Halo: Itter Rock

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A long time ago, Viktoria believed her favorite color was a gold-blend with a hint of green. She didn’t have a name for the hue, an oddly specific color she discovered as a rebellious teenager hooked on mountain climbing. She would wake up long before first daylight when the only sane (or insane) people out were the UNSC Marines on their PT runs.

“Helljumper, Helljumper, where’ve you been?” She often sang to herself on her dark commute: sneak out of the house, run to the public transit stop, hop a bus to the local mountain park, begin her morning routine. Her parents didn’t need to know she climbed mountains in the dark, or that she was conditioning herself to join the Marine Corps. Her excuse for the last few years had been running with the track-and-field kids behind her school. With her competitive grades and rock-climbing trophies, her parents never had reason to doubt her or at least never bothered.

The greenish-gold color she liked was a product of binary starlight hitting Sigma Octanus IV’s upper atmosphere at just the right angle to produce a vaguely copper color in the sky, and she could only get that view from scaling the local rock formations in the extreme-early hours of the morning.

But that was a lifetime ago. Those sun rays no longer intrigued her, and like many things from her youth, lost their luster. Her favorite color was storm gray, like the thick cloud cover before a heavy rainstorm. Or the color the sky took after Covenant warships melted everything below with plasma fire, leaving only radiation, ash, and glass.

Storm gray meant the Covenant had moved on from the area as they rarely occupied territory, whether it was continents or entire planets. It also meant the immediate threat was over and Viktoria could relax a little because the aliens didn’t know she and her teammates were hiding up in the mountains nearby.

That was the life of a UNSC Army Ranger; to watch aliens melt a city and for Viktoria to do nothing. The Covenant controlled the skies and the battlefields below. Rangers were simple observers, unable to decide the fate of battles when the aliens could rain plasma from above and put an end to any marginal success human forces might have made.

It was also the way Viktoria liked it. She knew how strange her perspective was: she found more serenity in a radioactive wasteland than pristine colonial cities or expansive farmland. But it made sense to her, she much preferred knowing that the Covenant’s invasion had come and gone rather than waiting for their starships to descend from space onto her defenseless head.

“Hey, it’s morning. Covenant tank column passed below an hour ago but nothing remarkable to report.”

Viktoria’s pupils shifted in the darkness below heavy eyelids, responding to a voice. Someone commenting on an alien tank column. A spark of energy flashed to life in her mind, bringing her to full alertness.

Glassed planet. Army Rangers. Surveillance mission. Her eyes snapped open, wide awake and perfectly rested, to investigate the new log data streaming over her green-tinted ballistic glasses and Heads-Up Display.

Clock time was 0400 hours UNSC Standard Time. The local time was somewhere in the early morning equivalency. She barely slept three hours, but she felt like she just received the best beauty sleep in human history, and she felt it every morning in the field. A list of reported Covenant sightings during her sleep cycle scrolled by her HUD but she pushed them away with a quick eye flick.

Because a weather-proof tarp obscured her vision, she remained shrouded by darkness in a large foxhole squashed between two other Rangers. Pulling back her helmet-mounted range finder that doubled as a sleep mask, Viktoria cautiously twisted her body about, popping stiff joints back into shape.

She lifted her helmeted head from the loose dirt, reached behind to grip a thick wire, and disengaged it with a hiss-click from her helmet neural plug. The previous spark, akin to a sugar rush, faded but the wakefulness remained. A new line of text scrolled across her HUD, ‘Soporific aide disengaged.’

The line of text faded out, replaced by Viktoria’s clean HUD user interface displaying her personal radar, weapon diagnostics, personal health, and team status logs.

Around Viktoria, her teammates were similarly waking up and disconnecting their own neural plugs. She shimmied herself out of the foxhole, sliding through the hidden entryway by her toes until she entered the soft gray light of a storm-cloud morning.

“Morning Vicky,” the voice of Corporal Paul Reisinger greeted from Viktoria’s audible left even though it was a microphone trick. Her suit was completely sealed, no noise in or out.

“Morning Rice,” Viktoria replied to the junior non-commission officer. “How was the watch?”

“Uneventful as usual. Boring honestly. Just a Wraith column that I reported up the battle net. Saw some Banshee flyers on thermals but they were the usual scouting element.”

“Comes with the job,” Viktoria shrugged as she kneeled facing the bivouac tarp, pulling out her hard case backpack from below and shuffling aside loose dirt along the way.

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t in the job description,” Reisinger grunted, rising from his prone perch among clumps of browned mountain grass. He dusted off his pants and approached his teammate. “Not that I’ll be the first or last to complain about it.”

