Operation: Horseshoe

While the Covenant had taken a vicious beating in their battle, and subsequent rout across the plains of Camber, Sergeant Leon Graves was always the type of man to kick someone when they were down.

While the retreating Wraith tanks were hightailing it towards their staging area, Sergeant Graves couldn’t resist tasking Echo Squad and their Third Platoon attachés with ambush detail.

Getting the Wraith over to the rocks and narrow pass was the easy part. An overturned warthog, a few limping, ‘wounded’ soldiers, and the retreating Wraith took the bait—hook, line, and sinker. It, and only it, squeezed into the mountain pass, searching for the wounded squad.

It was all alone, and that’s just how Graves liked his dates. “Alright boys,” he said into his comms piece, looking through the rifle scope. “Our lady has come callin’, let’s show her a good time. Third Platoon, begin diversion.”

Small arms fire from the Alpha team started peppering one side of the Wraith from up high behind the rocks. Small puffs of smoke and sparks lit up the purple armour plating. The rounds would do precisely two things; jack and shit. Leon knew that, the Wraith pilot must have known that, but the alien tank still turned towards the new challenge.

Covenant were nothing, if not predictable.

As soon as the Wraith and her gunner swivelled to track them, the troopers behind the rocks displaced. The plasma gun fired, peppering the rock with plasma fire and melting half of it to molten slag. For good measure, the main mortar fired, turning the area into a glass crater. Leon felt his heart flutter in relief when he saw everyone had managed to get away.

The back of the Wraith was now totally exposed to the rest of third Platoon, on the other side of the pass. They opened up with the much bigger guns. Two M738s and a plethora of MA5C rounds peppered the back, where Leon could see the whirring and glowing of something. He didn’t know what it was, but it looked important.

He squeezed off two anti-materiél rounds at the whirring thing. One of them bounced clean off, the other one cracked the housing. Something belched purple smoke in protest.

The Wraith, however, was unharmed, and slowly turned to track this new threat. These Troopers were a bit slower to displace, preferring to exhaust their ammo supply on anything that could be construed as a soft target.

The gunner, who once was huddled behind the plasma turret like a tentative mouse, popped his head up to get a better angle. Bravo team’s Troopers made for the cover of the rocks. Three were too slow, and caught rounds to their sternum, side, and head. They fell in smoking heaps on the rocks.

Leon fired his next round at the elite. Must’ve been a high-ranking son of a gun, because the high-velocity round pinged clean off of his shields, popping them in the process. The alien ducked back down for the safety of the gunner's nest, giving the Troopers some relief from his gunfire, allowing them to get to cover.

The main mortar belched again. The whistling screech, like that of the tank’s namesake, splattered atop the three corpses, and fused them into ass and carbonised glass. Two other soldiers that hadn’t gotten to cover yet took heat-flash and collapsed to the ground, writhing on the rocks and clutching their blistering skin.

Leon had one round left. “Echo Two,” he keyed his comms. “Welcome wagon has been sprung.” He loosed the round at the wraith and ejected the magazine. The tank spun to face him, allowing the Troopers to grab the wounded and drag them behind the rocks, and keep going.

Leon displaced as plasma struck his position. No mortar fire

“Acknowledged.” came Echo Two’s reply.

“Anti-personnel mines are in place, Sarge.” said Echo Three.

Leon and Third continued to bunny hop around the rocks, keeping the Wraith’s attention diverted, and bringing it deeper into the pass. The Sergeant ordered anti-personnel mines buried at a point on the main road ahead. They would do next to nothing to a Wraith, in fact, the Wraith wouldn’t even set them off as it hovered over the ground they were buried under. The only thing they were really good for was a smokescreen.

The Troopers came to the second ambush point. The Wraith followed them with a dutiful whine. Leon peeked up over the rocks and flashed a mirror at the other side of the pass, and god a flash in return. A second later, the ground underneath the Wraith exploded. Shrapnel and small, metal ball bearings were launched upwards into the gravity lifts of the tank. Dirt, debris, and other detritus was kicked up around the Wraith, and obscured it from view.

“Now!” Leon yelled.

The Troopers broke from cover and began laying down heavy fire on it. The gravity lifts beneath the Wraith cut out, and the whole thing collapsed to the ground with a clang.

