| abstract
| - "Green team, in position. Visual contact with Blue team established." "This is Blue team, affirmative. Confirmed contact with Green team." "Red team moving to Alpha position. Requesting cover from Green team." "Red team, this is Green team, we have visual across Alpha position. Cover confirmed." "Yellow team advancing to Beta position. You got us, Blue?" "Yellow team, this is Blue team. Cover confirmed." They all moved with drilled efficiency, their combat armor blending perfectly into the darkened streets; black on black. Their armored feet fell silently on the rooftops, streets, and alleys as they moved to their assigned positions. If light from the moon and stars overhead were seen to gleam off of a visor or silenced gun barrel, it was quickly extinguished with a subtle shift of a gauntlet or tilt of a head. These Marines had a target, and nothing was going to keep them from it. Red team, a full platoon of thirty battle-hardened Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, moved in a slow, scattered formation hugging either side of the wide street leading up to the squat, two-story apartment complex. They'd studied its layout for hours before the assault had been launched, and now they scanned its many doors and windows for any sign that their target knew they were coming. Their helmet radios crackled, and a clipped voice ordered, "Red team, divide up by squads, as planned. One for the lobby, two for sweeping the building." Red team's lieutenant flashed a series of hand signs to his ODSTs, and they began arranging themselves to match their orders. One ODST noticed a ragged-looking homeless man staring up at him from an alley. He drew a small pistol from his belt and fired a tranquilizer into the bum's chest, knocking him out before he had a chance to say a word. "Yellow team, form a perimeter," the voice continued. "Take up your designated positions and don't let anyone in or out of that building." Unseen in the alleys around the apartment complex and the surrounding neighborhood, Yellow team's commandos fanned out to surround their target. Above them, the six sniper-spotter teams that were Green team angled their sniper rifles to target strategic areas across the building's surface; on the roofs facing the other side, Blue team did the same. "All teams," the voice said, its tone utterly calm. "Launch assault in thirty seconds, on my mark..."
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* The apartment's doors were locked and every light in the lobby was extinguished when Red team moved in. A quick application of a spoofer device overrode the building's simple anti-theft systems, letting the entire platoon slip in without so much as a whisper of an alarm. The ODSTs scanned the darkened lobby with their weapons, their helmets' infrared sensors giving them a clear view of the entire room. "Alright, Besser, take your squad up to the second floor," Red team's lieutenant ordered. "Start with the target room, and stay alert. Rajeev, your boys have this floor; Chung, stay with me." The three squads split off immediately, with two vanishing into the complex's darkened hallways and the third spreading out across the lobby. "Be ready to assist the others if they find the target," the lieutenant ordered. He signaled Sergeant Chung. "Chung, get over to the desk and dig up what you can on the target from their computers. Remember, Room 457." Chung and two of his ODSTs approached the lobby desk and slid behind it, taking care to watch for booby traps. Just because their target wasn't supposed to know they were coming didn't mean he didn't. "Shouldn't there be a receptionist?" one of the men asked nervously over the team's helmet links. "Tough neighborhood," replied Sergeant Chung. "They've probably lost guys to shootings here before." The squad's technician carefully slid a spoofer onto the desk's computer terminal. "Just gimme a sec," she muttered. "Let's see what this asshole's alias is." Across the lobby, Red team's lieutenant swept the room with his rifle for what felt like the fiftieth time in less than a minute. He and his men had trained for lethal operations just like this one; hell, they'd pulled off more than their fair share real ops almost exactly like this one. So why was he so nervous? "Besser, how we doing?" he asked, hoping his hair-rasing apprehension wasn't present in his voice. "At the target room now, sir," Sergeant Besser reported. The sergeant's voice was tight. "No signs of trouble. We have one confirmed heat signature in there, and at this range it'd have to be a damn good decoy." "Copy that. Stay on your toes and breach." "Understood. You got us, Green?" "This is Green; we have a team pointed right at the bastard's window. You're covered." "Copy. Breaching in five..."
