Red Letter Days/Chapter Five

Previous Chapter: Chapter 4:New Kids in Town

Chapter Five: Goodbye Wall street


 * ''ERROR
 * ''ERROR
 * ''CONNECTION LOST
 * ''ERROR
 * ''HAVE A NICE DAY

Mackenzie whispered a prayer, Red let out a low screech that may have been an attempt at a groan, Masih and Atterson both let out a tumble of hushed curses while Venendez swayed for a moment and then fainted, falling into the lieutenant's arms. The only sound were the distant sirens and the noises the ship made as it lowered over the city. The ship was absolutely huge, Skopje was one of the UNSC's biggest shipyards yet the monster was bigger than any ship Schaeffer had ever seen in his life. From the ship, he saw dots slowly getting larger, flying towards the city. The larger ones vaguely reminded Schaeffer of pelicans.

Glancing over, he saw the lieutenant seemingly unfazed by the new arrivals, he quickly dropped Venendez to the floor and called for Chaplain, the platoons Corpsman. Then began to shout out orders to everyone on the roof. The roof was too large for everyone to hear, but the orders were carried across by those who could. Schaeffer heard his name and orders to search the bodies in the mess of orders, the entire platoon found its feet at once.

Schaeffer ran over to the bodies and landed on his knees next to the man who had shot the VIP. Schaeffer tried not to puke, at least fourteen holes in the man and his arm slightly torn off. His head looked like a crushed melon, and flies had already begun to gather around the bodies. He hated bodies, and this one was no better. But Schaeffer knew they didn't have time, something was about to happen and they could all feel it in the air, so Schaeffer patted the man down as best he could.

"One magnum..." he thought to himself, tearing the weapon from the mans grip. The barrel was still hot, and blood caked the side of it from the execution. He was distracted by the sound of a large boom, the sound echoing back to him from the streets below. In the distance he heard screaming, police sirens and gunfire. The dots from the ship were getting closer. "One wallet..." he tore the piece of leather from the mans coat pocket, he heard a humming sound from somewhere.

"Carton of cigarettes..." he took out the green and red carton, titled 'Goldstein smokes' and tossed them behind him, the humming was beginning to get closer, he tried to ignore it. "Headset radio..." the humming turned into a chopping noise, he glanced to the edge of the building, only twenty feet away from him.

He shoved the wallet into his pocket and sat back on his haunches, watching the edge. He nearly went back down to the body when a battered hornet slowly rose from the edge of the building.

"Oh fuck. Oh hell. Oh no." He said, his eyes widening. The pilot was definitely not UNSC and the machine guns were slowly beginning to rev up. Schaeffer spun to the side and shot up, sprinting away. He was cut short when his foot caught on the dead VIP's flank, sending him sprawling.

He had just a moment to glance behind him and watch his death get closer and closer when a screeching noise, like that of some sort of banshee became clear. One of the purple dots got big, fast, quickly gaining shape as it got closer. Schaeffer saw two wings, weak looking and not completely solid, but with two thrusters on the end of each. The rest of it had a curved hull, two weapons were mounted at the bottom.

The hornet fired off a shot before the Banshee let off its own. From somewhere between the two guns a green ball flew out, rippling with energy. The Banshee broke off and the ball slammed into the back of the hornet, between the two rotors The machine seemed to disintegrate, the sound of the fuel and ammo cooking off filling Schaeffer's ears.

He covered his eyes from the bright light, the green ball burning through the metal like paper. The pilot was consumed by fires as the cockpit exploded, and the twisted husk of the helicopter slammed into the roof and skidded, right past Schaeffer. The machine tore away several air conditioning units and other objects on the roof. Two marines dived out of the way as it came at them and then slowed to a stop.

Atterson ran up and asked him if he was okay, Schaeffer only dumbly nodded. The hornet hadn't hit the roof hard enough to break through, but the trail of devastation was followed by flames from the pouring fuel. Venendez shook off Chaplain and sat up, he looked around dumbfounded, confused by the destruction. Atterson shouted for him to organize his fire team. Venendez stared at him for a minute and Atterson screamed again.

"IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR SPANISH ASS IN MOTION I WILL KICK THE HELL OUT OF IT." Venendez didn't seem to understand for a second, but then shook his head and scrambled to a standing position.

"Schaeffer! Mackenzie! Let's go!" He yelled over, the two marines glanced at each other from different sides of the roof and ran to the corporal. The other teams got organized as well, getting ready to move out as fast as they could. The lieutenant idly checked his rifle, his uniform seemed to be neat and clean despite the recent combat. In comparison, they all looked like a bunch of civilians who had found fatigues. He idly wiped some dust off his shoulder pad and then began to talk.

"We are getting back down stairs ASAP. We got unknown forces dominating the air right now, rebels surrounding the building and no comm's. Second Base has ground based comm facilities but they won't be working right away so we got a bit with no support out here." The lieutenant took a breath, looking at his men who had formed a circle around him. "We are stranded. And I have no idea if those things are hostile or no-" he didn't finished as his eyebrows raised.

Schaeffer, who had been standing in front of him, looked around confused before he looked behind him. A part of the city exploded in the same stuff the hornet was hit with, but blue. Pure blue energy flew at the city from the ship, tearing apart buildings and streets, one of the skyscrapers practically hollowed out when one of the blasts hit it. The screaming was so loud and so plentiful that it reached Schaeffer's ears, over a hundred stories in the air. He shuddered.

More blue balls flew from the ship, but then subsided. Schaeffer wondered if it was some sort of terror tactic when he saw the real reason, the two frigates in orbit began to close in on the ship. The third stayed back, pelicans leaving its bays and flying towards the ground below.

The frigates tried to soften the target with their archer missiles, hundreds of them spilling out at the alien vehicle. A blue shield suddenly popped into existence where the missiles uselessly splashed across. The ships continued closing in on it however, and one of them fired its mass accelerator cannon, shortly followed by the other. The two blasts, capable of breaking the crust of a planet, managed to pop the shield of the ship. Suddenly, the blue streaks flew towards the UNSC frigates.

The men gasped as the energy cut through the ships hull. The one on the left groaned, the sound of bending metal filling the sky. Then, as if the supports just gave up, the ship buckled and split, the two pieces falling towards the planet. Fires tore across the hull. The other ship attempted to maneuver away but ended up just taking the energy on the underside. Explosions rippled across the ship as fuel and ammunition lines detonated and it drifted to the surface. Its engines still uselessly holding it in the air.

Burning bodies and metal poured out from the frigates. The one on the right seemed to still have some surviving crew, and it fired off as many of its missiles and other weapons as it could before it disappeared behind one of the far off mountains. The other one broke into a few more pieces, and most of them fell onto the outer city. A part of the engine however, flew over their heads and straight into a skyscraper, twenty or so blocks away. The engine destroyed the windows and walls of the office building and the skyscraper tilted slightly, it stood for now, fires beginning to gut the building. But it was obvious it was going to collapse soon.

Looking back, the lieutenant gulped, his previous confidence having seemingly tapered off a tad. He was silent, and then ordered them all to get downstairs, and to be ready for a fight in and around the lobby. The platoon nodded and began moving.

As Schaeffer followed Mackenzie and Venendez out, he glanced up to see the third frigate flying off to another area of the planet. The huge ship began to move again and flew after it. The missiles seemed to have had an effect on the engines, and it moved slower than Schaeffer would have expected. The frigate shot off its drop pods and more pelicans spilled from it. The alien one seemed to be doing the same.

The view was cut off as he walked back into the building, the butt of his assault rifle pressed firmly into his pit. The building had been crumbling since the explosions went off, and as they walked down the stairs, pieces of the wall crumbled and fell to the ground below. The floors had slowly been collapsing as they spent their time on the roof and four of them were now gone, if they didn't get out soon than the whole building would drop. The marines were dead silent.

