Chapter 7

The Rookie – Tayari Plaza, nine hours after drop.

The Rookie crept through an automatic door and emerged into what looked like a courtyard, surrounded on all sides by buildings, a garden area with trees and grass occupying the center. The sky above was still overcast, the rain coming down heavy, a vaguely blue glow still lingering in the air from the slip-space event. That was ionizing radiation, he’d need to get his damned chromosomes scrubbed clean after this was all over if he didn’t want to contract ten different varieties of cancer.

He was following the route that he had plotted to exfil, but there was something else. The Superintendent had placed a beacon on his map, the last known location of one of his squadmates. Why the AI was helping him, and what capabilities it even had were unclear, but he would take any help that he could get at this point. The waypoint was some distance ahead, near an area named ‘Tayari Plaza’.

He made his way through another foyer and out onto the street, seeing the plaza before him. It was recessed into the ground, overlooked by balconies and walkways, four stone monuments arranged on the grass in the center of the space. After searching for a moment, he noticed that the beacon wasn’t coming from the plaza, but from a building just across the street. It was up on one of the higher floors.

There were no Covenant in sight, and so he took a minute to rest, sitting on a public bench that overlooked the plaza and tending to his swollen ankle. The anesthetic from the MediGel was starting to wear off, and his limp was returning. Fortunately, he had thought to bring more. He removed his boot, and then retrieved the packet from his pocket, rubbing some more of the soothing substance on the swelling. After giving it a moment to do its work, he put his boot back on and stood up, testing his leg by putting some weight on it gingerly. It seemed good to go, at least for the time being.

The sound of his boots splashing in puddles echoed through the deserted street as he crossed the road, on his way to the ominous building that loomed in front of him. He weaved between abandoned cars, his SMG shouldered. The readout on his HUD showed that he had one magazine left, and while it might be more prudent to ready the plasma rifle that he had recovered, the SMG at least was suppressed. He didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself than necessary.

His thoughts were popped like a bubble as a crystalline, pink spike the size of a knitting needle embedded itself in the chassis of a nearby car with a dull thud. It passed so close to his head that he heard it whistle, missing him by less than an inch. Its pink glow slowly faded as he dove into cover, a trio of follow-up shots shattering the glass of a car door where he had just been standing.

Not knowing where the fire was coming from, he huddled behind one of the cars, peeking out and praying that his VISR would pick out enemies that he couldn’t see with the naked eye through the gloom and the rain.

There, in an open window on the third floor, the red outline of a Jackal sniper. If it had been wielding a beam rifle rather than a needle rifle, the Rookie’s brains would be cooking inside his skull right now. He popped out of cover above the hood of a car and returned fire with a burst from his SMG, debris spraying around the window frame as the bullets dug into the concrete. He hadn’t intended to hit the alien, not at this distance, only to force it into cover. Where there was one Jackal, there would be more.

He took the opportunity to examine his surroundings more closely, searching both for more hostiles and for anything that might provide him with better cover. To his dismay, besides for the wrecked cars that clogged the street, there was nothing within reach. The Jackals had prepared their kill zone well, if he tried to run for the cover of the buildings, he’d be gunned down in the open.

Another volley of needles embedded themselves in the other side of the car that he was hiding behind, he could hear the report of more than one rifle firing at him. His VISR spied movement, and he saw a red blob leap up onto a traffic light to his right, aiming its rifle in his direction. It was perched on the metal pole like a giant parrot, the pink glow of the needles that protruded from the weapon’s ammo compartment illuminating its reptilian face.

Instinct kicked in, he needed to act fast, and he wasn’t going to get anything done by hanging around and letting them close the jaws of the trap that they had set for him. He stayed low, keeping the cars between him and the building, running in a hunched position as though he was navigating a trench. Fortunately, the vehicles were completely gridlocked, stacked bumper to bumper to provide him with enough cover to move. He couldn’t cross the open areas between him and the buildings to either side of the street, but he could make his way along the road. He rushed in the direction of the traffic light, the alien in the window popping off more shots. The one on the traffic light fired too, as did more unseen assailants, pink needles whizzing through the air. They impacted alarmingly close, the dull ‘thunk’ sound of them penetrating the metal making his heart skip.

He had one advantage over the aliens, his helmet was equipped with the VISR, and they had to rely on their eyes. As good as their vision might be, it was pouring with rain, and it was an overcast night. The harsh shadows cast by the working street lamps and the electronic billboards hindered visibility more than they helped it, the flashing logos and scrolling text purposefully distracting. Without his helmet, the Rookie would scarcely have been able to see ten feet in any direction.

He felt something hit his shoulder, a stab of sharp pain flaring, but he ignored it as he moved into position. He dove behind an abandoned van, leaning around it to get a bead on the Jackal that was sitting atop the traffic light, his HUD providing a targeting reticle on his visor. He aimed carefully, the smart-linked scope allowing him to zoom in on his target, loosing a well-placed burst of gunfire that caught the alien in its chest.