Dropping to a knee on Viktoria’s right, he deposited his assault bag before leaning on his folding shovel.

“What? Did you not read about boredom in the fine print?” Viktoria smirked behind her visor while paying the Corporal a sideways glance.

“Oh no, I was totally glued on the promise of gals-in-camo and bayoneting Jackals. I can say I got at least one of those things.”

“Well, which one was it?”

“I’ve bayoneted some Jackals. So now I just need a nice lady-medic to give me a back massage.”

“You hitting on me, Corporal?” Viktoria asked, tilting her head once more towards her fellow Ranger, pausing in her activity of searching for a preferred breakfast ration bar.

The Corporal shook his helmeted head. “Wouldn’t dream of it Sarge, I just hear medics got steady hands.”

“Oh, they do. Are you asking me to set you up then?”

Reisinger shrugged, “What would you have in mind?”

“The fastest way would be for you to roll down the mountain and break a couple of ribs. Or, we have you run across glasslands and let you take your chances with a Jackal sniper. We can then call CASEVAC and get you flown to a Marine hospital if there’s any left on the planet. Then you can tell a nice Marine Corps nurse about how brave you were.”

Viktoria’s visor depolarized, revealing a predatory smile directed at Reisinger.

“Damn Vick, that’s cold…” he hissed.

“Is Rice hitting on you, Vick?” Sergeant Patrick Loyne’s gruff voice carried from beneath the bivouac as it shifted, allowing the taller Army Ranger to exit the space into the morning light.

“Seems so,” Viktoria giggled, nodding to the senior Sergeant as a morning greeting.

“I tuned you guys out, all I heard was something about Reisinger and women.”

“He was just asking me about setting him up with a nurse to give him a back rub.”

“Oh, oh! Why didn’t you say so? I’m not a nurse but I give terrific back rubs!” Loyne bellowed, steeping around his teammates to clamp down on the corporal’s shoulders. “I’m all you’ll ever need.”

“Knock it off,” Reisinger grunted, shrugging off the fireteam leader. “You guys are terrible.”

The sergeants erupted into laughter at the display of annoyance but subsided as they returned to their morning routines.

“Lighten up Rice, you know we’re only playing,” Viktoria patted her teammate’s shoulder.

The corporal only hummed back in dejection while beginning the minute process of uncoupling his mask seal to eat some chow.

“Dusty, what’s the hold-up?” Sergeant Loyne asked over the TEAMCOM communications channel.

“Just a moment Sarge, doing a satellite uplink check – making sure all our data was uploaded and no dust got into the—”

Thunder crackled through the mountains, shattering the tranquil morning and drawing the attention of the Ranger team.

“What was—” Viktoria began only to freeze upon hearing another crackle followed by frantic rustling from the bivouac. She had to drop and slide to the left to avoid one frantic Private First Class Duster ‘Dusty’ McBride from leaping out and trampling her.

“Sniper? Are we under attack?”

Everyone else was already pancaked to the ground, listening intently for the next report of gunfire, their eyes directed towards the valley below. Loyne waved his right arm wildly at the bewildered McBride, directing the subordinate to drop flat to the ground.

Proactive, Viktoria seized McBride’s arm as his legs went slack, hitting the dirt with the rest of the team.

Loyne got on the platoon radio channel, “Squatter-2 to Squatter-1, Squatter-3 – status?”

“Squatter-3 to Squatter-2, we’re status green. Heard gunfire.”

“Squatter-1 to all, that was us. Jackal team stumbled on our camp, we got them but op-sec’s compromised.”

“Move out?” Loyne asked, glancing back at his team and their unpacked camping equipment.

“As soon as possible, report-in when you’re all set—”

Repetitive crackles erupted like whirling drills through the mountains, overcoming the temporary quiet.

“Contact! Sniper fire!” Squatter-1 suddenly shouted over the radio, immediately changing tune in sudden urgency.

“Vector?” Loyne called out while gesturing his teammates into action. Reisinger rushed back to his watch post, skirting the ground to not stick out. McBride and Viktoria army-crawled into place next to Loyne before spreading themselves out along the curved edge of the bluff.

“Need counter-fire, position pinned by beam rifle. Look for the plasma trail, due southwest,” Squatter-1 reported as another shot zapped out across the valley and over the radio, “halfway up a mountain.”

Viktoria brought her M392 designated marksman rifle to the prone-ready position but did not try to line up a shot just yet. Across the valley, she could see the cyan-colored waypoints of Squatter-1 and Squatter-3. From this distance, she couldn’t make out individual muzzle flashes, but the Covenant beam shots were clear as day against the matte-gray glasslands.

