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Halo Clone Wars: Chapter 12
Posted By: Enthrone Darkness Triumphant<admiralprestoncole@yahoo.com>
Date: 2 July 2009, 7:04 am
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Chapter 12: With Malice Towards One and All
Moscow Battle Front
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
October 23, 2552
With the blank look in his eyes, Sodhi stared off into the vast emptiness of the void before him, his eyelids not even blinking. His mind wandering off into an infinite loop, pondering and coalescing variables, statistics, and logic like a philosopher lost within his own thought maze.
War was indeed one of humanity's oldest professions, probably as old as, or even older than prostitution.
"What came first," Sodhi pondered, "the whore or the blade? Did Adam pick up the jagged stone when another man challenged him for his woman or did that whore Eve give herself, like she did to that snake?"
In every case, any armed conflict was like prostitution. War was the brothel house and the officers like him were the pimps; the ones who controlled the soldiers like prostitutes and got to fix their rates for the enemy. The greens that sat next to him had it far worse because they were the virgins in this whore house and they were the ones that got paid the biggest dues to be deflowered.
"Conflict," his chuckled to himself, "we can never live without it. All throughout our damn history did we fight each other, either against a common enemy or amongst our inner circles."
Humanity was itself a macrocosm of the Pushtan nomads of the new millennium; fighting off the common enemy that invaded their so called country made up of their rag tag, decentralised tribes or amongst themselves after the invaders left. What would happen if the Covenant sued for peace? Would humanity pursue a course of selfless ideals that would benefit the entire race for the long run, or would the bastards screw themselves again for individual autonomy because culture and traditions were dearer than the wellbeing of the race.
Maybe extinction was the reset button that son of a bitch God could press and try his delusional experiment all over again.
--
Dangling underneath the external clamps of the Pelican, Ahsoka sat shotgun in the Warthog as Johnston started the engine and proceeded to rev it in neutral. Jeffers checked the ammo link to the chain gun housed on the back, making sure it wouldn't jam in the heat of battle.
"Remember kid, this gun can't hit the buggers that try to hijack this vehicle, so we need you to keep us clear of them," Jeffers shouted over the hogs and Pelicans roaring engines.
"Thirty seconds to ditch boys," The cool and relaxed voice of the pilot came through their ear buds. "I have to drop you a bit back, cause the area looks hot."
"Why don't you just drop us on top, blondie?" Jeffers smiled deviously.
"Well, jackass, our boys are in the middle of it too," The pilot hissed back on the private channel. "It wouldn't look too good when a Hog falls on a marine, would it? And how many times did I tell you not to flirt with me?"
"I'm KGB, baby, I can do whatever I want," The grin across Jeffers face grew exponentially.
"Colonel, shut up!" Sodhi stood at the edge of the holding bay as he clipped a line to the Pelican. "You talk more than you shoot."
"Ready for detach," The pilot informed, peering around into the back.
"Do it." Sodhi gave her a thumbs up.
"Launching," the pilot returned it as the Warthog fell free, plummeting to the earth below, as did many around it.
Gunning the engines in unison, the army of Hogs roared towards the top of the hill after the flight of Pelicans.
--
Sodhi slammed his shotgun into his palm and jumped out of the Pelican as it flung around to find a clear area to unload its cargo of fresh soldiers. Not wanting to wait or hike the distance, Sodhi flew towards the ground while the nano-fibre tether slowed his descent.
Ramming into an unsuspecting Elite, he unloaded a shell into the alien's skull, rupturing it into purple shards. He was in the middle of the Covenant battle line, completely surrounded by Grunts and Elites alike, but to him, it was all fun.
Grabbing the headless body, he primed a grenade from his bandolier and clipped it to the alien's armour and flung the corpse towards the nearest cluster of methane breathers he could find. The blast was muffled by the body; however, he was rewarded by the cascading explosions of tanks going off as he turned to face another elite that challenged him.
Bearing his shotgun, he was successfully able to blast a hole in the blue alien's chest as it died mid-sentence from uttering death threats.
