Mortal Reveries: Embers in the Dark

The stars shone bright over the barren sands and sleek rocks that spread as far as the eye could see. Below them, between the dune swept ravine, a column of Banished vehicles tread onwards. Ghosts, Revenants, a few Prowlers, and a lone Chopper too, all of them surrounding a large Skiff hauling precious cargo.
Bentley kept the plasma rifle tight against his chest, one hand wrapped around the alien grip, the other palming one of the brute’s grenades. The kind that ripped up electronics rather than flesh and bone, but it’d cook you too if you let it. His heart was pouding in his chest as he laid his head back against the cold surface of the stone he was tucked behind, and for the tenth time that night he asked whatever god was listening what he’d done to get stuck on this job. 
Why was he, a dropship pilot, the only one of their hundred or so that had the qualifications to handle the improvised explosive slung over his back? He knew the answer, that the bulk of their little surprise was built from on of the Anvil Missiles he’d used to fire off by the dozen, and he’d just so happened to overplay his hand when he took over assembling the device. The marine trying to make it had been a second away from blowing them all to hell.
He turned his eyes skyward, tracing the ring all the way up, and let muttered a quiet curse in his mind. Esperanza would kill him, if she ever heard about any of this.
A fist wrapped against his shoulder, and called his attention to the ODST beside him. Anthony Carrillo was a hard man to look at, even before a Mangler had cut a chunk out of his cheek months ago, but his eyes had a way of reassuring Bently and just about everyone else. His dark armor had been stripped away piece by piece, until now only the centerpiece, the black carapace that covered his torso remained. It was too damned hot for the rest of it, a bead of sweat rolling down Bentley’s forehead reminded him, and the trooper’s helmet had been made all but useless by the aforementioned incident with a Mangler.
The big man was simultaneously the most danger non-Spartan he’d ever met, and the kindest, and the juxtaposition normally gave Bentley pause, but now now. Carrillo gave him a nod, one final promise that he could do this, that he could hack it, and too afraid to let him down, Bentley forced himself to believe it. Across the ravine, a flare streaked into the sky, it’s red glow painting the night of the ringworld. For a moment there was silence, a sentry sniffed at the air, an elite warbled a curse, and Bentley primed the grenade as a crimson beam eviscerated the Revenant at the head of the Banished convoy.
Immediately he heard a sentry let out a roar, shouting something in its alien tongue, with an Elite shouting something back to it. More explosions, two rockets slammed into Ghosts, turning the light vehicles into fireballs of molten slag, gunfire and plasma opened up, and Bentley knew the time to delay was over. He primed the Dynamo Grenade, peeked out from the rock, and hurtled it downward. It wasn’t quiet the baseballs he’d flung as a kid, but his arm still held up.
It sailed through the air tumbling end over end, arcing out electricity towards anything and everything as it careened end over end, landing snuggly under the skiff. The vehicle’s engine died, and it sunk to the ground. Its pilot, an Elite, let out a frustrated warble, and promptly had his head reduced to a mess of purple gore and a trail of vapor as one of the snipers took their shot.
“Good throw kid, we’re up!” Carrelli exclaimed with a wicked grin, rising and leaping out from cover and down onto the floor of the ravine. Bentley’s mind screamed and his stomach twisted, he was a pilot, not a soldier, certianly not a Helljumper, who’d ever thought this was a good idea? It didn’t matter, he moved anyway, bounding after the ODST with both hands tight on the plasma rifle. 
He landed in the sand with a distinct lack of grace, but he moved anyway. All around them the other humans attacked, Foucher’s squad of marines attacking the convoy head on with both of the Spartans. Others rained down fire from all sides, tucking into alcoves and small caves when the aliens desperately tried to coordinate a defensive. Barely any of them even noticed the pilot and the Helljumper’s rush for the skiff, and the two grunts that did met a quick end as Carrelli’s BR75 Battle Rifle spat three rounds into each of their chests.
It was chaos as the sprinted across the sand, and skidded to a halt at their target. Bentley could feel the sweat on his hands as he set down his weapon, and slung the improvised bomb off of his shoulders. Beside him Carrelli hefted his rifle in one hand, while the other danced over a display panel on the generator the skiff had been hauling. Rockets wouldn’t have pierced it, even the laser wouldn’t have been enough, but opening it up and shoving a bomb inside? That’d do.
The alien machine complied with his commands, and Bentley felt the heat from the machine as it a small opening appeared on its side. He was still working, connecting the right wires, double checking to be sure it wouldn’t simply detonate the instant he armed it, when Carrelli shouldered his rifle again and let off another burst.
“Morris, running short on time here!” The jarhead barked.
“You wanna end up in a fireball? Keep rushing.” The pilot bit back, punching in commands to the device, his voice completely lacking in the sheepishness that’d once been in every syllable. The ODST simply let out a small chuckle and kept firing, stepping between Bentley and whatever he was engaging, plasma bolts and superheated spikes zipping past them.