She shuffled dirt around her, digging in and pulling down her mounted rangefinder. Tracing the enemy’s weapons fire, the variable-view slider cycled and zoomed in on an outcropping of toppled and ashen tree stumps. Settled haphazardly behind fallen trunks, three sets of scaly arms and raptor faces loomed over their wooden fort with beam rifles and alien carbines discharging almost every three seconds.

“Distant to target, 813 meters,” Viktoria announced, pinging the targets.

“I see it,” Sergeant Loyne confirmed with his own rangefinder. “Crosswind is a bit difficult to tell at this height and distance. Think you can make that shot Rice?”

“I’m rested enough, should be able to handle it, otherwise the gun should compensate for everything else. The concern I have is that there are three Jackals. If I miss the first shot, they’ll be on us in another ten seconds – they got good eyes and I don’t think they’ll miss once they know where we are.”

“I’ll pass the target data along,” Loyne commented. “Just line up the shot. Dusty and Vick, get ready to suppress in case we can’t thin their ranks.”

Vick slid her rangefinder back to the top of her helmet and summoned the scope smart-link with her HUD. Taking aim and compensating with her rifle’s targeting computer, she made the assessment that she could probably get a body shot if the raptor-like aliens didn’t move too much.

“This is Squatter-2, the enemy target is due southwest. Zone 67 in the mid-level tree line area. ‘Forest of Doom’, look for a section of toppled trees that forms some makeshift cover. Can’t miss it with all the plasma coming off it. Squatter-3, coordinate your sharpshooter with mine – we’ll send you the smart-link data.”

“We see it,” Squatter-3’s team leader confirmed. “We engage together or delay?”

“Delay, best that they do not pick out all our nests,” Squatter-1 responded between bursts of plasma fire over his radio line.

“My team will take the first shots,” Loyne stated firmly,” Squatter-3, follow up after we split their attention.”

“Understood,” was Squatter-3’s curt response.

“You got that bead, Rice?” Loyne asked, returning to his fireteam’s radio channel.

“Just waiting for your order, Squatter-3’s linked up with my shot prediction.”

“Fire away,” Loyne mumbled – marking the moment the counter-attack began.

Reisinger squeezed the trigger, but Viktoria never heard the click. A thunderous boom erupted from the sniper’s SRS99 anti-material rifle sending dust flying and pebbles clinking off Viktoria’s helmet; a smoke line popped into existence, trialing the bullet. Through her scope, she made out the round’s silent crash through the makeshift wooden barrier throwing dirt, dust, and alien gunk skyward.

“Kill confirmed, body cavity,” Reisinger reported as Viktoria and McBride squeezed their triggers, sending semi-accurate shots into the mangled mess of limbs and wood. She managed to fire off five rounds before a second thunderous boom screamed through the valley, originating from a position three hundred meters to her right.

“Kill confirmed, neck shot,” Squatter-3’s marksman responded, confirming a second tally for the Army Rangers.

The suppression continued; Viktoria could see her bullet counter descend with every trigger pull. Ten rounds, nine rounds left…

“This is Squatter-1, the pressure’s off – we’re re-engaging.” Another clump of gunshots echoed from another five hundred meters to Viktoria’s left.

Viktoria attempted to examine the sputtering cover getting cut up like swiss cheese, but she couldn’t identify any targets in the aggressive onslaught. From three sides, the alien Jackals were completely shredded.

“Ceasefire, ceasefire,” Loyne called out, waving at his team to calm the assault. Squatter-1 and -3 seemed to do the same. “Check targets. Anyone see anything?”

Viktoria ceased as ordered, stopping at seven bullets left in the chamber. Looking closely with her scope serving as a monocular, she scanned the little outcropping for targets. Nothing was moving in that pile of debris and wood. Dirt didn’t shift, shadows didn’t stretch, the wood didn’t rise.

“That looks like a clear to me,” Viktoria commented.

“Clear, clear.” McBride and Reisinger confirmed through their own scopes.

Backing away from her scope, Viktoria looked to Loyne as he rose to a semi-kneeling position and called in with the other teams. It appeared the fight was over.

“Squatter-2 here. Good effect on-target, we think they’re dead.”

“We’re of the same mind,” Squatter-1’s leader responded, speaking for his team and Squatter-3. “Breakfast is on the road people. Pack up in five mikes, I want everyone over these mountains before the sun peaks.”

“Roger that, we’ll get it done,” Loyne confirmed followed by a garbled affirmative from Squatter-3. “Alright, let’s get to it. Pack up everything, skip breakfast. We’ll do it once we’re over the other side.”

