Disclaimer: Halo, and all characters from the books/games are not my property.
Gunnery Sgt. Avery Johnson:
Reasons
A Halo Based FanFic
By Salaadin
Pain gnawed a hole in my side big enough for me to crawl into and die. I figured I must have had at least two broken ribs. I wasn’t going to die that day though. That day I was way too pissed off to die. The boy I was standing over in that holding cell was dead. Beaten to death by a nine-foot tall five hundred pound alien monster. The boy’s name was Reynolds. PFC William C. Reynolds. His dog tag said he was Catholic and had blood type O negative; rare.
Reynolds had fought hard against the Elite. Literally tooth and nail, judging from the alien blood staining his chin and his fingertips. They’d broken him though; his arms, his legs, his jaw, his hip, his sternum. Then they just left him there to die hurting and scared; alone and in the dark. His dog tag said he was going to be twenty years old the next day.
I didn’t join the op until just before the incursion onto the Truth and Reconciliation. A team of ODST’s and the Master Chief were dropped in ahead of my men and me. Their job was to disable the Covenant anti aircraft guns and secure a LZ for our Pelican under the Covenant battle ship. When we landed we were supposed to keep that LZ secure so the door would be open until the Chief and the Helljumpers boarded the ship, secured the Captain, and got the hell out of dodge. When we arrived at the LZ, there was still a firefight blazing. The ODST’ s had put the Covenant anti aircraft guns out of commission, but at much too heavy a cost. Of the sixteen Helljumpers that started the mission, only six were still in the fight. Six Helljumpers and the Spartan.
“Alright you lucky bastards! Looks like the LZ is hot and those Helljumpers could use a hand springing the Captain. That means we don’t have to waist time warming up on any of those punk ass little grunts. I see a pair of Hunters down there and five Elites. Barry, as soon as we touch down I want you on one knee with that Jackhammer primed and ready to fire!”
“Aww, Sarge. On one knee? I don’t think I’m ready to propose yet!” Barry yelled over the comm. Private Maria Barry was a tall drink of water out of the Bronx back on Earth. She had an Italian accent she got from her mom I suppose. She always had a smart alleck remark for me just before we got into the ****.
“Little girl, if you don’t shut that smart yap the hell up I promise I will make that proposal an order!”
“Sarge! I didn’t know you cared!” she replied covering her mouth with her hand in mock delight.
“Not to me, wise ass! To Hassan!” That shut her up and put a big smile on Hassan’s mug. Dr. Saed Hassan had joined the Corps when he was thirty-one. He was a lab rat who worked in forensics. He told me he joined up because he wanted to a chance to meet new people; new people that were still breathing, that is. If I were his recruiting officer, I would have told him that in this war anybody he did get to know wouldn’t be breathing for much longer after they met. Hassan had a thing for Barry and it was no secret to the entire company. That’s why the rest of my men were snickering.
My team was a good group. Hassan was a goof socially, but he was ice cold in a firefight. Barry fought with a chip on her shoulder. A mean streak was a good thing to have in the places we went. There was also Perez, Walker and Mobuto.
Private Danny Perez only spoke Spanish. He understood English and French perfectly well, but he would only reply in Spanish. Danny was a good wheelman. In fact he had been a flyboy once, piloting Pelicans. Then he clocked his CO for ordering him to leave a firefight without evacuating the wounded. I clocked the same guy once before myself, for about the same reason. That earned him a demotion to ground-pounder and a permanent spot on my squad. When we needed to ride a Warthog or almost anything else into or out of a fight he was as good as they come at the wheel.
Private Jason Walker came from old money. He joined up after watching his planet get glassed by the Covenant. His father’s money allowed him to escape getting glassed, but not the memory of his home world being destroyed. I had to work real hard to keep him reeled in. Remembering his home world getting glassed by the Covenant put a kamikaze streak into him sometimes. Walker went after an Elite with nothing but a damned combat knife once. Perez and Walker liked to snap at each other under fire like it was a game of hoops.