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* On the second floor, Sergeant Besser nodded to his point man. The burly ODST primed his combat shotgun as another man slipped a spoofer on the door. A moment later, a light above the door handle flashed green. It had been unlocked. "Alright, go now!" Besser ordered. The door was tugged open and the point man ducked inside. Every ODST in the squad froze, waiting for the gunfire to start, but the doorway remained silent. "Clear," the point man whispered. "I've got a solid heat signature in the bedroom; looks like he's sleeping." "Copy that," Besser hissed back. They didn't need to whisper with their helmet's shielding their every word, but the tension was getting to him. It was getting to all of them. "Queens, Andreson, get your tranqs ready," Besser ordered. "Everyone else, stick to lethal rounds. He so much as twitches the wrong direction, you waste him." The rest of the squad moved into the apartment. It was a testament to their years of grueling training that ten armored Marines could enter through such a small doorway without making a sound. They followed the point man to the bedroom door, waited for his signal, then tensed. The point man took a breath, readied his shotgun, and kicked the door in. It folded under his armored boot, and then he was in with the whole squad, all pretenses of stealth abandoned. Queens and Andreson each pumped a tranquilizer into the man who was lying on the bed, covered only by a small blanket. As the squad scanned the room for any sort of traps or weapons, Besser lunged forward and hauled their target up by his collar. The next moment passed by very slowly for Sergeant Besser. The first thing he saw as he stared down at his target was a thin, balding man with a pockmarked face and terrified eyes. His brain registered confusion: was this really the guy they were after? Then his eyes traveled down to the man's shirt and saw the dirty, apartment uniform he was wearing. And then he knew. "It's not him," he hissed. Shoving away the blanket, he saw that the man's hands had been cuffed behind his back. "We've been had." Then he saw the odd metal lump strapped to the man's chest. "Shit!" he barked to his squad. "He's rigged! Cover, cover, cover!" The squad stumbled over each other in their haste to move, and as they collided and swore at each other, the bedroom's window tinkled four times. Three of the ODSTs fell instantly, while a fourth cried out and grabbed at his neck. Sergeant Besser looked up in time to see Queens collapse, his tinted helmet visor a spiderweb of cracks.
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* Red team's lieutenant's heart raced as Sergeant Besser yelled over the helmet link, "We're under fire! From the outside! Get some goddamn cover!" "Say again, sergeant?" the lieutenant demanded. "Where's the target?" "He's not here!" Besser's voice sounded as if he were on the verge of a breakdown. "The guy in the room... he's one of the hotel staff! I've got three KIA... dammnit, make that four! What the hell? Where's Green team?" The lieutenant immediately opened a force wide channel. "Green team, what's going on out there?" No response. "Green team, I say again, what the hell is going on out there?" Still nothing. Chung's squad had all stopped what they were doing to scan the room again, moving away from the front door and out of the potential line of fire. Finally, the lieutenant's radio crackled. "This is Corporal Ethers," a man's voice yelled over the radio. "The rest of my team isn't picking up. Nothing from Lieutenant Young! I don't know... ah!" The voice fell silent, and Red's lieutenant knew exactly why. "Green is down," he yelled into the force's channel. "I repeat, Green is down. Blue team, possible enemy sniper out there!" Over at the reception desk, Sergeant Chung motioned the two ODSTs with him. "Take cover!" But for them, it was too late. The three Marines hadn't even moved a foot when the improvised explosive devices hidden within the desk's wood paneling went off, tearing the ODSTs into shredded meat and sending the rest of the squad sprawling to the tiled floor.
