The Ides of March [Closed RP]

[Sentinel]

((tento125  roachman34 ))


//: CLASSIFIED :\\ 

Enter Access Code... 

******** 

Access Granted: Welcome Sergeant Dawes 

//: ACCESSING OPERATIONAL FILE... :\\ 

//: THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS CLASSIFIED. THE CONTENTS ARE NOT TO BE DIVULGED TO ANYONE LACKING SECURE CLEARANCE. COPYING IS PROHIBITED. FAILURE TO FOLLOW THESE RULES WILL LEAD TO EXECUTIVE ACTION... :\\ 

//: OPERATION BLACKOUT :\\  

//: OBJECTIVE GIVEN: The covenant has established a small forward operating base in the jungle with the assumed purpose of preparing a preemptive strike on key UNSC facilities in the area. You are to land your squad in the southern jungle in the dead of night and escort a sniper team due East to the Covenant FOB in order to take out their leadership. The target is a large elite, wearing gold armor. Extraction will be by Pelican once the objective is complete at the nearest clear LZ. Radio for pickup. :\\

//: Paragon IV, March 15th, 2551, 21:58:13 Hours... Begin Mission log... :\\ 

Sergeant Henry "Salt" Dawes
153rd ODST, 2nd Platoon, 2nd Division, Callsign Angel One-Two
Hurtling From Orbit at Terminal Velocity
Beware the Ides of March...

    Sergeant Dawes breathed in and out methodically, keeping a steady pattern. He had dropped countless times before, but each time felt a lot like the first. You never really get over the fact that you are falling from orbit, he supposed. The timer on his HUD ticked down the time until impact. 2:24...2:23...2:21... He needed something more productive to do other than just watch time tick away, so he triple checked his BR55's magazine and whatever spares he could reach. In the confined space of the HEV pod, it was difficult to move much.

    Eventually his wait was over, and the pod crashed through the canopy of the jungle and into the ground. Salt switched his HUD to night vision, and popped the hatch, BR55 at the ready. He looked up and saw the remainder if his squad coming down through the trees near him. Salt looked around and did a quick visual check of their LZ. The jungle was thick, and navigating to the Covenant position would be treacherous. A steady patter of rain fell, and the ground was slick and muddy.

    Soon, the whole squad was on the ground, loaded up, and ready to go. The dedicated sniper team was Fireteam Alpha, as PFC Silva was sniper-certified, and Salt was more than confident in her abilities. She had proven an excellent soldier in the past, and was his go-to right hand when he led Fireteam Alpha just a few months earlier as a Corporal. His promotion was still fresh in his mind, and he was determined not to make his superiors regret their decision. He was the right man for the job, and soon, he'd show them just that.

    "Alright marines," Salt said over squad comms, "Lets move out. Keep eyes on your motion trackers and be ready. They're sure to have patrols out. If anyone sees anything, give the order to drop, don't bother telling me first."

[tento125]

Lance Corporal Chatchai Buabaisri
153rd ODST Co. 2 platoon, 2nd squad, fire team charlie
Descending from orbit
fight fight fight.....or maybe not yet

"GREEN!" Chatchai heard a voice blaring over his pod's internal speakers. At once, the clamps holding his pod released and Chatchai could feel the pod rapidly falling towards his destination, the dirt on the planet. His drop was shorter lived than he expected as he quickly felt a jolt and the pod's door opening, before Chatchai leaped out with his MA5C at the ready.

He took a quick scan of his environment, he was in a jungle of some sorts, but as long as there were no immediate threats, Chatchai didn't mind. Making sure there were no aliens lurking nearby, he set off to the nearest yellow blip on his scanner that indicated a friendly. That blip turned out to be Sergeant Henry Dawes, or as the squad members like to call him, Salt. But as he approach him, several more yellow blips appeared: the rest of the squad is here.

It didn't take the squad long to form up and be ready for action. As soon as Salt seemed that their ready he called out on the squad's mic "Lets move out. Keep eyes on your motion trackers and be ready. They're sure to have patrols out. If anyone sees anything, give the order to drop, don't bother telling me first."

Choruses of "aye sarge" and "got it Salt" echoed the comms before it was interrupted by a "rabsarb jaa" (Copy that sarge)

Apart from Chatchai, only 1 other member of the squad knew Thai; private Tom. It was a sense of pride between the 2, they could banter and gossip all they want on the comms and no one else would have the foggiest idea what they were babbling about. Chatchai just shook his head and replied to Salt with a customary "krub pom" (yes sarge) before moving out with the rest of the squad.

