User:Useful Dave/Duty Calls

=Duty Calls=

1609 Hours, March 13, 2541 (Military Calendar) / Approaching the Demidenko ICBM launch facility, Altay Mountains, Russia, Earth.
The com-channels crackled with another transmission, the voice of HIGHCOM once again ringing in the helmets of Bravo as they double timed the remaining sixteen meters between them and the berm which concealed them from the prowling sentries the buggers had set up along the bases perimeter fencing. As the men threw themselves against the berm, the man at their fore tapped his helmet, replaying the burst sent from HIGHCOM. “Bravo Six, this is Baseplate. We’re still working with the Russians to get the launch codes, we should have them shortly, out.”

He took a moment to record his reply before straightening up and tapping the button beside the first he had pressed, sending the burst on its way towards HIGHCOM. “Roger, keep us posted, out.” Following his lead, the team rose as one and looked to him as he gestured towards the perimeter fence, his hand flat open as his arm pivoted towards it. “Go go go!” And with that the team broke into yet another sprint, their weapons safeties removed and loaded magazines in place. As they left the cover of the berm, an alarm started up from the base, along with the immediate scrambling of a hijacked Pelican left on alert status towards the bases rear. As it slowly rose upon its thrusters and pivoted to face the incoming Bravo squad, a single soldier slid to his knees, holding a M19 ‘Jackhammer’. So even as the Pelican’s nose mounted minigun began to spool up, he triggered a single 102mm rocket and launched it towards the Pelican before it had even drummed out a twenty round burst.

The rocket impacted with the Pelican’s right engine nacelle, the shaped charge tearing into it and lancing through the engine itself before it hit the fuel lines, igniting the fuel in an explosive conflagration which tore the Pelican’s starboard wing free from its body, leaving the maimed dropship to plummet to the ground in an expanding circle while its sole remaining engine attempted to stabilise its flight.

Even as the Pelican fell to its doom, Bravo squad was advancing towards the base, the winged dagger of the Special Air Service clearly visible upon their black bodysuits, the same type made famous by the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, yet also used by several other ‘Specialist’ units in the UNSC. In an assault like this, the black colouring of the armour could be seen as a hazard towards the lives of the troopers, yet the added ballistic protection, communications equipment and the HUD display allowed the troopers to perform more effectively in combat than regular armour. This was shown as the mere twelve man strong Bravo squad managed to hold their own against the more numerous hostiles forces, who were gathering around a M12 LRG Warthog and using its mounted Gatling gun as the lynchpin of their defence.

The strategy may have worked against an inexperienced force, who would have used smoke to cover their advance into more advantageous positions, in fact, it was what the SAS themselves did, rolling a smoke grenade into the road between their sheltered position behind some steel cargo containers and the warehouse which had previously contained the Warthog. The cloud of gray smoke emitted by the grenade rapidly expanded, reaching its optimum volume just before the turret gunner turned and hosed the obscuring smoke with a hail of 12.7mm lead, resulting in the death of any who had taken the ‘easy way’ through the cover of the smoke. Yet that wasn’t what the SAS had done, they had used the smoke as a distraction to the turret gunner, allowing one of their squad to break cover and slide a package of C7 underneath the vehicle, saving their M19 for armoured threats.

As he slid back into cover he gave a thumbs up towards the rest of the squad, one of them pressing upon the detonator in his hand with a click. “Nine job, McTavish.” The C7 detonated with enough force to topple the Warthog onto its side, spilling both the gunner from his turret and the driver from the vehicle, allowing the SAS to use the confusion caused by this to eliminate the enemy forces in their immediate vicinity with only a minimal amount of casualties.

With their entry way secure, the squad could move further into the facility without the risk of being flanked simply due to leaving their six open. The sole casualty, a Corporal Ryan, was left to be evacuated with Trooper McNab watching over him, they couldn’t spare any more than one man, not with the small size of their force.

When they started to move towards the nearest gate separating the perimeter from the ICBM silos themselves, the pointman found himself being tapped on the shoulder by the guy behind him, indicating his visor. “What is it, Gaz?” “Sorry about this sir, but check the SATCAM, the wreckage of the Pelican is blocking our entry point, they’re prepping the second Peli’ for dust-off and the majority of their remaining forces are caught up extinguishing the fires. If we’re going to go either way, its not that way, sir.” “Well we’re going the other way then, form up on me.”