They ran down the stairs as fast as they could, when they finally got to the sixth floor. Schaeffer stumbled away from the stairs and took a ragged breath, putting a hand on the doorway and gasping for air. His fatigues were practically black from the sweat and his legs wobbled uncontrollably. The rest of the platoon was in just as bad condition, and some of the more out of shape marines such as Angelo’s and Correlo were heaving and wheezing from the effort. A young looking marine was waiting for them when they got down, he hugged his assault rifle protectively and waved at the lieutenant.

"Sir! I'm Private Bell with third! Captain Veenhoff is holding down here with Lieutenant Summers! I was told to get you." The lieutenant nodded and took a breath before responding.

"What's the status, Bell?"

"It ain't good sir! We got a squad pinned down in the lobby, and second platoon is only getting to us in small numbers, explosion scattered them. The captain's been trying to reestablish comm's but there ain't no way till the comm towers are reactivated. We got a lot of wounded too, Doc Free got hit as soon as the rebels charged and we got marksman and light machine guns in the building opposite to us with a fucking nutty amount of infantry." The private motioned for them to follow and pushed through the metal double doors.

The sounds of battle were clear now, gunfire only a hall or two away. Wounded were scattered around the hallway, leaning against walls or groaning in offices. Some marines went from wounded to wounded, doing whatever they could to help with their rather bare medical kits. The private jogged past them, continuing to talk.

"One of the men in second warned us he saw APC's moving down the street from one of the windows. They didn't look friendly, but we haven't seen those yet. Those new things have been flying down from time to time too, they dropped a few innies on the last run. But they tore apart some of our guys the one before that, so we have been conserving missiles in case they make another go at us." He turned a hallway and cut through some offices, ending up in a large and spacious hall on the side of the building, similar to the ones Schaeffer had fought in previously.

The private motioned for them to get down and they all got into a crouch. Marines were hiding behind the low walls under the windows, occasionally popping out to open fire on the insurrectionists who were invading the building. They found empty cover to take and Schaeffer sat down next to the lieutenant, a female voice screamed for them to fire their rockets the building opposite, and the missiles streaked out at he building opposite to them soon after.

The lieutenant leaned over to chat with an older looking marine next to him, on closer inspection, Schaeffer recognized him as the captain from the base. Bell ran off back down the hallway, a woman down the hall fell over screaming and was quickly dragged off by the man next to her.

Schaeffer pulled out his assault rifle and took aim at the closest man to him, he briefly hesitated, remembering the last man he killed. He wondered if he really wanted to do this, but when the man reloaded and aimed his rifle at Schaeffer, there was no hesitation Instinct kicked in with the recoil of his rifle. The man fell, blood pooling around him.

He swiveled around and fired at another man who slid in to cover before the bullets could reach him, sliding back down, he checked his ammo meter. As he did so, a bullet broke a piece of glass off the sides of the window as he did and he ducked down further, dust and broken glass falling on his broken helmet, he raised his rifle to his eyes and when he didn't feel the falling debris anymore, he checked his meter again.

He heard a rumble and then the familiar pit pats of rain droplets hitting the ground, when he leaned out the window to crack off another shot, he saw that it had begun raining outside, and it only seemed to be getting worse. Schaeffer looked over the sight, adjusted, then shot at where he saw a rebel go into cover before quickly ducking back down. "Half a mag left..." he thought to himself.

He almost leaned back out when he heard the captain shout his name, he glanced around for a moment before he locked eyes with the man. Falling back behind the wall, he pulled himself along the ground until he pushed into the lieutenant's flank, then leaned out to see the captain.

"PFC. Schaeffer?" He yelled over the gunfire, the lieutenant nodded at the captain with annoyance when Schaeffer glanced at him. Gulping, he said yes. "Good. What did you find on the body!?" A grenade flew through a window down the hallway. The marines scattered before it could explode.

"I-I found..." he thought for a second before he remembered the wallet. Quickly dropping his rifle, he tore it out of his pocket and handed it to the captain. The man, white hair visible and his cap nowhere to be seen, waited for more and then sighed, accepting it. He quickly flipped open the leather container, some pictures of a little girl and an older woman slid out. Schaeffer felt a pang of remorse, the captain and lieutenant didn't care or didn't show it, instead the captain just rooted through the wallet.