[roachman34]

Corporal Connor Lawton,
153rd ODST, 2nd Platoon, 2nd Division, Fireteam Krieg
Swiftly entering Hell feet first.

As Connor fell towards the planet below, he felt a strange calm, though he couldn't discern why he felt this way. He was jarred from his thoughts when he made contact with something and ricocheted off of it sending the pod carving a swathe out of the dirt. Not the best landing ever but certainly one that he was 'OK' with it as long as he wasn't dead. He shook the impact off and clambered out of his pod, he landed in the dirt on his butt, then regained his composure and retrieved his MA5K and gear from his pod. After he got his gear all checked he marched his way towards the squad marker on his HUD, and thus he realized there was a big ass river between him and them. After some testing of the waters, he quickly discovered that it was only about a foot deep at its deepest, and thus made his way across without incident He stumbled through a bush and into the group of ODSTs and upon seeing that almost everyone was there, he would stretch.

He then said, "So, where to Sarge?" Then he pulled the bolt back and chambered a round into his rifle, and waited for the Sarge to issue orders. After Salt barked his orders Connor responded with a nod, as the others echoed various responses, though among them a few words in Thai would ring out over the others and Connor would smile and say, "Hey, Chatchai made it at least."

[Sentinel]

Sergeant Henry "Salt" Dawes
153rd ODST, 2nd Platoon, 2nd Division, Callsign Angel One-Two
Moving Out 
Welcome to the jungle...

[22:09:33 Hours]

    The rain steadily increased in strength and grew to a downpour. Thunder boomed in the distance, and lightning periodically illuminated the thick foliage and dense canopy. Salt loved the rain; had since childhood. The rain helped him sleep when he was very little, and comforted him after his parents were killed. The sound, look, and feel of rain made him feel safe. But it was different on a mission. Fucked everything up. Muddies the ground, slicks the plants, and gets in your boots. For all the tech ODSTs had, they still couldn't keep the water out of their boots. Some egghead should probably fix that, Salt thought.

    Salt took point, and began to search for a path. He checked his HUD compass and looked East, treeline illuminated green by night-vision, and selected a thinner area of plants to push through. They resembled ferns, but the spine and branches were thorny and latched onto Salt's BDU as he walked by and pushed through. The muddy ground was littered with stones, and made the already difficult traversing of the area harder. As the squad trudged onward, Salt frequently looked back and made sure his squad was intact. Breaking a leg or spraining an ankle would be a significant setback. The squad was chatting quietly, and Salt chuckled to himself a few times over some jokes the marines were sharing to pass the time.  

    [22:31:12 Hours]

    Soon, a roar of water could be heard over the rain, and as they continued, it steadily grew louder. The ground flattened out, and the slopes became less frequent, and it was noticeably more soggy. A few minutes later, the source of the water was within view. "Shit." Salt said audibly. Before them, just past the now-broken treeline, was a wide roaring river, it's mouth pouring over the edge of a sheer cliff in the form of a huge waterfall. The rains had fed it and it had probably doubled in size, at least. And their objective lay a couple klicks ahead. Beyond the river. Again, Salt cursed. They'd have to get across, but how?

    

[tento125]

Lance Corporal Chatchai Buabaisri
153rd ODST Co., 2nd Platoon, 2nd Squad, Fireteam Charlie
Moving through the forest
Rain drops are falling on my hips....

Chatchai and the rest of the squad had been travelling through the forest for the better part of the past hour. All the while the rain pouring down on the helljumpers, resulting in the forest floor being wet and muddy, not to mention slippery. Tom had earlier mistepped into a flooded hole but was luckily unhurt.

Things got a lot more dangerous as the squad made its way over slippery rocks down a slope. Chatchai himself lost his footing and had slid down a good 2 meters before he managed to brace his feet against a tree stump, which halted his fall and with the help of Graham, he was again back on his feet without any injuries.

Suddenly, the tree line opened up to reveal a large waterfall, the ODSTs being on the "higher" side of the darn thing, and their objective lay a few clicks beyond the other side. Chatchai tested the water velocity to see if it was possible to wade through: he grabbed a large branch, a good meter in length and a solod few centimeters in diameter, snapped off the smaller branches protruding from it, and hurled it like a javelin to the center of the river..... only to watch it snap it half the instant it hit the water.