Viktoria tuned out the platoon radio channel and looked to her team’s unpacked campsite as McBride groaned but rose from his position, heading to the bivouac. “I’ll take down the tarp and start up the walker. Vick, can you help me get everything into the cabin?”

Viktoria followed the Private First Class towards the sleeping quarters with a simple nod, her M392 dangling on its retention cord, hands-free.

“Rice, keep scanning the area for targets. I’ll pick up your chores.” Loyne ordered as he went to gather up Reisinger’s assault bag.

“Thanks, Sarge.”

The cleanup was monotonous and silent as everyone focused on their tasks. Viktoria went quickly, crumpling up the bivouac tarp into a rigid ball of sorts so she could stuff it into a vacuum-shrink sack. It wasn’t the cleanest way to store the shelter material, but it was quick. The tarp’s memory-fabric would make sure that creases could be stretched out with minimal effort, right now Viktoria had no time to consider being nice to the gear.

With the bivouac pulled down, the extent of the hidden manhole was left bare. The crater was easily ten meters across and a meter deep. Typically digging a hole of this size would take Squatter-2 an entire day to complete, however, the squat behemoth entrenched at the center shortened that work down to several hours.

Colored by a washed-out green-grey, titanium composite armor plating wrapped around four stubbed claw legs, a central dome-like head, and a refrigerator-sized carapace that served as a driver cabin. Two rounded arms with tri-gripping fingers accompanied a chin-mounted AIE-486 rotary cannon and an assortment of headlights and cameras that looked like a set of eyes. It was rarely seen alongside UNSC regulars but very familiar to Viktoria; the M722 Beetle, a pseudo-spider tank that thrived in urban and mountain environments and was the unsung hero of many operations behind Covenant lines.

Shoving the tarp-ball into the storage bag, Viktoria called out to McBride, “Dusty, tarp bag! Catch!”

Glancing up from a battery rig pulled from the Beetle’s cabin bottom, he set down the giant slab and opened to Viktoria’s throw, catching it like a baseball umpire.

Viktoria did the same with several more sleeping and saddlebags before determining the camp to be cleared out. She unfurled the roller stand on the soporific aide, more often called a "sleeper box" and wheeled it over to the Beetle’s rear.

McBride took the box-sized machine and slid it into place. He slipped the reserve battery in above it. Viktoria turned to look over the crater edge and called out to Sergeant Loyne. “We’re packed up and ready to go!”

“Roger, get on up here. Jogger-frames are ready to go.” The senior sergeant called back, waving down to McBride and Viktoria.

Viktoria climbed out of the dirt pit and walked past Loyne to the series of powered exoskeletons mounted with pouches and spare weapons, equipment. She walked into one of them, affixed their skeletal frame to her limbs with belts. She flexed her arms and legs for a dexterity check, allowing the suit-computer to adapt to her movements.

“I’m set,” Viktoria noted as Loyne completed his own checks.

The senior sergeant nodded and punched the air theatrically. “Hey Rice, give me your rifle. I’ll take your watch. Get suited.”

Reisinger and Loyne swapped places on the bluff, trading SRS99 between hands. Loyne took a knee and watched mountains with interest. Reisinger passed by Viktoria in the direction of his own jogger-frame, patting his superior’s shoulder over.

Rattling and hissing of hydraulics chugged across the bluff as Viktoria spotted the Beetle tapping and stomping the ground around it, crushing what remained of the team's firepit underfoot. McBride rode atop, leaning out of the driver cabin as he guided the spider tank out of the hole.

“Sunny is functioning green, I’m going to go ahead and put her on follow mode now,” McBride explained, referencing the Beetle’s nickname on HUD and as painted on the abdomen. Sapien Sunrise.

“Alright get hooked up, everyone else ready?” Loyne called out, rising from his perch and handing Reisinger back his rifle.

Viktoria’s HUD winked with four green lights, registering the entire team’s ready status. McBride slipped by Viktoria towards his own jogger-frame while Sunny parked itself next to her.

“Squatter-3 to Squatter-1, we’re ready to move.”

“Squatter-2 to Squatter-1, we’re ready to move.”

“Copy all, I’ve sent you the relevant checkpoint data, we’ll regroup at the New Salt Burn,” Squatter-1 responded over the PLATOONCOM.

The rest of Squatter-2 glanced over at Sergeant Loyne. Reisinger spoke up, “Salt Burn? That shit-smelling flat?”