Pulling out an ID card, he scanned it before looking up.

"Josef 'the mad dog' Cardova, Jesus Christ this is bad." The lieutenant and Schaeffer both frowned, the captain glanced at the two and then continued, "three thousand dead at the Willhill City bombings on Emerald, sixteen hundred in the London gas attacks back on Earth, thirty thousand in the Paris IV uprising we had to clean up for months." He shook his head, Schaeffer gulped as he realized the implications, the lieutenant seemed to process it in his head before speaking.

"Cardova was insane but not stupid, he knew that if he died here he could be a martyr. He wanted us to kill him." The captain nodded and added in.

"If he is here, god knows who else is. We knew a revolution was coming, but we didn't think it would be this bad. And with those purple things? The rebels must have brought them." The lieutenant frowned, Schaeffer idly wondered how the rebels managed to get such technology. The timing was just too good to drop what the captain said.

"ENEMY ARMOR!" Some one screamed, glancing out the window, he saw a black APC come flying up the road, slamming into one of their warthogs and practically ignoring the metal beast. The gun turret rotated and began firing on them. Schaeffer managed to spot the markings that said 'POLICE' disappear as the doors opened before he shrunk down as far as he could.

Machine gun fire tore through the brick wall, though he couldn't imagine how easily it would destroy most construction Skopje. He thanked god for the buildings attempt at a classical design as the rounds wrecked the walls. Marines scattered to find better cover and Schaeffer grabbed his helmet and shrunk down to make himself less of a target.

"WHERE'S THAT ROCKET LAUNCHER!" Some woman in the back screamed, another screamed that they were all out. Schaeffer could hear the captain cursing as dust and water droplets flew in all directions. Marines were cursing and crying and screaming all they could think of.

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE ON THIS SHIT HOLE PLANET!" Screamed one of the older men down the line.

"FUCK THIS PLANET, FUCK THESE REBELS FU-" another tried to scream and was cut off as his shoulder exploded, his arm flying off and landing a foot from Schaeffer. He tried not to groan.

The man to his right was even younger than Schaeffer, he looked about seventeen. He cried as he said to himself, "be our safeguard ag-gainst wickedness and the s-snares of the d-devil." He continued on, blabbering about God and Satan, constantly tripping over words and repeating the same one as he tried to remember, a bullet blew through the wall not two feet from his head and he grabbed his knee caps and continued, getting into a ball.

The whole scene was surreal to him, it was going in slow motion. The man with no arm groaning and crawling on the floor, blood trailing behind him as he crawled towards his arm. The corpsman down the line with his hands in a mans chest, trying to do some operation. The lieutenant and captain trying to shout orders as another marine collapsed when he tried to move from cover to cover. The screaming. The commotion. Schaeffer felt like he was sitting in some sort of odd dream.

He snapped out of it when his radio exploded with voices.

"ALL ASSETS IN GARMED, MARCONI TOWER IS NOW BROADCASTING. I REPEAT, MARCONI IS NOW BROADCASTING." Schaeffer blinked as he heard Breaker shout over the radio. The operator seemed to calm down and continued on. "Reinforcements have been dropped in from UNSC ship Furious Five, all assets currently in the business district of Garmed are to fall back to Garmed Medical Center, UNSC forces are regrouping at Garmed Medical Center. Any units in and around Garmed City Bank, a warthog column is moving in. Shortsword bombers are available for CAS on your mark."

The captain was on the radio before he could finish, shouting in response. "I got men dropping like flies here Breaker..!" He phased out as Schaeffer turned to the marine next to him, still sputtering and praying despite the multiple voices on the radio. He crawled over and grabbed his shoulder.

"It's gonna be alright! IT WILL ALL BE OKAY!" He screamed, shaking him until he stopped praying. The marine looked at him for a second before grabbing him with his arms, still crying as he wrapped him in a bear hug. Schaeffer's arms flew to his side, having no idea what to do. Hesitantly, he patted him on the back. More bullets flew through the wall, a female marine fell to the ground, the right half of her head missing. Schaeffer gently pushed the other marine back to the wall, then scooped up the mans rifle and shoved it back into his hands. Tears still streamed down his face, but he held the rifle and nodded.