"Welp," Chatchai said aloud as he watched the 2 halves of the branch fell off the edge and dissappear into the plunge pool below, "At least we know wading through is off the table. Next idea anyone??"

No one said a word before Private Nathan Field, a replacement for Chatchai's fireteam, spoke up "Sarge, I think it would be better if we make our way down the cliff to the valley below. There's ought to be a place where the water's velocity is low enough to wade through"

[roachman34]

Corporal Connor Lawton,
153rd ODST, 2nd Platoon, 2nd Division, Fireteam Krieg
Ah, great a river....

 Connor trudged through the downpour. Cursing, he hated when it was pouring down like this it always got into his boots and made a squelching sound when he stepped. He grumbled and stomped a bush to death as it refused to move, and after stomping it to death he heard the sounds of running water. Lots of it. As the squad broke through the treeline, their eyes descended onto a huge river, curses were muttered by the entire squad and then a stick was launched out and snapped in half instantly. 

    "Welp, at least we know through is off the table. Next idea anyone?" Chatchai said from somewhere to Connor's left. Connor stood a couple feet from the edge and kicked a rock into the rushing water.

    At this point, the shit hit the fan for Connor, the ground under him sunk away and into the water and his legs followed close behind the ground and he was dragged along downstream with a long, "SHHHHI-!!" echoing behind him as he sunk below the surface and his helmet flooded with water. As he scrambled to grab hold of anything solid and managed to catch onto a log that was halfway in the stream halfway out and didn't look like it was gonna hold for long.

    He cried out a strangled "Help!!" over the squad comms and tried to not be dragged away from the log.

[Sentinel]

Sergeant Henry "Salt" Dawes
153rd ODST, 2nd Platoon, 2nd Division, Callsign Angel One-Two
Oh son of a...

    The river would be a significant obstacle. Salt heard Private Field suggest going down into the valley, and right now, as nobody was speaking up, it seemed like the most logical course of action. The water's velocity diminished greatly at the bottom, so they would probably find a way across. If they didn't, the mission would be in serious jeopardy. And that's assuming that nothing else goes wrong, like a scouting party or... Salt heard a marine yell out and a splash, followed by a yell being drowned out by the water and the rain. Or that, Salt thought, before sprinting to the water edge and calling for the squad to help him. 

    He looked around quickly and found the marine clinging to a rotting log jutting out into the river. He dropped his backpack to the ground, and pulled out a bundle of rope, all while calling out reassurances to the stranded marine. He threw the rope out to him and waited for him to grab on. The rest of the marines grabbed hold of the back end of the rope and pulled as hard as they could to haul him out of the churning water. Just as they got him ashore, the log he was holding snapped and slid into the violent water and was sent careening off the edge into the pool below. 

     When the marine had caught his breath and seemed to have recovered slightly from the event, Salt began his onslaught. "What in the nine circles of fucking hell were you doing that goddamn close to the edge, marine? Do you have any fucking clue how lucky you are to be alive right now? You put every one of your brothers and sisters here in fucking harms way to save your dumb ass, and if any one of them had died, I would have killed myself to get to hell and kill your ass again personally. Never do that shit again, Corporal, or I'll shove my boot so far up your ass you'll shine it with your toothbrush! Do you understand me?" Salt finished, a bit out of breath, and red in the face under his helmet. He was beyond furious. Never in all his career had he seen anything like that. The marine was lucky to be alive. He checked his HUD so he could see who to write up in the report. Connor fucking Lawton. Great. New to the squad and already almost dead. This was going to be a long night...                

[roachman34]

Corporal Connor Lawton,
153rd ODST, 2nd Platoon, 2nd Division, Callsign Angel Two-two, Fireteam Krieg
I kinda wish I drowned now...

    Connor lay on the ground, struggling to get his helmet off and was faintly aware of being reprimanded. As he got his helmet off and the water drained out spilling onto the ground. "...Corporal or I'll shove my boot so far up your ass you'll shine it with your toothbrush! Do you understand me?" Sergeant Dawes spoke with fury emanate in his voice. Connor nodded and muttered, "Got it, Sarge." He slid his helmet back on now that it was free of most of the water. He got to his feet and stood well away from the edge of the water as the last place he stood the was washed away, three feet of land that had been between him and the water, he sighed this was not gonna be a good day.