Esrayat, the Outer Empire
Tula, t3 planet
Population; 2 billion
80th Surveillance, Reconaissance & Intelligence Wing
Delta Eight One




"Eyeglass this is Eight One, we've got confirmation on those Halo batteries, over -- your INTSIG guys were right, they have the entire valley honeycombed." Master Sergeant 'Chap' Holliday dropped the scope from his eye as a gust of wind blew across the mountaintop hide. The squad of Rangers had created the simple thatch and log structure in the predawn hours before Tula's binary-star suns would lock the planet in a hemisphere of light for the next several days. Even now, the fuzzy gray horizon continued to grow as the first of Esrayat two dwarf stars began to climb above the small planet nestled in the midst of the habitable zone. Down below, peering through the carving wind and bitter cold of Tula's second winter solace, a small hamlet fixed in the depths of the valley below began to slowly wake itself for the coming daylight.

"That's an affirmative on the batteries, Eight One, we're running some frames now. Looks like GL-9s or GL-10s." The tiny radio module fixed into Holliday's ear chirped loudly, the voice reverberating throughout the hampering materials that made his helm a form-fitting extension of his body rather than a bulky piece of equipment. On his HUD, a tracing of thin blue lines and small readouts, a mechanical sqwuaking highlighted an installation of six L-10 launchers down the mountain. Looking directly upon them, the Master Sergeant had to strain his eyes to locate the weapons. Situated against a rocky outcropping that extended about 300 meters down the slope, a latticework of cables and creteblok embattlements had been constructed to house the six-battery artillery platoon that had taken position in the foothills above the farmland and hamlet that stretched through the valley below them.

"Where'd they get hardware out of the Eastern Republics?" A Corporal questioned as the scouts descended the quick-line down a 40 meter drop to the platuea; with the rays of the sun slowly peaking over the mountains, the scouts were hidden under the shadow of the ridgeline as they descended into the cold recesses of the mountains one final time. The wind rushed by as Holliday jumped away from the cliff edge, feet pointing outward before returning to the rock face as he neared the end of the fall. As his feet touched the rocky ground, Holliday brought his hands around to his side and gripped the MR-18C; the mechanism of the weapon activated as he raised it to bear and peered through the holographic sights.

"Visuals on a gun crew, Heavy Gun -- 4.2 inch," A Ranger announced over the closed comms network as the Master Sergeant stepped by a line of Rangers. Ahead, looking over the edge of a rocky cliff edge and down toward a creteblok emplacement in the hillside, the sniper lowered himself from the ledge with his ECR-10 held loosely; the scout-sniper was wearing the camouflage netting a staple of Coalition snipers, which made the Sergeant's form a nearly transluscent phantom against the dusty earth of the planet.

"They've got it hardened; probably leads to a junction to the batteries." Sergeant Kites returned while he offered a pair of binoculars to Holliday. Maintaining his elevation, Holliday peeked his head over the cliff and brought the binoculars to his eyes.
"Three on the gun, two at guard."

Holliday dropped the binoculars from his eyes as the sound of an engine broke the cloudy sky overhead. Three other Rangers looked upward with him, and Sergeant Kites shifted uncomfortably as the dull disturbance passed overhead. Silence fell upon the scouts for the next several minutes as Holliday scanned the sky line with his eyes.
" ... Reconaissance."

Master Sergeant Holliday checked the magazine of his rifle and gave one powerful smack to the railguard of the weapon; the device turned with a slight whir of its powerful batteries before Holliday pointed to the cliff ledge and then to the sniper.
"Kites, take a spotter and lay anyone out coming up --" Holliday turned one hand toward a squad of six scouts led by a Staff Sergeant.
"Wills, quick-rope down to the platform and knock them out, quiet." His voice seemed to jolt one of the Rangers, who quickly drew a hand down to a blade holstered on his leg. As the Staff Sergeant checked his own rifle and shook his head, a scout was already preparing the quick-line rope down the cliff.

"Affirmative, Chap," The Staff Sergeant replied before rapelling down the final rock to the platform. Situated outward, and facing away to look deep into the valley below, Holliday and Sergeant Kites watched intently over the edge as the first scouts landed with almost silent footsteps. When one of the Rangers touched down on the heavy platform, Holliday and Kites quickly plunged themselves away from the edge as a metallic din sounded through the canyon.