Augustine Mobuto was our combat medic and he was always all business. He was built like a brick ****house and looked like he was cut out of a cast iron block. He was also Sgt. Marvin Mobuto’s oldest nephew. Marvin was my Drill Sergeant way back when I was in basic. He was somewhere on this Ring too. I owed that ornery old Leatherneck my life at least five times over. For his sake I was gonna make sure ‘Little’ Mobuto wasn’t going to die as long as I was around to do something about it.
I jumped from the ramp to the ground before the Pelican touched down. I fired my MA5B at an approaching Elite. It was a rookie, judging not only by its blue armor, but also from its apparent lack of enough sense to seek cover when being fired upon. It kept on charging right at me soaking up round after round. Finally its shields failed just in time for my clip to run dry, which I know was what he was counting on. The rookie growled a challenge at me firing its plasma rifle all wild and undisciplined as it approached. I slung my rifle, pulled my M6D, and shot that dumb son of a bitch right in the head from twenty meters away.
“Move your asses you lazy little ****s! I want this LZ to be quiet as a library inside of the next three minutes!” I yelled back into the Pelican as it touched down behind me.
“Barry! Make that Hunter into stew!” I said pointing.
“On it, sir!” she replied just as she fired the rocket. It flew though the air leaving a trail of smoke behind it. Barry was an artist with an M19. I’ve seen her take out two Ghosts with one shot without hardly even breaking stride. You might as well have named that chip on her shoulder “Jackhammer’.
The rocket hit the Hunter dead on and it exploded into orange paste. I could feel her smiling behind me while I reloaded my rifle and fed a round into the chamber.
“Don’t get too smug, Barry.” I chided. “That was a lucky shot.”
Still smiling, she said “Yessir!”
“Walker! Perez! I want suppressing fire on those Jackals coming down the gravity lift. Make sure they keep their ugly little heads down behind those shields while I link up with the ODST’ s.
“Foehammer? Do you read me?”
“Loud and clear Sarge.” The pilot replied over the comm.
“We got wounded down here that need evac. Can you hold on until we mop up here?
“Can do, Sergeant. Just keep the Covenant off me until then.”
I said to Barry, Walker, and Perez. “Did you hear that Marines? Foehammer just got a brand new paint job on her Pelican and I don’t want even one scratch on it! Hassan! Mobuto! You’re with me. Let’s get it in gear!”
The gravity lift was in a depression in the ground below us. The Pelican was parked on the ledge of a cliff face. No chance at being flanked from that position. Across the depression, I could see the ODST’ s taking cover behind an overturned Shade. They were at least eighty meters away, which made Barry’s shot all the more impressive. We slid down into the depression and made our way around the far side of the lift. Perez and Walker were on their job keeping the Jackals busy while we made our way to the Shade.
“Lieutenant Parker! You still alive over there?” I asked the ODST CO over the comm.
“Yeah we’re still here!” I could hear gun reports and plasma fire in the background. “But it’s getting pretty sporting! Glad you could make it, Johnson!”
Hassan, Mobuto, and I were hunkered down at the lip of the depression. A couple of Elites had managed to get one of the Shades back up and in gear and were pouring it on Parker and her men. The Spartan was engaging another pair of Elites and a Hunter on his own.
“Barry!” I said over the comm.
“Yessir!”
“I got a problem over here. You see that Shade over there on the ridge?
“Not for long I won’t, sir.”
“That’s my girl! Perez! Walker. We’re clear of the lift. You can stop playing around with those Jackals. Move in and hit’em with the M9’s. Hassan! Mobuto! As soon as that Shade is down I want you to mop up the Elites manning it if they’re still breathing. Then I want you to hook up with Parker and her men. Gimme a status report as soon as you’re finished assessing the situation behind that downed shade.