The gate was surprisingly, almost unguarded in comparison to the perimeter defences, with only two men in the guard house armed with M7s to stand in their way. All it took to clear the gatehouse for them was a single M9 HEDP grenade rolled into the room, wait a few seconds, and bam, the room was clear. Fortunately, they hadn’t gone to the extreme of ruining the gate controls for the few extra seconds it would have given them. They may not have been on the same level as the SAS forces, but they were smart enough to know what they would be up against.

As Bravo moved into the silo complex, they found themselves confronted with the sight of a fully loaded, fully fuelled and fully prepared Pelican pointing in their direction. “Shit, take cover!” Before they had even got themselves behind the wall of a small shelter, the Pelican opened fire with its nose mounted cannon, tearing apart a trooper at the rear of the group before he had even registered the fact that they were being fired upon. “Sheckley is down!”

Although, rather unusually. Instead of moving its fire onto the cover the squad had just moved into, the Pelican turned away and began to pour on the power towards its engines, lifting up vertically and accelerating off towards the west.

“The Peli’s buggered off!” One trooper shouted, hearing the roar of the engines diminish in the distance as it accelerated away upon its own agenda. “I wouldn’t be sure of that, Gryffin. Don’t forget the Yanks have some reinforcements inbound, it would have been easier if they’d just used the flipping Spetznaz, sod the claims of corruption.” Raising a hand to silence the unwarranted banter, the pointman nodded towards a single door set in the ground near the end of the ICBM silos, placed in threes four rows deep, twelve in total.

“Suppressing fire on the move, bursts. One magazine only, capesh?” “Capesh.” “Stand by, stand by, Go.” On his own, a single man spraying bursts as he ran would not be an effective deterrent to those who wanted to riddle him with lead, but nine times that number, on the move and with at least one of them firing a burst from their MA2B at a time, that would by far increase the chances of one of those bursts getting lucky and smacking into their arm, leg, chest, face…

And that was exactly what happened to the poor bastard manning an M247 as he swivelled it to engage the squad in their dash towards the entrance of the ICBM silo complex. He received a single 7.62mm UNSC to the top of his helmet, tearing it free from his head and taking a significant chunk of his skull with it. This was enough to shock his assistant gunner into remaining fetal behind the sandbags protecting the M247 position.

With their arrival at the door, it was only a simple matter of seconds before McTavish had his C7 out again, quickly filling the lock, and surrounding the doorframe before the can ran dry and he chucked it over his shoulder, stick in a radio controlled det-stick and tearing the safety free with his teeth. “Armed, clear!” The C7 was detonated just as McTavish threw himself behind the cover of a parked Wolverine, leading to a rather strong series of curses from him as they formed up on the door. “Gaz you fucking wanker…”

The pointman paused, turning towards both Gaz and the enraged McTavish, then raising a single finger to his visor, surprisingly his middle finger. “Both of you, stow it. Gaz, you owe the FNG a glass of Spitfire at base, for now lets just get this over and done with.” “Aye sir.” “Yes, Captain.”

The stairs leading into the installation were the usual kind found in UNSC installations, several flights of metal steps which clunked as you stepped upon them, no matter how lightly or how hard you tred. This would have allowed stealth to be thrown to the wind, although it had been long ago. They went down the steps like the clappers as they neared their ultimate goal, knowing that the deadline set nearly forty-eight hours ago would be ticking down towards its end.

Separating them from the launch room was a walkway extending through six of the twelve ICBM silos upon the sight, had the silos been prepared for launch immediately this would have been the perfect place to throw the UNSC plans back in their face, launching ahead of the deadline and roasting the SAS team inside to a mere crisp. Yet they were not prepared for launch, although in fact they had interfered with the UNSC plans.

“Bravo Six, this is Baseplate. We regret to inform you that the Delta Force operatives will not be joining you, their primary transport was intercepted by the remaining Pelican and shot down, the secondary was forced to turn back under heavy fire from the Pelican before it managed to escape. Fortunately we were able to gain the launch codes from the Russians, we are uploading them now, out.”

“The Yanks were called off, because of a bloody DROPSHIP?” The anger in the pointman’s voice was loud and clear over the com-channel, although this didn’t interfere with his rigging up a C12 charge upon the stairway they had entered via. “Don’t worry about it Captain Price, we all know the yanks are useless tossers.” Gaz called back as the rest of Bravo stormed ahead, twisting the handle to unseal the entryway to the launch room before lobbing a smoke grenade through the gap. “Switch to thermal.”