The gunner covered his head and ducked down under the fire. The dust began to clear, and the Wraith flickered back to life. It lifted itself off the ground with a crackle of energy and a screeching wail of grav lifts.

“Come on!” Leon yelled. “Get the Launcher up!”

“Backblast clear!” someone yelled over Comms, before a vapour trail and a whooshing sound indicated that someone had pulled their head out of their ass, at long last. The rocket hit one of the wings of the Wraith, detonating just where it met the main body. The Wraith listed, and the Trooper cycled the tube of the SPNKR. He wasn’t fast enough.

The mortar swivelled and fired immediately. No wind-up, and no warning. The Troopers didn’t even have time to react before the rock they were huddled behind took the full brunt of the mortar. Taking a full thirty percent of Third Platoon with it—and their only Launcher.

“Dammit! Alright. Plan B.”

“Uh, there was a Plan B?” asked Echo Five.

“Third Platoon, covering fire.” Leon ordered, sighting the gunner as the Wraith turned to face their side of the mountain pass. He fired, but the round pinged off of the plasma turret. Leon cursed, and the plasma turrets first dozen rounds harmlessly hit the floor.

“Echo Five, you and the rest of Echo get down here, behind the Wraith.”

''”Excuse me? What the hell—”'' Echo Four was cut off by a mortar round launching towards the Troopers. It went high, hitting the mountains above them and showering the pass with molten globs of rock.

“Figure something out!” Leon ordered, reaching down to his belt. “If anyone has Grenades, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.” He popped the button on his frag inward, and lobbed it over the rock. He turned around the corner of his cover to watch it sail down the slope, and hit the side of the Wraith with a ping. It detonated in mid-air.

More grenades followed. Maybe they’d get lucky, and one would land in the gunner’s chamber. Not likely. Leon watched and prayed, though, as more and more grenades either fell short, or harmlessly dinged off of the Wraith’s armour. One managed to explode on the Wraith, and rocked it a little, but all they had done was buy a little time.

Leon could faintly see shapes on the other slope, ducking between rocks and keeping a low profile. But, he could also see the main mortar of the Wraith cannon lining up for one last shot. The weapon broiled and fumed with a blue light, turning red, then white, and Leon braced against the rock for the inevitable flash of pain, and then the cool embrace of nothingness.

Instead, there was an explosion that rocked Leon’s bones. The concussive waves knocked him back, even from behind the rock, and he quickly scrambled to see what had happened. There was a large cloud of black smoke in the air, and the Wraith had been forced into the ground, half of its cannon melted and deformed.

“Echo, what the hell did you do?”

”Shaped charge, PEMTEX,” Echo Two said. ”Not enough to destroy it, though.”

He looked down the slope and saw them aiming their weapons at an Elite as he stepped down from the gun emplacement. Leon huffed in surprised mirth.

“Third Platoon, assist!” He got up from behind the rock and all but sprinted down the slope. The rest of Third followed. The top of the Wraith popped open, and an Elite clambered out on unsteady feet. He doubled over, coughing and retching. The plasma pistol charged, and he fired off a shot before he could see what he was aiming at. The shot missed Leon, but he could feel the head as it passed by his face.

He raised his weapon and fired a burst. It bristled against the Elite’s shields, and they popped. Another burst ripped through the unprotected chest of the alien, and it collapsed like a paper effigy.

The Sergeant stepped over to Echo while the rest of Third brandished their rifles. The Elite was giving off a low rumbling growl. Leon barely came up to the things shoulders, and the rest of Echo was giving it a wide berth.

“Echo Four?”

“Sir?” Corporal Victoria Miles said, not taking her eyes off of the Elite.

Sergeant Leon took off his standard-issue Army Trooper helmet, still staring at the Elite in confused awe. “Radio in, we have one captured Wraith, and one prisoner.”

“Yes sir.” Echo Four said, moving away from the circle of Troopers, and the prisoner.

Leon took one step closer and looked the creature up and down. He had never seen one surrender before. He imagined that, eventually, there would have to be some, whose desire to live outweighed their religious zealotry.

“Name?” Leon asked.

The Elite growled something.

Leon raised his weapon. “Let’s try that again; name.”

“Thesa ‘Refumee.”