“Echo 419! How we looking over there?” I asked over the comm.
“Meter’s running, Sarge.” She replied.
“Copy that.”
To Mobuto and Hassan I said, “Start getting the wounded prepped for evac and police up any ammo and ordinance you can find. From the looks of it, this ain’t going to be the babysitting job we signed up for. I’m gonna pull the Master Chief out of the fire. On my mark everybody get to work.”
Over the comm. Parker said to me. “I don’t think the Chief will be needing that assist, Johnson. He drew them away from us over by that boulder to begin with.”
“I’ll bet. But I’m not leaving that to chance. If Keyes finds out I left the Chief out to dry it’ll be your ass and mine.”
The Spartan could have held his own if there was either the two Elites or the Hunter out in the open. I know. I’ve seen it. But they were giving as good as they were getting from the Chief; a stalemate. The Hunter was closing in though and at close quarters even a Spartan was no match for a Hunter, at least as long as those Elites were free to take pot shots at him.
“Mark!” I heard Barry’s Jackhammer report and jumped up onto the ridge. The Elites were laying down suppressing fire and had the Chief pent down behind a boulder. I lobbed a M9 behind them. The Shade went up and took one of the Elites with it; wounding the other. My M9 went off and blew both of those bastards that were giving the Master Chief lumps to hell.
Over the comm, I said to the Spartan. “Chief! The Elites are out of the picture now, but that Hunter is gonna be breathing down your neck in no time.”
“Copy that, Sergeant.” With that the Spartan come out from cover. He moved so fast I didn’t even know there was a grenade at the Hunter’s feet until it went off. The Hunter roared in pain but the grenade hadn’t put it out of action. The Chief only meant to distract it with the M9. He was behind the Hunter in a flash with his rifle slung and his pistol drawn. With one shot to the spine the Hunter stood up straight, then collapsed dead. There is a spot on a Hunter at the base of the spine about three by three centimeters around. Put a round though that little bull’s eye and a Hunter will be down for the count. I made that shot one time my self; on my stomach with a sniper rifle on a tripod at maximum magnification in broad daylight. This man just did it with a pistol on the run…at night. I remember thinking maybe Parker was right. Maybe the Chief could have taken them all down on his own.
I heard a couple of M9’s go off behind me on the gravity lift. I looked back and the Jackals that had been holding the lift were gone. I looked back over to the Shade and Hassan had his rifle pointed at the wounded Elite lying on the ground. A flash and a short report and the Elite was finished. Mobuto already had his medical kit out and was performing triage.
“Sgt. Johnson I have six immobilized wounded and four KIA. I’ll have the wounded prepped for evac in five.” Mobuto said over the comm.
“Copy that corpsman. Foehammer! Evac in ten.”
“Roger, Sergeant.”
We got the wounded and the dead on board the Pelican. The Master Chief had tactical command of the op. There were four Helljumpers including Lt. Parker left standing. My men were able to salvage forty seven magazines of 7.62mm rounds, eighteen clips of 12.7 mm, another M19 with eight additional rounds, twenty – four M9 frag grenades, a dozen plasma grenades, and a SA sniper rifle with two extra magazines. I distributed the ammo for the assault rifles and the frag grenades to my own men and the remainder of the Helljumpers. The Chief and I split the Magnum ammo along with the plasma grenades (nobody else wanted to handle the Covie grenades because of the radioactivity). I gave the ammo for the Jackhammer to Hassan and Barry. One of the Helljumpers took the Sniper rifle. The Spartan slung the other Jackhammer over his shoulder.
“Lets get ready to board.” The Spartan said to us. Parker gave me the thumbs up just before she went up the lift. I’d fought alongside Lieutenant Parker a lot of times over a lot of years. I think she had a family back on Earth. We’d spilled buckets of blood in the same mud, but right then I couldn’t think of one time we ever exchanged words except when we were on the Job. I hoped I would get a chance to make up for that later.