“Yeah, the Covenant logistical ground traffic in that area has been growing in excess over the last few days,” Loyne explained, needling his virtual reality wrist computer and pushing information to his subordinates. “The Navy’s intel jockeys want us to look into it. would guess its because the precision strikes on atmosphere-traveling Covenant corvettes is rising and the aliens can’t afford such big ferry targets anymore. They’re learning to be more like us I’d say.”

Viktoria’s eyes scrolled through the data, pushing aside satellite photo after satellite photo of Covenant supply lines made up of hover tanks and low-flying dropships. It was odd to look at, the Covenant employing human supply line methodology. The graphical data shown in one or two diagrams even suggested a higher volume of traffic at night.

“Alright, so that’s the game plan. I’ve marked our walking trial to the site on your HUDs by combining our maps with synced LIDAR data, the usual stuff. Any questions?”

“How many clicks we fast-marching?” McBride asked.

“Thirty-seven clicks, the first ten or so will be highly mountainous but after that should be smooth.”

Reisinger audibly groaned at the idea of more mountain climbing but added nothing else to the conversation. Viktoria silently grinned at the idea.

“Alright team, roll out,” Loyne hollered to Squatter-2 and pointed toward the mountain peak ahead of the group.

A series of dashed lines flashed on Viktoria’s HUD in vibrant blue, marking the path forward. Three-dimensional scans from LIDAR mixed with geographical maps generated terrain data, marking the safest stepping spots. Green – great, yellow – caution, red – danger.

Loyne took point, shouldering his M392 precision rifle on a jogger-frame mount while taking up an MA37 assault rifle in anticipation for closer combat.

Viktoria responded by doing the same, setting aside her M392 and taking up a MA37K carbine. Reisinger switched to an M392, shouldering his massive anti-material rifle and followed Loyne up the mountain second.

Viktoria made to follow, lightly tapping McBride on the elbow with a smile. The lowest ranking soldier on the team gave a soft smile back to his teammate and made to climb the mountain as Sunny whined into action, marching with lighter crunching footfalls than expectable of a sedan-sized spider tank.

Climbing the eighty-degree incline came naturally to Viktoria as she shifted according to her HUD’s terrain recommendations and took some enjoyment out of the exercise mix. There were many things she lost from her childhood; however, rock climbing and risky hiking never-ever lost their luster.

The mix of the subtle fire burning under her skin from the workout, the sense of sweat being pulled away by her uniform absorption layer, and the sound of pounding boots over unforgiving terrain felt like a personal battle. A direct challenge from the elements and the universe. She’d conquer this mountain as she had hundreds of times before, many mountains never named or without names known to her. She would take them all for herself.

Just like that, her view went from charcoal dirt and muddy permafrost to a swirling storm grey and deeper, dark earth below. The wind tickled at every inch of her body, faux-threatening to blow her away, either into the sky or down the mountain once more. She could see everything.

Viktoria let out a hearty laugh as she momentarily crested the top of their current mountain and made out the next six peaks and ridges ahead. Reisinger looked up and back towards Viktoria and gave her a stink eye, reminding her that not everyone had her energy. She responded with a coy tilt of her head, reminiscent of her predatory grin from before.

The team marksman snorted over the radio before continuing his march down, staying in step with Sergeant Loyne. Pulling his face mask down for a moment as did the senior sergeant, they were already pulling out their breakfast meal bars.

Viktoria allowed herself to slide down the peak, so she wasn’t sky-lining herself and presenting an ample target for an attentive alien sniper. Checking her passive Geiger radiation counter, she noted a manageable number of millisieverts and pulled off her own mask.

“Where did I put my bar?” She mumbled, reaching around her plate carrier, huffing in frustration.

“Forget your meal bar in the firefight?” McBride called down from a few feet behind Viktoria.

She looked back at him before falling into step with him and in front of Sapien Sunrise. “Yeah, looks like it.”

“Here, you can have one of my rad-meal bars,” McBride said, presenting his hard case backpack to Viktoria so she could open it as they marched. “I’ll just take one from you later.”

“Fine by me, thanks,” Viktoria responded, promptly zipping open his bag and snatching a bar and zipping the bag back up. “You’re too kind.”

“Team’s a team, Sarge.”

“Agreed,” Viktoria beamed as she opened the wrapper and began to chomp down on her gifted meal. Protein, fiber, dried fruit, and radiation scrubber-type nanobots. Everything anyone would need to stay healthy in a glassed, radioactive wasteland.

This is what Viktoria loved about her dream job. Open skies, weapons free, minimal alien threats, inhospitable mountains, and a team she could trust. Now all she needed was an insurmountable challenge.