Starry Night: Roundabout (Part 2)

I had waited a handful of seconds to make sure the two Grunts had followed their orders, and when they did I crossed into the next apartment and started for the street level again by use of stairwell. I had to fight the desire to run down the stairs. I wanted so badly to get a head start on the two waddlers, but I couldn't risk the noise, especially if their leadership had anything of a mind to expand their search to the surrounding buildings. In time I arrived at the ground level, and following the flickering exit signs I managed to discover the emergency door that had long been pushed open by what I guessed were evacuees.

Nuzzling to one side of the doorframe, I peered out and saw a sliver of the open plaza. I was already halfway around them by now, but bypassing them entirely rather than having to circumvent their location was an appealing thought. Maybe I could, I turned my head left and my VISR mapped nothing but corner lines and concrete in the darkness. Dead end, of course.

I didn't bring my hopes up for a reason. Wilks' almost annoying amounts of optimism had gotten me more open about talking hopefully, only as I started to see its effect on morale; talk as though you perpetually have a plan and a fighting chance, sooner or later it infects everyone else. It was te same as te adverse emotions of depression and hopelessness, but it took a while longer to grow in dire circumstances. I was surprised enough to see us still functioning as a solid team despite all else coming down around. Easily half of their squad was dead and mine was nowhere to be seen since I landed--worse yet, the fight on Earth had taken this long as it is.

Having an understanding of spreading the hope, I didn't dare try it on myself. Lowering my expectations and staying paranoid was my angle. Again, I turned for the plaza, putting one foot ahead of the other, my footsteps comfortably quiet against the polycrete ground with an open sky, rather than the previously enclosed, acoustic stairway.

Slow is fast, fast is slow. Not to trivialize the accelerated eight months of hell that was ODST Qualification Training or the years of real world experience for my ripe age of 34, but that was the easiest way to describe the idea of tactical movement. Using caution was a simple concept to understand and a surprising number of recruits ignored the lesson if drop-out rates had anything to say about it. I had the materials to give this Covenant straggler patrol hell on earth, and given time I could probably put them out of commission with hit and run tactics, but if I had no reason to bull rush my way through then it wouldn't benefit me in the long term. As long as they didn't know I was here, then I could take all the time I wanted slipping by.

I was off to a good start the moment I detected a pair of columns supporting a mezzanine above my position, on the facade of the apartment building I recently exited. Even better was the row of parked and abandoned vehicles. Conveniently, they were all following the curved road that surrounded the plaza. After a fast glance around the corner of the pillar, I blured across the short distance to the first car, tucking in as I did, halting myself against its door with an open hand. The impact was quiet, and as an afterthought I thanked God that it didn't have a functioning car alarm.

Somewhere I heard Wilks' voice telling me to not be too hard on myself; something akin to "You're not that screwed." Overoptimistic prick.

I peered around the Genet's broken tail light, mindful of the shattered casing like any other glass shards in the city. The Brute was still on his watch, marching the streets like a pompous DI with a brick stuck someplace sensitive, his gaze--what I really cared about--was focused in the direction of his two subordinates. They were still on their way to investigate my impromptu distraction. My visor followed the trim of the vehicle's body as I repositioned to its front fender, eyes tracking both of the Brutes' movements. If their heightened senses were my downfall, I'd have to know their suspicion ahead of time. So far I was unknown to them; just ghosts and glass.

The second Brute was looking my way. My fingers tensed at the idea of him spotting me; always be the first to fire. A searing sensation cut through my torso as if the ape's gaze was piercing my soul. Couple that with the unnatural quiet, and I was left with more than enough belief that this was turning into a fight. After a long ten seconds of counting my own breaths, he finally turned away, leaving no eyes in my direction. With that, I quickly transitioned across the bumper-to-bumper gap, turning mid-stride so my left shoulder met my new cover for support. I was safe for now, and well within their blindspot so long as they didn't adjust.