The next thing he knew, his feet were off the ground and he was flying forward a few metres. A Zealot behind him roared with rage as it activated the swords in its hands and prepared to lunge at him.
Sodhi tightened his grip on the gun, his index finger tensing on the trigger, as the Saiga shotgun he held in his hand was a semi.
The Elite finished its roar and jumped towards him only to leave Sodhi's vision as a Hog suddenly slammed into the unlucky alien in midflight.
--
"Crikey, that was an epic hit and run, mate," Jeffers voiced over his roaring chaingun.
"What! Are you Australian now?" Johnston retorted back as he pulled the handbrake and swung the wheel, causing Ahsoka to hit the dashboard and Jeffers his gun.
Behind the hog, a trail of grunt bodies and multicoloured purple blood remained as Jeffers unleashed 12.5 mm of repeating hell into the surviving short and stocky methane breathers.
Johnston gunned the hog back to the ridge overlooking the sloping hill where the platoon of Warthogs had set up a defensive firing position. Suddenly, one the stocky aliens managed to cling on the side of the vehicle as it primed a grenade in its free hand.
"AHSOOOOOOKA!" The colonels nervously screamed her name.
"On it!" and the Jedi Knight flung her palm against the alien's chest, causing it to fly off, back into its comrades with the grenade now primed but still in its hand.
--
Moscow Battle Front
HQ
The fiery streaks of missiles disappeared into the distance as the launch vehicles began reloading for another volley.
The screen in front of Zhukov picked up and tagged the outgoing barrage as he zoomed into the weakened defence sector. The Triumphant had dropped a recon satellite that now held a synchronous orbit over western Russia, providing real-time data to the defenders.
"Marshall, look!" One of his aides called over. "The buggers are converging towards the Sikh battle lines," the lieutenant enlarged the thermal screen, which showed a bloated heat blob making its way towards green ID tags and preset markers.
"Tell the hogs to pull back and prepare the MLRS systems to relocate their barrage," the weary Marshall conveyed as he glanced at the screen that showed a live feed from the battle.
"We cannot spare any for that sector sir." The officer dismally replied, "All the batteries are being used to suppress the rear lines of enemy as per your order."
"Not good, not good at all," Zhukov thought as he drove himself into a thought maze trying to figure a solution to a horrible mess. "Get me the 89th Air Wing in Leningrad; have them initiate the Black Fire Directive in that valley."
"Yes, Comrade Marshall!"
"Pass the pullout order to Sodhi, and have all available tactical airlifts pull them out; Pelicans and Republic gunships." Zhukov frantically motioned. "Octavius! How are the Topol's coming along?"
"The warheads are primed and ready and the engineers were apparently able to boost the yields by swapping the lead with silicon casings but the rockets are still being fuelled, so they will be ready within the hour." The aide quickly replied.
"Most excellent," Zhukov suddenly seemed to relax. "Keep their rear guard suppressed and try to have the air and mechanized forces push the Covies' front lines to regroup."
--
"Pull back! Pull back!" Sodhi frantically flung his arm in the air as he motioned his remaining troops towards the awaiting gunships.
As the battered Sikh lines slowly trickled back, a sudden rain of rockets echoed into the distance as they blew through the Covenant line, creating a brief respite for the defenders.
Responding in kind, the orbs of blue plasma slowly arced through the sky as they slammed into the entrenched positions: blowing, melting and disfiguring anyone unlucky to be caught underneath them.
Sodhi gazed at the battered position as the dirt, glass and gore rained down upon him; a whole line destroyed.
"Where's the girl?" Sodhi frantically gazed, a lump forming in his throat at the dismal thought of her demise. Then he felt it, something within him that compelled him to look over the hill and sure enough she was lying, out cold, at its base.
"Probably the concussion," Sodhi smirked at the thought as he swung himself over the outer trench wall and slid down the muddy slant. Activating a Jackal shield that he managed to capture earlier in the fight, he covered it over Ahsoka and his body as the Covenant force charged with renewed vigour.
