Halo Two Five Ch 01

My warmest thanks go to my two friends who always seem to find the holes in the storyline and whose advice is always listened to, thank you so much. As always my deepest thanks have to go to SouthPacific for his editing skills, this story reads allot better with him keeping me honest, many thanks my friend.

*****

The book wasn't engrossing, but at least it kept my interest inasmuch as I didn't get so fed up with the heat of the day. The flap of the tent bowed in and Tony stuck his head inside, looked around, and eventually spotted me sprawled out in my bunk.

"Rick! The boss wants you."

I grabbed my bookmark, dropped it on the page, and left the book on the bunk. The boss was still on the phone when I knocked on the support pole of his tent before entering, so he pointed to a chair across the desk from himself and continued on the phone for another few minutes, occasionally scribbling something onto a note pad, before he told whoever was on the other end that I had just walked in and he would get me over there as soon as he could brief me.

"I'm loaning you out for a couple of days. I say a couple because I know how you like to work."

There seemed little point in saying anything. I still only knew as much now as I did two minutes earlier, so I continued to wait. It seemed that the American military forces down the road from us were going to deal with some insurgents in the town ten miles in the other direction. As backup they had brought in three snipers, one of whom had just been bright enough to break two fingers playing basketball.

It seems I was volunteered to take his place, since they couldn't get another sniper in before the planned attack on the town and, with everyone already prepped, they didn't want to cancel the attack. I joined the briefing for the snipers at the military barracks that afternoon. Between the platoon commander and the other two snipers we all picked our spots. The table got a bit too crowded for me so I pointed to my area and told them I would leave the rest to them.

They all looked at each other and then at me. The platoon commander finally handed me the comms frequency between me and him, before once again going over the operation and asking for any questions. Being the outsider in this group I kept my mouth shut. As things turned out, perhaps I shouldn't have.

He was clearly ambitious, but for my part I felt he didn't have enough men for the job considering the size of the place. But, like I said, I was the outsider. My call sign seemed to raise a smile amongst the group, and it was only when I left the tent that I realized they had all been calling me Halo most of the afternoon. The commander gave me a pass to go back and get my gear, and I asked if I could stay with my people that evening and head out early before the assault on the town.

With the aid of hindsight it seems he looked on my laid-back manner as nothing more than disinterest. I found out afterwards that he told the rest, when I left for the evening, that that was why he agreed with my request. When I got back to my boss we pored over aerial pictures of the town and, more importantly, my area of operation. When first one and then a second option became apparent that would allow me to follow the troops through a rifle scope, working around my area and staying unseen, I asked my boss if I could leave then.

It still took me another two hours to get ready and pull my rifle and assorted other weapons from the armory, as well as enough kit to last me for the duration of the operation. It was close to eleven when I left, and almost dawn when I was set up and ready in my preferred position. As the day broke my doubts about this operation increased, and I radioed my boss with my fears. Within the hour I was overruled, so I sat back and waited for the approaching clusterfuck to begin.

*******

I hate to say I told you so, but... I told you so.

Watching it all go to hell in a handcart through my scope, and listening to it over the comms, just made it worse. The common-sense thing to do would have been to take a step back, regroup and send in the artillery, but there were way too many civilians still here for that to happen. When I spotted the attack team there were six of them. By the time they had got to the end of the street the six had become three.

Instead of seeking shelter and waiting it out, the guy in charge decided to try and get across the open square below me. The three of them bolted as a group, thus making the biggest moving target known to man. The leader got ten feet and folded in two before hitting the ground. The other two tried to carry him, but only got to the centre of the square before another one went down. A lone figure was left standing and then crouching, looking around and wondering what to do.

A door burst open, and three insurgents rushed at the one remaining solder left in the square. I got two of them and he dealt with the last one. He was just pulling his knife out of the insurgent's chest when his helmet fell off, and I let out a slow groan. Blonde hair cascaded down the soldier's back - he was a she!