Head below the window height of the cars, I slowly traversed the curvature of the plaza, following the line of cars with my eyes on the next gate ahead. I was mostly clear, so I took a leap of faith with a dedicated, low-profile jog with shoulders tensed and a straight back in an attempt to keep my webbing from rattling, at least until I rounded the next intersection and put myself out of sight. When I reached the gate, I smacked a palm to the door controls and spun around, preparing for a fight. If the last traffic gate told me anything it was that they weren't designed to be discreet. Surpisingly enough, the some sixty meters from here to the plaza was enough space for it to go unnoticed.

As soon as I had enough space to get through, I glanced the next street ahead; a straightaway leading into a series of catwalks over another roundabout, which also branched into several pathways into garages at the feet of a high rise cluster. Squeezing through the still-opening door, I checked my surroundings, picked the right sidewalk as my sector, and concluded that I passed from one residential block to the next. I breathed once as the door shut behind me and felt my muscles radiate a relaxing heat as I brought my eyes forward. A change of scenery would have stifled this sense of confidence only slightly, so I enjoyed it while the hostiles were "out of sight; out of mind."

Advancing into this part of the district yielded a more promising result; the street I was on, the one path leading forward into the roundabout wasn't just a flat road or a single ramp. It had a mezzanine overlooking it on the right side--lo and behold it was attached to another apartment structure. It didn't provide much for an overlook but I was no more than a small jump away from mantling over the waist high railing onto the next balcony.

I wasn't hitting things off with the best results. While the first block was already being patrolled, I had to wonder how many ahead would be occupied as well. Judging from the last signs of combat that I observed--other than the violence in silence I was responsible for--it was likely that the last fighting done by any UNSC forces happened while they were on the move. I thought about tracking it, but having seen the damage entering Black District, I had a feeling it would only lead me back to mine and Alpha-2's last RV point. That or, less desireably, it would break off into the unknown and the trail would end in tragedy...or go completely cold and turn out to be a waste of time. It made me worry about Wilks and the rest of his people, and after hopping from one balcony to the next, I felt an empty feeling hit my chest like a block of ice. It had been a whole hour by now since I had thought about them. Maybe that's why I was doing so well keeping my paranoia synonymous with caution. Maybe that's why I saw it as a problem.

Truth be told, I had the better end of the deal here and I didn't tell them. Breaking into smaller teams was viable for avoiding attention, and while they were better off in twos rather than bunched together was good, nothing beat solitude when it came to being undetected with no overhead coverage or Close Air Support. Telling them this would've been unsound for morale. Second to that was the fact that, again, we were doing this just to be thorough. At the best, we'd find a few survivors and be a few magazines less by the time we reached East 110 Highway again. At the worst, those odds would kill us before we reached where we wanted to be.

Once again, removing the doubt from my mind, I took in the new scene. From such a low level balcony I couldn't see much of anything except for the immediate setting on my side of the plaza; at the center of the roundabout was a catwalk, while convenient for regular foot traffic only acted as a visual obstacle for me. I don't think I would have chosen higher ground that day though. Having quick access to the street level was important if I didn't wanted to avoid a back-to-the-wall scenario. VISR came up clear of threats, though I could see it mapping lines around pieces of debris, highlighting a few of the more familiar, military grade titanium alloys in a passive blue. At the edge of the circular road, it was identifying what looked like a rear fender of an M12 Warthog Light Recon Vehicle, along with a hubcap, but those tended to be the first to go anyways. My eyes followed the marks on the sidewalk and the heat damage spots that peppered the following street, and eventually at the end of the skid marks, sitting nose-first in the a wall fifty meters ahead was what remained of the vehicle.

The damage was done. The Warthog's mangled frame was blackened, still hot judging from the whisps of vapor coming off of its body. The .50 caliber turret that was once mounted to its rearside hull bed was now laying beside the remains of the jeep crew's grave. Unusable. The sight made me utter a single word: "Fuck."