"Shit ... who in the fuck was that?!" The radio came to life with a blast of static as the Staff Sergeant's HUD uplink was added to Holliday's own. The Staff Sergeant was prone at the moment, barely two meters from the edge of the Halo gun emplacement; Holliday could see the jutting barrels of the 4.2inch anti-air cannon aimed toward the valley.
"Hold position; Mike, we're taking the two at the gun."

Holliday rested his chest forward onto the cold rock as his eyes were fixed to the holographic relay displayed on his retina. With a shuffle, the view of the Staff Sergeant rustled for a brief moment before the flash of a knife broke the silence and plunged into the joints in the mercenary's back. A strained groan came over the radio as the Staff Sergeant heaved the corpse over the flank of the platform and down into a small ditch opposite the embattlement. Seconds later a soft alert notified Holliday of the second Halo killed, on the right side of the bunker, where the squad of scouts had descended.
"Watchmen down, we have the emplacement secure." Staff Sergeant Wills' low voice was an empty report as Holliday reached forward for the rope leading to the emplacement.

"Let's get down there Rangers, we've got ten minutes before they send up guards to check the noise!" Holliday warned as a Ranger simply held the rope in gloved hands and descended the face; the scout was one of six others armed with the M64 Sacker, capable of firing a multi-purpose missile that could down tanks, installations or low-flying aircraft. The Ranger was halfway down the cliff face before a single gunshot rang out, and Holliday watched the bullet smash the scout into the cliff before dangling him loosely by his rig, blood pouring from a fracture in his armor.

"Sniper! On the fucking ridge!" Kites screamed over the microphone as another bullet impacted the stone face; a scout yelled in agony as his shoulder was blasted apart and thrown on the rock behind him. A scout on the far edge took to a knee, propped the bipod of an MR-18H on a rocky outcrop and unleashed a burst of angry rifle fire across the ridge. The rounds ripped and spun through the air, every fifth round a tracer zipped up into the air and burned. The ridge was practically a kilometer away, and none of the rounds were confirmed to have hit anything, but it illuminated the Halo sniper; when the marksman made the hasty mistake of firing on the gunner, and missing, Kites quickly planted himself on the rock and leveled the ECR-10 into his shoulder.
"Master Sergeant I've got the shot, pass the fucking word!"

"Shoot -- shoot god dammit!" Holliday had to fight over the voice of Corporal Mattild, the Ranger wielding the 18H, who was screaming at the Halo marksman to distract fire while he took one final shot at him. The round flicked by the soldier, causing a moment of paranoi, before Sergeant Kites' rifle sounded and the silence fell while the Ranger unloaded the spent magazine.
"He's down." Kites returned before squeezing the trigger once, twice and then a final third time in rapid succession. Holliday was quick to look between his legs and see the wounded scout and a medic nearby. As the Master Sergeant forced himself onto his feet he pointed at the rope line and down the cliff.

"We need to get the fuck off the ridge, Rangers, let's move! Kites, you watch for more snipers!" Holliday said while grabbing the rig for a second rope that had been thrown down beside the wounded Ranger. Already, the team's second medic was preparing the wounded Specialist and removing him from his line. Preparing the primary line, Holliday was first to step toward the edge and hold the rifle lofty.
"I'm oscar-mike, Sergeant Wills, maintain position." He said while spinning and planting his feet against the rock face. As the Master Sergeant descended, a trio of secondary lines were thrown down by the Ranger to expedite the climbing. When the Master Sergeant passed the wounded scout, the medic was quick to kick the stray line away to clear his descent while tightening on the rope-climber modeul at his side. Descending the cliff face, Holliday began to jump farther and farther from the cliff face to reach the platform faster; as he did so, he would also need to stop by stalling his descent. As he neared the platform, two Corporals waited for the Master Sergeant with weapons at the ready while he bit his feet into the cliff to stall the drop.

"Master Sergeant! We heard that sniper up there -- he was sending out an alert, we stopped the signal before it got off though!" The Corporal replied as Holliday's boots made a resounding thud atop the metal and creteblok flanks of the emplacement and scaled his way up the sloping wall. As he crested the lid of the fortification, Sergeant Wills and a Private were inspecting the gun and the communications hub situated in the bunker. As the other Rangers began to reach the fortification and regroup in the bunker, the Master Sergeant met the fire-eyed Wills at the 4.2inch railcaster; the heavy barrels of the railgun were poised to fire into the valley, meaning that instead of defending from the air these Halo ramparts were to fight a war on the ground.