Two more insurgents rushed her. She crouched down assuming a combat position, knife in hand, but I took them out as well. She looked over her shoulder, but it was a futile thing to do. I was a sniper and, if she could see me, I simply wasn't dong my job. I could see her tears through my scope which let me know she was afraid, but kudos to her - she was still holding it together better than some I had seen.

I didn't waste time with the dick of an officer that sent me here - I wanted to talk to my own boss. "Control, this is Halo Two-Five."

"Send Halo Two-Five."

I recognized the operator: I had trained him. Tony was calm, and would already be waving at our boss to bring him into the conversation.

"Five down from Echo's team already; they were expecting the attack. One survivor in the town square, a female; looks like a medic. Request extraction."

The pause on the radio was both long and uncomfortable, and that was making me feel even more uneasy.

"Extraction impossible at the moment. Information on insurgents appears to have been fabricated. Reinforcements have taken up position outside the town and progress already slow."

I scanned the bodies for signs of life. She was way too exposed, and moving from my position to get her would leave her without any cover at all. The odds were that, if I went to get her, she would have been taken before I had even arrived in the square. Two more chanced the quiet and rushed the woman, and got to within six feet of her before they both hit the ground.

Again I checked the scene through my scope and paused at the head of the dead lieutenant. His helmet had come off when the other two had dragged him as far as the center of the square. He was wearing a comms headset. I just hoped that she wasn't totally blonde.

"Control, this is Halo Two-Five. I need the frequency Echo team were assigned for this clusterfuck."

I fired one shot as close to the head of the leader of the team as I dared. She looked down at the dust scatter, and then back at the doors to the buildings around the square. I fired another shot in exactly the same place as the first, and again she looked down, but then in my direction. Her head slowly lowered and looked at the body of the lieutenant before a smile came to her lips. I stopped mentally calling her a dumb bitch right about then.

Grabbing the comms kit was an act of desperation. I could see her lips moving while still waiting for the frequency she was on. Finally Tony came through and I changed frequency to hers.

"Hello! Who's out there? Help me please - I'm stuck and I don't know what to do." I waited in case the platoon commander said something, but there was only silence.

"Calm down and put your helmet back on. Sort your hair out and hide it inside your helmet. Do it now."

She pulled the comms kit completely off the team leader, put her hands in her hair and twirled it around before wrapping it on her head, placed the headset over it and then put on her helmet, adjusting the chin strap and clicking that into place. The adrenalin had obviously kicked in - that whole action took about five seconds, max.

"Who are you?"

"Halo Two-Five."

"No, I mean your real name. Who are you, and where are you?"

"Halo Two-Five."

This time three men charged her. She reached for her knife just as the last of the insurgents dropped at her feet, kicking him in the face before dropping to the ground herself.

"I need you to do something that will save your life and give you nightmares for some years to come." I paused before I continued. She was already a hairs breadth from freaking out, and I couldn't stop her if she did.

"You're too exposed. I can cover you from here, but you need to protect yourself. Pull the bodies towards you and stack them two high. Leave yourself enough room in the middle to stretch out, but only just. Find any weapons that have been dropped as well as ammunition."

I could see her lips move but I was already changing channels again.

"Control, this is Halo Two-Five. I can't keep moving channels back and forth. Squat on the frequency one below Echo's frequency so I can get you if I need you."

I didn't bother waiting for a response from Tony - why should I? He knew what I was asking of him, and within seconds he would have changed channels to call HQ with the request to take it over and push other users further away to stop any bleeding over our frequencies.

By the time I had changed the channel back she must have been leaning on her send button because all I could hear was her retching. When I looked through my scope she was already in the process of being sick. At least she had the forethought to be sick the other side of the bodies she was hiding behind. Luckily, even though that left her exposed, nobody else tried an attack.

"What have you got in the way of weapons?"

Her head spun around in my general direction once again.

