The Push

During the closing minutes of the, UNSC Marine Private First Class Aleksandra Zaytseva makes one last push past Covenant lines to make it to the evacuation Pelicans.



0645 HOURS, JANUARY 20, 2526 (MILITARY CALENDAR)

BIKO SYSTEM, PLANET BIKO, STREET OUTSIDE EVACUATION CENTER ALPHA

As she pressed her back against the overturned Warthog, Sasha felt the heat wash over her from the bolts of plasma flying inches above her head. She was at the final push to the Pelicans that would get her off Biko, but, trapped on the wrong side of a group of Covenant and out of ammo, there didn’t seem to be an easy way to get to the hangar holding those dropships. However, if the last few days had taught her anything about fighting these aliens, it was that nothing was ever easy when it came to war.

Sasha and her platoon had been told to hold open this street to allow the evacuating vehicles to make it to the Pelicans, so she had expected to have to fight. What she hadn’t expect was for the Covenant to push back so strongly. While the thirty or so Marines left alive in her platoon at this point had managed to hold back the Covenant back long enough to let the civilians escape to the Pelicans, no sooner than when the last transport Warthog had made it safely inside the evacuation site did the aliens overwhelm the group in a sudden resurgence, cutting the Marines off from their own evacuation and thinning their numbers down to the meager five or ten left alive. Sasha was one of those few, and she didn’t plan on letting that change anytime soon.

Pushing up from the back of the Warthog into a low crouch, Sasha drew her combat knife, gripping it tightly, her knuckles white. With the morning sun about to peak over the horizon and remove the cover of twilight, she had to move mast if she wanted to stay concealed. This wasn’t time for a brazen charge towards the evacuation vehicles like she and her platoon had carried out last night. With no ammo, and no one to support her, she would have to rely on her stealth and speed to stay alive. Breathing in, the young Marine pushed off the ground into a low sprint towards the buildings about twenty meters to her right, ducking behind the various destroyed vehicles along the way to cover her movements.

Clearing the final few feet of exposed ground, she pushed herself against the side of a polycrete pillar, grimacing as superheated chips of the material broke off and splattered against her armor from the plasma slamming into the other side of the structure. Letting out the breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding, Sasha crouched down and used the shade of the overhanging building to advance a few dozen more meters towards the Pelicans in relative safety. Staying low to avoid being spotted in the ever-brightening early morning light, she managed to make it within ten meters of the Covenant lines, placing herself on the other side of a polycrete barrier to remain hidden. She had only about two dozen more meters left to make it to the Pelicans, but the hangar was on the other side of the Covenant filled plaza, and sneaking around the edge of the open space would take her far too long to make it before the dropships lifted off.

She had to make a break for it. Stealth was no longer an option, and, if she stayed, Sasha was just as likely to die as she would be if she tried to escape. Taking a few quick breaths, Sasha shed all the combat gear she could afford to lose, down to just her fatigues and armor. The extra weight would just slow her down. As the morning sun peaked over the horizon to her right, Sasha took on last deep breath, and sprung over the barricade, breaking into a full out sprint past the Covenant and towards the hangar. The bolts of plasma whizzing through the air a few meters to her left seemed to jump start her suprarenal glands. As the adrenaline coursed through her blood, her focus on the hangar seemed to sharpen. She had one goal now. She made it to the Pelicans, or she died.

Having caught the Covenant by surprise, Sasha was well past them before the plasma fire was aimed directly at her, and she faintly registered something slamming into her armor plate, but she was so close to the hangar. The energy flowed through her, her heart pounding. Crossing through the closing blast doors, Sasha slowed, clambering into the last remaining Pelican. She had made it. But as her heart beat slowed, and her awareness drew inward once more, Sasha slumped to the floor, gripped by the burning pain down her back. While she had made it to safety, that last twenty-five-meter sprint wasn’t as clean as she had thought, the adrenaline from the run having blinded her from the pain of half a dozen plasma impacts directly on or near her. Laying on the floor, looking up at the ceiling of the Pelican and an assortment of worried faces above her, Aleksandra blacked out.