The clone captain Rex and his troops started to fire at the approaching masses, as Sodhi contemplated the best way to proceed with the tight situation he was in, when all of a sudden, the superheated bolts started to impact his shield.
He knew it would be impossible to run up the hill carrying a limp body while the horde of aliens would surely gun them down with ease. He still had his claymore on him, and the troops would need time as more plasma and mortars started to impact the position.
"Hey Captain!" his voice thundered up to Rex; "Catch!" his prosthetic hand grappled around Ahsoka's collar and he chucked her up the hill. "Get out of here," he ordered the clones as they caught the knight, "I'll hold em off."
Unsheathing his sword, he faced off against the mass of Covenant troops that ran towards him as their intensity of fire increased.
--
Rex gazed out of the last gunship as it took off, watching the brigadier run to meet his foes as they enveloped around him. He watched as Sodhi engaged the aliens, the general's sword effortlessly cutting through them, the shield that he wielded failing as bolts of plasma impacted his back. The man still fought, a soldier's soldier, fearing no death, no pain.
The gunship swung towards the city center as black specs appeared underneath the retreating sun and grew by the second.
--
The grunt in front of him fell to the ground, minus its head as Sodhi swung his failing shield into the ever-increasing fire of plasma and glass projectiles. He was hurt but he knew his destiny was at an end and that it was his duty to make sure that he took enough of the alien bastards to the afterlife.
Screaming above him, he caught glimpse of the black Sukhoi's as their thrust echoed over the artificial void between the deployed shields. Zhukov's 89th Air Wing; the Secret Air Self Defence Force unleashed their cargo of iron bombs.
"A flow of burning hellfire," Sodhi roared over the collapsing sonic barriers as the bombs exploded into fires of black and blue napalm, deflecting and amplifying off the shields and into the valley. "Swept through the cosmic night, I Enthroned Darkness Triumphant," he threw his shield and drove his sword into the nearest elite, "With the searing Trident of the inferno!" as the black fires washed over him.
--
A storm of rockets crashed into the searing inferno and beyond, decimating the remaining Covenant front lines, pushing them into a rout.
Ahsoka slowly regained consciousness as the gunship made its way into the protective embrace of the city shield and stood by her captain's side, watching together as the rear tactical shields flickered off.
The Topol-Z missiles pushed off their carrier vehicles and lazily arced over the horizon, making their way towards the Covenant landing zones. The mushroom clouds grew out in the distance as the light from the thermonuclear yield cast an eerie glow over the purple hued shields.
She didn't know it yet but the Humans had scored a huge victory as the cream of the Covenant armed forces now lay in ruins.
--
Alexander Gardens
Moscow
01:30 Hours
Victory tasted as bitter as defeat to Zhukov while the flame fluttered in front of him. The Covenant were beaten back on such a grand scale by his campaign that even Admiral Cole would have been flabbergasted, but still the Marshall stood with sorrow in his eyes.
The flame casted a glimmering hue on the deep, metallic grey sword which the Marshall held by its blade; the hilt was still firmly grasped by a robotic hand that extended to the supposed elbow line.
"What a way to die, eh…you bastard," the old soldier hoarsely whispered. "Cooking and cremating yourself alive with the damn four-jawed freak shows. Well, it looks like I'll see you on the other side;" he grasped the mechanical fingers, causing the blade to ignite while he drove it into the marble, leaving only the hilt visible. "But not today…not today," the old man walked away as a bone chilling breeze swept through the grounds and caused the eternal flame, its fuel gone, to flicker out of existence.
-----------------------------------------------------------
>>Authors Note
The title "With Malice Towards One and All" is created and used by the Author Kushwant Singh, who is a man that I admire for his wit and cunning writing skills. This title is used surprisingly for articles that embrace humanity and the brotherhood that it should represent.
Lastly, this is the final chapter for this series, which is the first that I have ever completed. I have already drawn up blueprints for another series that I hope will improve on your suggestions and will be more of a original piece.
Yours Truly
Enthrone Darkness Triumphant
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