Another man lay on the ground, a piece of splintered wood speared clean through his shin. Schaeffer could see glistening bone that had been snapped by the wood, he got on his knees and crawled over, oddly feeling no more fear.

The man squirmed, screamed, cursed, groaned, cried. Everything Schaeffer had seen in the other dying men he had encountered, feeling no more emotion, he simply tore open his small medical kit and took out the tourniquet He wrapped it around the mans thigh, just above the wound. The marine grabbed onto Schaeffer's fatigues as he worked, Schaeffer looked him in the eyes as he tightened the tourniquet He would put in biofoam, but he doubted shoving the wood and bones apart was a good idea.

The sound of jets was heard, and Schaeffer glanced behind him. He didn't see any jets, but he did see the blast as the plaza below them exploded with the Shortsword's bombs, their figures temporarily leaving the area in shadow. The fireball flew past their floor and pieces of shrapnel and loose stone flew through the windows. He fell over the mans body, covering him from the rubble before going back to applying the tourniquet. The man was going to lose the leg, Schaeffer knew it.

Screaming reached the marines ears as the rebels were burned alive, Schaeffer pretended he didn't hear them. Instead he called for a corpsman and ran off to help the next wounded man. The marines peeked out the windows to make sure everyone was dead or dying, the captain confirmed the kills over the radio.

--

Schaeffer groaned a bit as he climbed into the back of the warthog, the muscles of his legs screaming in protest. He turned around to give Red a hand into the vehicle, the captain hadn't bothered to reorganize the platoons, claiming that the building would collapse any minute from the bombing.

Schaeffer was inclined to agree, first and third platoon were lucky that their side of the building didn't collapse. Second was less so, the ceiling had toppled straight down onto their heads, leaving so many of the platoon dead that the captain refused to allow them to be carried out, stating it would take too long. Schaeffer heard marines mutter every number between one and thirty marines dead in the collapse.

Red grasped his hand and Schaeffer grunted as he pulled the man onto the back of the transport vehicle, he nodded his thanks and sat down next to Schaeffer's seat. Schaeffer fell back into his own, rubbing his blood stained hands on his forehead to stop the headache he had received from all the explosions.

"So... Newbie." Schaeffer was getting sick of the name, he was just about to snap. "You got a name?" Red continued, Schaeffer frowned. "You stupid idiot, stop assuming things, you are just going to make enemies." Thinking this, he glanced over at Venendez in the warthog next to theirs.

"Yeah... Schaeffer. Leonard Schaeffer." Red frowned at the name but shrugged. "Well Leo, my name is Dmitri, welcome to hell." It was Schaeffer's turn to frown.

"You have seen combat before?" The talking seemed to get his mind off the pain in his everything, so Schaeffer talked.

"Hell yes, way back on... Paris IV, I saw lots." The man across from them, a corporal, spoke up.

"Ah quit your bullshitting Red, you saw one fucking skirmish before this."

Red glared at the man but nodded. "Yeah yeah, thanks for ruining my fun Cameron."

"This ain't a time for fun, idiot." Red was going to say something when the driver shouted they were moving out. The warthogs had driven up into the plaza, shortly after the airstrike. The guns only had half of their ammo left, the drivers claimed they had killed at least a hundred men on the way here, and lost one of the vehicles to the Banshees.

The warthogs wheels began to move and the vehicles pulled away from the plaza in a loose column, there were a dozen vehicles, a few of the transports were left empty due to the losses. Schaeffer sighed.

"So where you from?" Schaeffer had been asked that before, by Monroe. Schaeffer though of him, dead in a hallway without most of his neck, his head dangling by a cord of flesh. He felt emotion bubble up again in the form of him wanting to puke.

"Uh... Leo?" Red asked again, Schaeffer blinked, trying to erase the image.

"Skopje. I am from Skopje."

Next Chapter: Chapter 5: Holding the Breach