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* Task Force Watts had prepared dozens of contingency plans before launching the operation. Unfortunately, none of those contingencies had anticipated that half the strike force would be wiped out before even laying eyes on the target. The sniper pairs of Blue team were already on the move, relocating and scanning Green team's positions to find the slumped corpses of its own sniper pairs where the living had been only moments before. And as they moved and sprinted across the rooftops, they began dropping too. The bullets came silently, soaring through the gentle night air to find their targets in visors or necks. Blue's lieutenant was one of the first to fall, the side of his throat slashed by a high caliber round. He continued whispering orders to his men until more shots brought down the ODSTs with him and left him to slip into fatal unconsciousness alone. Those not killed outright threw themselves desperately behind cover, trying to connect with what was left of their team as the body count rose by the second. Yellow team, spread out across a labyrinth of streets and alleys, struggled to get a hold of the situation without exposing themselves to the invisible killer who was slaughtering the strike force. Their lieutenant listened desperately for the radio traffic of what was left of Red and Blue teams, doing his best to gage some sort of location for their target. Finally, he got a lead from the last moments of one of the Blue snipers. "I have visual! One guy, on top of building 4B! He's on the--" Yellow's lieutenant checked his helmet map and gestured to the squad with him. "4B! Move your asses!" They smashed through the door of building 4b--a small shop--ignoring the alarms as they raced up the stairs and sprinted for the roof access. The point man darted out first, dropping to his knees and beginning a scan of the dark rooftop. The man behind him didn't wait for his signal and continued his pelting run... only to have a high caliber bullet punch through his helmet and drop him like a stone. The point man turned in time to see a dark figure in armor discard a long rifle and pull a sidearm from his waist. He tried to bring his rifle around, but the attacker punched two silenced bullets through his visor before charging for the roof access. The ODSTs had been drilled endlessly on taking down larger, stronger opponents. They had to, what with the endless number of hostile aliens they were tasked with taking down. But this assailant moved fast, darting between them and delivering fast, accurate punches or kicks that more often than not shattered skulls or spines. One ODST stepped in too close, only to have her legs shot out from under her. Discarding his empty pistol, the attacker grabbed the crippled Marine and relieved her of her own sidearm while using her body as a shield against what was left of her squad. The ODSTs were astonished to see that their opponent was wearing armor identical to theirs. Faceless behind his own ODST-style helmet, their attacker unflinchingly killed two more as they struggled to shoot around their still-living comrade. As the survivors moved to surround him, one desperately tugged out a grenade and threw it at him. Breaking his prisoner's neck in an instant, the armored figure stepped to the side and snatched the live grenade out of the air. In the next, he lashed out at the nearest ODST, punching the grenade into the man's armor and sending him stumbling off the roof with a muffled cry. The grenade detonated halfway to the ground. Yellow team's lieutenant suddenly found himself visor to visor with the dark-armored killer. He reached for his combat knife, but a savage blow to the neck crushed his windpipe and sent him slipping to his knees, gagging on his own saliva. The last ODST looked around and realized he was the only one left. He stumbled backwards, tripping on his own feet and falling to the blood-slicked rooftop. "You... you..." he gabbled, scrabbling around for his fallen weapon. "You're not human!" The armored figure shrugged and shot him dead. It turned its visor back on the lieutenant, who was still on his knees. You had to hand it to the ODSTs, the figure noted. They were tough sons--and daughters--of bitches. The lieutenant was fumbling for his sidearm in spite of his smashed throat. The armored figure gave him a second to do so, then gunned him down as well. The UNSC's elite shock troops were spread out across the rooftop in a macabre diorama, their darkened combat armor stained with the same blood that was steadily spreading across the rooftop. The armored figure paused and quickly scanned the area for snipers before going to retrieve his fallen rifle. As it did, it raised its free hand to its helmet and opened a secure channel. "I've thinned them out," he reported in a calm, gravelly voice. "Send your boys in and start shooting."
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* Yellow team's two remaining squads were still keeping to their tight alleys, trying to get in contact with their dead teammates. The night air was now filled with the screams of panicking civilians, as the apartment owners who had been roused by the lobby explosion were now finding armored special forces between them and their exit. The Red team survivors were struggling to maintain their positions within the apartment complex while fending off the terrified newcomers. Red's lieutenant was yelling into his helmet radio, practically demanding evacuation from his superiors. Just as one of Yellow's surviving sergeants had decided to risk moving in to link up with Red team, the sound of electric engines and squealing tires filled the air. The ODSTs looked up in time to see two civilian vans pull up in front of their alley as even more vehicles streamed past them. Figures wearing everything from body armor to tank tops and brandishing all manner of firearms spilled out, and suddenly the ODSTs had much more to worry about than a phantom sniper.