Beyond that, I knew enough to not warrant an investigation. The chance of a survivor being present, to me, felt like an idea of false hope. I would've liked the idea of the crew bailing out and fighting their way to someplace other than here, but none of that would matter to my situation, and I already knew from its crash position that the vehicle was moving when it was engulfed in plasma fire. Even scounging for spare rounds sounded risky until I mapped the rest of the plaza. My foot pivoted to the side as I was about to move on, then a muffled thunk rang out somewhere close by. I bent my knees, moving away from the edge of the balcony and closer to the wall behind me. I heard enough Brute spike rifles in the past few hours to know one's report; but that shot came from inside the apartment.

A second shot rang out as I neared the glass door to the room inside, this one followed with a hard, red-blue muzzle flare and the sound of its tungsten carbide projectile penetrating soft tissue. No mysteries here; Brute death squads were making their rounds. I waited and listened, putting weight on my back foot, ready to fight if I had to. I could hear him on the other side; seven feet tall and covered in thick, coarse fur, the creature resembled a fully bipedal gorialla, standing erect on two trunk-sized legs, adourned in the same ornate power armor as the patrol in the last sector.

Standing over a lifeless shape on the floor, he muttered something in his native language, a voice that sounded closer to how I perceived a Cro-Magnon, in a phrase short enough to be a report. I was close enough to hear the electronically filtered voice in his headgear; a longer set of words came through as a reply, and not much later his boots shuffled and turned, and he treaded out of the room, into the hall, then finally faded out of earshot. Off to nowhere, hopefully. I waited a moment longer, then stuck my head around the corner to see an empty room and the casualty that was distressing my mind...not one of our own, but a sangheili of all things.

I tricked myself into thinking that he was an older casualty just before I set foot inside, eyes watching the door through my rifle optic while my feet graciously carried my hunching form forward onto the damp carpet. Hearing the Brute at the end of the hall instilled my security in the scene, even when I heard him slam through the "push to exit" emergency door leading to the stairwell. I breathed out, making an unintentional huff before I could count to four. My company beside me, the corpsed Elite Major, blew my theory of friendly target practice as soon as I saw him up close. Head drooped forward, hung at an uncomfortable angle, his armor was stained with dark maroon hues. Most notable was the still-glowing spike in the brow of his helmet, exiting somewhere behind his mandible on the other side.

Friendly fire wasn't something I had come across with the Covenant, but I didn't know the Brutes as well yet; for all I knew post mortem mutilation might've been part of their religion--make sure the body has no way of retaining the soul or it'll haunt you. No. No, it wasn't that complicated when looking at the rest of the remains. Three more spikes, staggered in their grouping, were scattered around the Major's abdomen, blood congealing around the breaks in his shell and darkening the exposed undersuit of his hip where a stray had lodged itself in his pelvis, just between the thigh and his groin.

This was a close range shot group, and they had gone cold by now. This was a friendly assassination; the Brute was just confirming the kill and complicating my life with questions. Answers didn't matter, but damn if I didn't want them. I turned away from the grisly display and set half of a foot through the doorway into the hall before I looked both ways. Same as before, I made a left to go deeper, hoping to find an exit on the other side of the plaza.

If the Brutes were blindsiding Elites, if this was their version of bucking command, predicting their movements wouldn't be easy. On the other hand, I wasn't distressed to know that the Covenant were having their bout of infighting. If their inner conflict was a fraction as damaging as the UNSC's campaign against insurrection, at the least something the scale of Operation TREBUCHET, then we might have been able to use it.

You're over thinking.

I expelled the train of thought from my mind, only realizing my error a little too late when a set of hollow clip-clops of footsteps became audible from the stairwell behind me. I put one foot behind the other and about-faced, locking my gaze on the direction of the noise whilst stepping back down the hall. My brief detective episode staring at the skewered Sangheili corpse cost me seconds that I could've used. Survival had a moral and philosophic inhibition that I didn't quite switched on yet. The nasaly chittering of Unggoy speech traveling my way gave me enough reason to.