"Where did you go?"

"Weapons?"

"Oh, yes. Two AKs with six magazines each; a pistol with two mags for that, and my knife, as well as my Sig plus three mags."

Just as she finished her inventory two doors opened at opposite ends of the square and four insurgents rushed her. I got three of them, and she emptied a whole magazine into the fourth from the AK she was holding as he grasped the business end of the weapon. As he slumped to the ground he managed to yank the gun from her grasp, and it landed behind him.

She heard me swear over the radio; it was one of life's unguarded moments for me. I still wanted to call her a dumb bitch for not only wasting ammunition but losing the weapon afterwards. I heard the bleed over from the channel below and knew it was Tony. It only took me acknowledging him before some stranger took over the airwaves.

"This is General Macalister."

Just great, I thought. He's just announced to all the world who and where he is.

"I know what you're doing, and I'm ordering you to protect that medic."

Boy, was I pissed off. "I don't work for you! Put my boss on and get the hell out of my life."

I could just visualize him having a coronary right about now.

"He's left, Halo. Sorry, but I wasn't expecting that. I will make this brief: you will be ordered very soon to keep that medic alive at ALL costs."

"Let me guess - it's way above my pay grade, and she has friends in high places?"

My mind's eye already watched him nod his head.

"She's not even supposed to be in this area, let alone in the middle of this. We're still heaping one clusterfuck on top of another over this whole operation, and so far she's sitting on the entire heap."

I could feel bleed over on the channel above: she was talking. I left her to it since I needed information.

"More troops are being pushed into this area. The trouble is that more insurgents are already on their way from the other side of the town. When it's confirmed I have to give you the order, we won't be able to get anyone in there to help out, so you'll be on your own."

"How long do I have to keep her alive?"

The silence was longer this time, and that alone spoke volumes.

"Short of napalming the whole town, which has already been declined due to the potential civilian casualties, it's looking like it's going to be house to house."

The map of the place appeared in front of me, pulled from my own memories as my boss and I pored over possible locations that I could use as vantage points and cover for the assault. When I got here I counted way more insurgents than my initial briefing had forecast. Even when I voiced my concern to my boss, and he took it higher, he was basically ignored in favor of their own intel, and I was effectively told to get on with it and do as ordered.

So far that had worked out just dandy for five of the six that had made it to the square. My radio bled again and, looking through my scope, I could see her looking in my general direction with her lips moving. The map quickly disappeared when I spotted one of the smarter ones on his belly and using all the cover that the debris in the square was offering him.

"Control, this is Halo Two-Five. Get back to me when you have confirmation that General shithead has signed my death warrant. I need to keep Kitten alive."

Not even waiting for an acknowledgment I moved channel once again.

"Where ARE you? Why aren't you talking to me? What's happening out there?"

All valid questions, even I had to admit.

"Tuck yourself tighter into your wall. I know you don't want to, but at the moment they are keeping you alive."

Even through my scope I could see the tears of genuine relief that I was still talking to her and hadn't bugged out.

It was through even more tears she asked again. "Can you tell me your name now? I'm..."

The second I realized what she was doing I pressed down on my send button and hoped my signal would clash with hers, making what she was saying nothing more than a garbled mess to anyone listening in. I even mentally counted to twenty before I spoke.

"From now on your name is Kitten; you answer to no other name but that."

Her answer took longer to come back. As for me, I had my finger on the send button just in case she had another attack of the stupids, plus I was still watching the snail creeping ever closer to the bundle of bodies in the middle of the square.

With a sigh came her reply. "OK, and I bet you still want me to call you Halo Two-Five."

I smiled. Hell, she caught me off guard and I smiled! The dumb bitch is in a whole world of shit with just me as a safety net, and she's pouting about a name. By now the snail was about twenty yards from Kitten and reaching for a knife before placing it between his teeth and moving slowly onwards. This guy had seen way too many westerns on TV - that was for sure.