"This could be another Savio Fortress -- Hadden, all over again." The Sergeant was remarking as Holliday waved a hand to the Sergeant; a Corporal bearing a ruggedized terminal and a communication module on his rig stepped onto the firing platform of the railcaster. Inactive, the weapon was still impressive; the breech of the weapon was open, displaying the tightly packed coils that loaded and accelerated the slug.

"Master Sergeant, I have the Admiral on a secured line, he's requesting direction on targets in the valley." The Corporal responded while offering up a wireless communication device in his hand. Holliday's gut turned at the Corporal's words, the valley was occupied by sixteen towns and hamlets across the 21 kilometer ridge that made a large scar on the easternmost continent of the planet. As Holliday looked over his shoulder and into the valley below, the clouds had fallen away from a bright dawn to a murky rainfal that threatened to plunge the entire gorge in a torrent.

" -- The hell are you talking about, Ranger? That whole valley is a dead zone," Sergeant Wills responded to the Corporal while Holliday grabbed for the communicator. As the first crack of thunder boomed in the valley, the Master Sergeant turned to watch the lightning strike trace across the sky.
"This valley is about to be flooded, Halo will be inundated, we won't need to target shit."

As Holliday raised the communicator to his ears, the static was replaced with a quick beeping sound that then went flat. Exactly three seconds later his stream was verified, encoded and implanted on the drive of a starship orbiting 2,000 kilometers above the planet. The CNS New Ganymede, commanded by the renowned Admiral Savage.
"Admiral Savage, this is Master Sergeant Holliday, SRI Eight-One -- I'm at the north end of the valley." Holliday replied in a submissive tone as he stepped closer to the edge of the gun-deck; from this vantage one could see far beyond ten kilometers until the valley took a rough bend to the right that lead to a plateua land and tundra in the north.

"Affirmative, Master Sergeant we have you on RAILS on Gaku Ma, what's the nearest summit in your view?" The Admiral's voice was young and vigorous, but equally infantile and untested. The Master Sergeant had been stationed on Tula for the better part of two years, and had been deployed to the Gaku Ma region on the continent of Ruiz; the entire province and majority of the continent was a ragged, hellish mountain of sharp inclines and steep valleys, the effects of an aging and slowing tectonic drive. Reducing most of the planet's inhabitants to farmers, the Halo insurrection was easily installed in the regions of northern Ruiz and her sister province, Bensa.

"The Makur Ghar summit, sir," Holliday replied, looking to the right and sighting the hidden summit that rose nearly 3 kilometers into the horizon. It carved into the low, gray clouds passing overhead, opening the rain-burdened atmosphere on the slopes below. Even now, Holliday could see the simple gray sheets of rain beginning to descend down the sides of the valley.

"Good then -- We've got sensor readings that paint an entire Halo formation in that valley, Master Sergeant, we need someone to verify those targets." Admiral Savage replied over the fuzzy device; the Master Sergeant backed away from the port overlooking the valley below as the first sheets of rain began to pelt the emplacement.

"That's a negative Admiral, I drove through that valley this morning, there was nothing there!"

"RAILS and Counter-Balance says otherwise, Master Sergeant, UAV flyby's show Halo guns in the mountainside. We're gonna' light up the whole valley Sergeant." Savage returned as thunder roared overhead and the downpour came full force. As the sound of rain drowned it's own artillery, the Rangers could be heard scrambling into the bunker.
"Under that rain they won't be expectin' a thing, and we need eyes ground-side to bring in the -- "

The siren broke Holliday's concentration for a moment, forcing his eyes out past the cupola in the bunker and into the valley below. It was a growing roar that pierced through the dull rain descending from the heavens; originating from several locations, one could be heard shrieking in the cliff above the gun emplacement. For a minute Holliday failed to recognize that the communicators were inoperative; a curtain of static had come with the siren, creating a static snow in his ear to the point of frustration.

"Meson particles! We've got a Meson detonation on the way -- Meson particles dammit!" A Corporal shouted as he rushed down the hallway. Leading into the cliff-side, the network of reinforced battlecrete fortifications extended nearly a kilometer into the rugged terrain of the Makur Gar moutainside. Holliday ditched the communication node as Sergeant Wills tossed away a Red Halo holopad.

"Sonuvabitch, they wired a whole damn valley!" Wills shouted over the siren, following Holliday into the hallway leading farther to into the complex. A squad of Rangers were sprinting down the hallway in toe of the Corporal, who was by this point far ahead. Staff Sergeant Wayson, commanding 2nd squad, was escorting two Specialists as they prepared a line of A6 box charges as they retreated.