covenant on the other side just grenade the shield generator and the tanks will take care of the rest.

Not wasting a second I ran full speed from behind the tank toward the shield. Looking ahead I saw the first few soldiers past through the shield. Before they could even take the grenades out, they were killed in a hail of plasma gunfire from the covenant on the other side.

Realizing that going right in the middle of the shield would be going right to where the Covenant had their guns aimed, I ran toward the left side of the shield.

When I was a few feet from the shield, I took out one of frag grenades and pressed the prime button.

Man grenades had come a far way. I read in history books that grenades use to have pins you pulled instead of buttons and that they could blow up in your hand.

Now frag grenades used buttons and couldn't blow up until after they hit a surface, so no in hand or mid-air explosions.

As I went through the shield I pelted the grenade straight at the shield generated located a few feet behind the shield and quickly went for a second grenade in case I missed.

It was unnecessary action as my grenade hit its mark exploding right next to the generator and a few seconds later the generator itself exploded with the usual bluish purple fire the covenant technology did.

The shield went down and in came rolling the tanks, leading the charge and blowing every covie in sight sky high.

Shouts of Joy came up from the soldiers all around as the tanks continued forward.

Exhausted I fell back into the snow.

As soldiers walked past I got a few "nice work and great job" but the only reward I wanted was to get into a room with some heating.

After a good 25 minutes of laying down Mark came over and sat next to me in the snow.

"Nice work Seth, the tanks have reached the entrance to the structure."

I just put a thumbs up in the air.

Mark chuckled and continued "The covenant, as a last ditch effort to stop us tried to blow the entire structure sky high, but we managed to destroy the bomb before they were able to detonate it."

"Sounds great, when can we go back to base? It's too dam cold here."

"Sorry tell you but we're not done. Professor Anders is coming down from the Spirit of Fire to explore the structure, and Raze squad is being put on guard duty."

"Sounds Fun," I said finally getting up.