The world became varying shades of orange as they switched to thermal imaging, the four men inside the room having time to draw their sidearms and fire in the rough direction of the doorway before far more accurate MA2B fire silenced them. “Rooms clear, get in and we’ll seal it up for launch.” Captain Price, having hung back to prepare the C12 charge further up the stairwell was the last in, leaving Gaz to seal the door to the launch room.

The first thing Price did, was to digitally transfer the launch codes to McTavish. “Soap, get those launch codes in, Gaz get over here and grab this key.” As he talked, he withdrew two keys, bound together with a length of chain and inserted them into two keyholes upon a control panel in the rear of the room, waiting until McTavish had finished inputting the codes before turning to Gaz.

“I know that we’re here to stop the URFies from blowing the nukes in the silos, but unfortunately according to HIGHCOM’s revised orders state that we’ve got to launch the missiles for that the ODPs can take them down.” Gaz appeared to think it over for a second, then grabbed his key. “I’m with you on this, sir, when duty calls, we must follow. Turn your key on three.”

1…

2…

3…

C-Click.

The two keys turned, and the soft purr of hydraulics could be heard from above as the twelve silo caps opened simultaneously, steam venting from them as a rumbling began to fill the world. Three pillars of flame rising from the complex and arcing off towards the west, followed by another three towards the north-west, another three to the east and the final three to the south east.

“If there was any URFies above ground, they’re toast now.”

1649 Hours, March 13, 2541 (Military Calendar) / NORAD Observation room, Cheyenne Mountain, United States of America, Earth.
“Launches, possible launches at Demidenko!”

The Ensign called out, she hadn’t even been working there a week and already there was a threat, at least until the Lieutenant overseeing the room came over to her workstation. “Calm down, we’ve got an operation going on there, they’re probably just burning off the fuel-“ His words were silenced as the Ensign called out again, the launch blooms weren’t remaining in a single spot like they should have, they were moving off, towards the west… “Valid launches, we’ve got three-make that six valid threats from Demidenko.”

Yet it didn’t remain at six valid threats, three more blooms blossomed from the site, then another three, and it remained still, just twelve smoking holes in the ground.

“My god… Get the orbital defence grid on the line, we can take them down once they leave the atmosphere.”

“Will do sir, Pinnacle-NUCFLASH?”

“Correct, they’ll know soon enough either way.”

Around the Earth, the orbital defence grid was being used in a role they had never expected to be used in. They had originally been set up to be used in an anti-capital ship role, yet the point defence weaponry mounted upon them could also be used to engage ballistic missiles leaving the atmosphere of Earth.

Aboard the Dublin, the Edinburgh, the Portsmouth, the Moscow, the Sydney and many other orbital defence platforms, their point defence weaponry was more than adequate for the task of swating the ICBMs from the vacuum before they came within effective range to disgorge their payload of 5 Megaton MIRVs.

Yet in the case of the Boston ODP, all it took was a faulty load of ammo delivered that morning. As the MLA point defence autocannons were loaded and prepared for combat, a fresh load was substituted for that which had been in there the previous day. The new load unknown to them was fractured inside the casings, so that when it was loaded into the cannons, the casing buckled and fractured, jamming the loading mechanism. This happened upon each and every cannon onboard the Boston. Leaving it helpless against the inbound ICBMs, the Pittsburgh and Chicago managed to hold their own, but the reduced firepower put out by two ODPs compared to one left two MIRVs untouched, two which were targeted upon Washington DC.

Two pinpricks of light formed above Washington on the NORAD Observation centre’s screens, two newborn stars marking what had once been one of the United States most historic cities.

In war, sacrifices are often made, be it the lives of soldiers on the line to whom giving the correct intelligence would reveal to the enemy that their encryption had been defeated, or the civilians who were not ordered to evacuate so that they would serve as human shields when the enemy came. Yet, in this case there was no distinction between soldier or civilian, only humans killed in the blasts which obliterated Washington. The destruction of Washington DC led to a renewed offensive against the United Rebel Front, eventually culminating in their collapse in-between 2549 and 2551. This would not have been possible had it not been for the renewed public approval against their ways in the aftermath of the Demidenko crisis. It also led to higher standards of quality within the arms manufacturing industry, although the standards in place at that time should not have let slip the faulty ammunition which crippled the Boston.

Yet what did not come to light was the ‘revised’ orders given to the SAS squad inside the Demidenko complex, nor were the origins of the faulty ammunition explored. Coincidentally, British military intelligence internally revealed its list of informers inside the URF in 2545, this included one of the rebels inside the launch room who had the training to operate the targeting for the ICBMs, yet this was not revealed to the public, or even outside of MI6. When duty called, the military put aside its morals and listened.