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* David Kahn, widely known as the most lethal mercenary in the galaxy's underworld community, slid into a small alcove and gazed down at the destruction unfolding below him. With his reconnaissance data to guide them, the legions of gangs in New Madrigal knew exactly where the ODSTs were, and they were rolling out in force to put an end to the UNSC intrusion. Yellow team was already pinned down in the alleys, and even more trucks were moving to surround the apartment complex that was now held by a besieged Red team. It had all come together masterfully, Kahn decided. He'd spent close to three days hidden on these rooftops, watching as burly "civilians" scoped out the apartment. He'd memorized the layout of nearly the entire district as he'd planted subtle surveillance devices across the roofs and walls; perfect for knowing exactly where the sniper teams were setting up. He'd even managed to subdue the apartment's receptionist and move the man up to his room--along with a mock "explosive" to keep him still--without attracting attention. And now, with over half the strike team dead and the rest taking on New Madrigal's entire criminal element, everything was paying dividends. He enjoyed a moment of professional pride as he reflected on how he'd used the UNSC task force sent to kill him as a means to complete yet another contract. The Syndicate, the galaxy's pre-eminent criminal empire, had been trying to bring New Madrigal under its influence for over half a decade now. But a colony founded primarily by independence-minded ex-Insurrectionists hadn't been about to just roll over and let some off-world group muscle in on their criminal operations. So Kahn had been called in to start a war. And the UNSC troops had been exactly the kind of trigger he'd needed. The firefights were still raging. The ODSTs now had suitable outlets for their fear and anger, and they were cutting the gangs down by the dozens. Yellow team had already pushed its way out of the alleys and was now coordinating fire down the street from behind commandeered trucks. Red team had managed to successfully get the civilians into cover and was now blazing away at the uncoordinated criminals from the second floor. Yes, the ODSTs would certainly give much more than they got. Kahn wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if they managed to walk out of this wildfire alive. But that wouldn't stop the gangs. Now that they were all out in force, it was only a matter of time before they forgot about the UNSC and turned on each other like rabid dogs. For a moment, Kahn caught himself frowning. New Madrigal was about to be consumed by gang violence, and the body count was going to be high. The bodies in that pile wouldn't all belong to the gangs or UNSC. Kahn didn't feel much for the ODSTs he'd just killed--they'd known the score when they'd come after him--but he couldn't help but wonder how responsible he'd be for the civilians who were about to die in the crossfire. I'm getting too old, he thought, shaking his helmeted head. Old and soft. He wondered if that cunning little bastard Mordred had been caught up by the UNSC or Path Walkers yet, then decided it wasn't any of his business. Like the ODSTs, Mordred had known the score back when he'd signed on to kidnap a Path Walker. The fighting was getting closer, and Kahn knew it was time to move. The ODSTs might have been able to know he wasn't with them, but the gangs might not be able to tell the difference between him and the shock troopers they were fighting.
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* The sounds of gunfire were spreading across town, and Doctor Terrence Stern was getting worried. "Get the windows sealed," he ordered his nurses, who were in the midst of locking down the clinic they'd set up in downtown New Madrigal. "And start making calls. See if you can get a few freelancers down here to cover us, long as they don't charge too much for it." "We should have stayed on Cordial Harmony," one nurse muttered, sliding a clip into his pistol. "Figures the Fallen get smashed the minute we get the hell out of there." "Just get to it," Terrence snapped. "I want this place locked up tight by the time the patients start arriving." "We can't just wait for patients," said a quiet voice behind him. "We'll need to go out there and get the people who can't make it themselves." "We don't have a choice," Terrence said, rounding on his best medical technician. "I'm not sending anyone out there into that mess, least of all you." "It doesn't matter." She hefted an assault rifle. "I'm going out there." "Cassandra," Terrence said with exasperation. "I can't let you go now. We'll be understaffed as it is once the casualties start arriving, and I'll need every gun we can get if the gangs try taking over here." "Don't worry." Cassandra-G006, ex-SPARTAN-III and currently the best medic on New Madrigal, slid a small flak jacket over her thin frame. "I already made a call. Nimue's setting up nearby; she'll cover the clinic." "Oh," Terrence said as Cassandra headed for the door. "Well I guess we don't have anything to worry about, do we?" "We'll be fine," she said over her shoulder as she grabbed her medical bag. "But there are people out there who need us." "Yes," Terrence muttered. "Yes there are." He rounded on the rest of his staff. "You heard her, didn't you? There are people who need us." He slipped a handgun into his pocket. "So let's practice some medicine."
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