"No. You can call me Halo for short if you wish."

Even through my scope I sensed she felt she had grasped some sort of victory from this conversation.

"I've tried contacting others. Why can I only talk to you?"

"You have a short range comms system, added to the fact that you're in a built-up area. Even though you're in the middle of the square, your signal is just bouncing all over the place, and by the time it gets outside of here it's too weak to be heard."

By now the snail felt confident that he could get the job done. He jumped to his feet and, shouting something in his own language that even I heard from where I was, he leapt at the cover Kitten was behind. My bullet went into his chest and his forward momentum added him to the wall of bodies Kitten had put together, her scream echoing around the square.

That event set a whole turn of events to happen all at once. Five men crashed out of one of the houses that two others had come from earlier and, with screams of their own, rushed the growing wall in the middle of the square. Kitten stopped screaming and grabbed her Sig. She got the leader and I added to the body count with the others.

It was shortly afterwards that I caught a glint of sunlight off a piece of glass. My first instinct pulled me up real quick: I had been made. This was just confirmed when two men dashed out of the back of the house and took a real sharp right, one of them even looking up in my general direction.

"Kitten, make sure every weapon you have is loaded and the safety is off. Just don't shoot your damn foot off, OK? I may be gone for a few minutes, so be alert and kill anything that comes close."

She quickly looked in my direction, her mouth hanging open. Then she did something that I didn't expect her to do: she looked around the square at the carnage that surrounded her. Her hand went to the send button and her voice filled my ear.

"They know where you are, don't they? Are you leaving me here?"

I was still chuckling as I was putting my gear together.

"No. I'm moving to another location, and I have to deal with these two they've sent to kill me first. Chances are whoever is in charge down there will use me moving as an opportunity to come at you again. Keep your head DOWN!"

By the time I got downstairs I could hear them the other side of the door. I'm almost sure they were arguing over who was going in first. Gunfire started in the direction of the square and afforded me the distraction I needed, so I pushed the shutter open and finished the argument they were having. That map appeared once again as my mind sought out a route to my next bolt-hole.

Kitten must have taken my swearing at the loss of one of the AKs to heart, because her firing was at a steadier rate. She was clearly conserving ammunition this time. It still took me a good half hour to get to my standby position and put together some basic security measures. When I looked through my scope she was being held by the neck by one of the insurgents. His grin wasn't too friendly either.

When I dropped him Kitten fell the wrong side of her dead body cover. She scrambled back to the right side as I set about killing the three friends grinning boy brought with him.

"Thank you."

"Didn't your momma tell you not to talk to strangers?"

That got a giggle out of her if nothing else. I watched her as she set about pulling weapons close to her and checking ammunition, then her hand went to her send button.

"If I had listened to momma I would be married to Bernard now, with at least one child out there and another one in me already."

She stopped suddenly, as though a thought had come to her. She looked around the square again and I copied her in my scope. Nothing moved, so I looked back at her again, now half-sitting as she rested against her wall.

"Halo, why am I still alive? That man had a gun in his hand and he could have used it at any time, but he didn't."

I was going to be as honest as I dared. "Because you're white, you're a woman and you're in the military. You would have been all over Al-Jazeera News by tomorrow morning."

I took a quick moment away from my scope to look at my watch. We still had an hour before it started to get dark. I had to keep her from thinking thoughts that were too dark, and the situation she was in at the moment meant that would have been an easy road for her to travel. I had her counting ammunition and making sure the weapons she had were as clean as a cloth and spit can get them.

When my boss and I looked at aerial maps of this place he spotted a collection of skips at the outer edge of the town. It was used as a storage area for someone's business, and we termed it as "the dump."

"Control, this is Halo Two-Five. We're making our move at twenty-two hundred. I will make every effort to get Kitten to the dump; you better have an extraction team ready for collection. She's down on ammunition and fatigue is creeping in."