User:Delta Team Curt/Halo Conflict/Operation: JAVELIN/Chapter Two

// Chapter Two // April 7th, 2564 (MST) // 0935 hours

Elaine stared at the body of her former husband from the couch only feet away from where John Walker was killed by a UNSC ODST. The only sign of his death was a small pool of blood under his mangled hand. This however, was not the man she married. 6 years ago, the two had been in college, and met during a seminar on wireless power networks. It wasn’t until a few years ago that he had begun getting involved with the darker side of Morgan. Charlie was the only thing keeping her tied to this town, and John insisted on having him grow up in the town of Lancaster.

She felt sad of course, but his death had no real impact on her emotionally. Charlie had seen his dead father, and after he started to cry one of the Marines had taken him in the other room to calm the child down. The Marine sitting on the couch next to her was Moskvina, the woman had explained what the soldiers were doing here, but left out the specifics of John’s death. The child had since calmed down after Alenko had made him a cup of cocoa and taken him upstairs,

“Are you going to be alright Elaine?” the Marine asked, her voice filled with sincere concern. Elaine did not face, keeping her emotionless gaze as she spoke “I knew something like this was going to happen to him, I just never expected to be okay with it”.

Moskvina was a little surprised by the comment, searching for a response to it. “He didn’t care about either you or Charlie, he grabbed a weapon and made a run for it” was what she eventually came up with, trying to console her. She was unsure of how Elaine was taking it, seeing as the woman had been staring at the body for almost ten minutes without saying a word. Elaine finally turned her head, facing the ODST “I just don’t know what were going to do”.

“I will get you out of here, you don’t deserve to be here” Moskvina told her, the two making eye contact despite the ODSTs visor. Elaine nodded, thankful that someone cared about them. Moskvina put a hand on Elaine’s shoulder before getting up and grabbing hold of her shotgun. The woman remained on the couch however, but this time was contemplating the future, not thinking about the past.

McKay suddenly emerged from the doorway, gripping his rifle with both hands “We got a victor outside, looks like its Morgan”. Moskvina nodded, looking back at Elaine before following McKay to the front of the house. Outside a white Amax Knight Truck pulled up to the building, the vehicle sporting the Morgan Industries logo on its doors. The modified truck was used by the PMC for patrols, a snow plow mounted on the front and a M247 GPMG mounted in the bed.

Alenko spotted the outline of the machine gun first, alerting the rest of the ODSTs “We have a Vortex, not a Victor!”. Vortex was the code word used by the team to refer to technicals, where as a Victor could refer to any civilian vehicle.

Two men inside the cabin of the truck were revealed as the ODSTs activated their thermal optics. The passenger was the first one out, walking through the 10 inches of snow towards the front door of the house carrying a MA5B assault rifle. The truck was responding to the lack of a response from Dr. Walker, and was ordered to retrieve the ‘package’ by any means necessary.

Alenko applied pressure to the trigger of his own MA5C, getting ready to take the shot as the man closed the 9 feet between him and the perimeter Echo had set up when they first took the house. A single burst of rounds exploded forth from the barrel of the assault rifle, the three 7.62mm rounds ripping through the cold weather gear of the contractor. The man’s body moved with the bullets, convulsing as the four rounds hit him in succession as he dropped to the ground.

Seeing and hearing the shots fired at his partner, the other contractor quickly rushed to his aid, firing his M7 into the house as he high stepped through the snow. The smaller M443 rounds passed through the walls of the house, only one of the five millimeter rounds fired hit one of the soldiers but was stopped by the ODSTs armor.