“Morris, for Christs sake!” Carrelli hissed as Bentley shoved the device into the opening, and armed it. He’d have taken a second to appreciate not immediately evaporating, but there wasn’t time. Instead his hands found the plasma rifle, and he turned in time to catch a jackal moving towards them between the vehicles that now sat idle on the sand, with nothing but their drivers corpses in them. He didn’t take the time to think, he just squeezed. Blue bolts cut through the air and the avian’s side before it could ready its shield, it died with little more than a pained squawk.
He turned, and yanked Carrelli by the shoulder, hauling the larger man away from the skiff, and out of the way of another unfortunate encounter with a Brute’s Mangler. 
“Next time,” Bentley bathed a rushing Brute in plasma, his shields evaporating under the energy barrage, leaving Carrelli to finish him with a shot to the head. He turned towards the sound of an enraged elite, and the pair repeated the process, dropping another of the banished. “You can set the damn bomb!” 
The ODST laughed at that, squeezing off another burst as the two rushed back towards the ravine wall, but the chuckled died as both he and Bentley turned towards the lone Chopper barreling towards them. Carrelli shoved him to the ground, and dove after him as the savage vehicle swept past them by a hair, its rider leaping from his mount as the two humans scrambled to their feet. The Brute was a titan, his armor was adorned with spikes and trophies, and in his massive paws was a fittingly enormous hammer. It’s beady eyes went to the skiff with the bomb lodged in its cargo, then two the two humans that’d no doubt put it there, and it chose prey over its mission in an instant.
For something so large, it was terrifyingly fast, and Bentley barely had time to process the fact that the hammer was coming down on him. But where there ought have been oblivion, there was only pain. Something shoved him hard, then the concussive force of gravity hammer multiplied that, and threw him hard into a broken Ghost.
Bentley saw stars, and blood. Carrelli was no longer standing, but instead a ruin of gore and bone, the crimson painted the massive hammer, and Bentley. His eyes went wide, his mouth fell open, and terror gripped him. The Brute looked on him with amused disgust, and then took a step towards him.
He thought about Esperanza, about the children they might’ve had, if he hadn’t been so stupid, the life they might’ve had if he’d been just a little smart. Another step. 
He thought of his copilot Steiner, the man had been his best friend, and he’d had the gall to die the instant they crashed down, the bastard. Another step, the beast brought its hammer into both hands.
He thought of the others who’d died to get them here, the marines and troopers and crewman, the rest of Fireteam Anchor, all the friends who’d gone before him, and Carrelli who’d just died so that he could be sure Bentley would not predecease him. Another step, it brought the terrible weapon to bear, and with the memories of his fallen swimming in his mind, Bentley’s mouth shut, and his eyes narrowed, he would not die afraid.
Though it pained him, Bentley’s hand went to his hip, and as blood ran down his arm, he pulled free the combat dagger. Carbon steel, seven inches, ODST standard issue since the 2400s. It wasn’t his, it’d been Leota’s, one of Carrelli’s ODSTs, he’d given it to Bentley when she’d died at the Reverie. Made him promise not to use it unless he had no other choice.
And he saw no other choice now.
The Brute’s eyes flicked between the knife and Bentley’s face, and though the amusement remained, writ smugly across the Chieftan’s face, the disgust faded. At least the little human meant to humor him, it must’ve thought. It brought back the hammer, then a blur of olive drap, red, and yellow slammed into it like a rocket.
The beast was flung back onto the husk of a Ghost, shield’s shattering and angrily roaring as Spartan Gilberto Vargas launched a pair of heavy jabs into its abdomen, forcing spittle and blood up from between it’s jagged maw. The supersoldier dipped under a wild swing of a paw, and swiped it across the face with a knife for its trouble. Blood sprayed, and the Brute rose in a fury, ramming the Spartan back with its shoulder.
Bentley rose shakily, clutching the dagger, watching, unable to interfere as the dance continued.
Vargas rolled under a wide swing, unholstering the pistol magnetized to his thigh, pumping bullets into the unshielded carapace, but the Brute seemed to shrug it off as it surged forward. This time it swept low, the bladed edge of his hammer catching Vargas at his shin, biting into the armor, and taking his legs out from under him. The Spartan hit the sand and rolled without missing a beat, the Chieftan’s hammer pulverizing the ground he’d occupied not a second prior. The pulse of gravity that’d floored Bentley instead gave Vargas the boost he needed to catapult back onto his feet, even with his energy shields shattered and gone.
His visor tilted, looking at something beyond the Brute, and an instant later, a trio of crimson blobs of plasma crashed into it. Armor melted, and the beast howled, spinning around to face its attacker just as another burst from Bless-G189’s Ravager raked its torso. It staggered, and Bless leaped, landing with her legs on its great shoulders, weapon hefted above her head. The Brute let out a enraged cry, and died as the Spartan drove the bayonet of the weapon through its throat on one side, and ripped it out the other.
The monster that’d seem him as an ant had been crushed in a matter of seconds, and Bentley could barely process even that, as he looked to Vargas, his mind beginning to fog as he stood there bewildered.
“Bomb,” He slurred, concussed. “Vargas the bomb!”
The Spartan’s helmet moved in recognition, and he dove for Bentley, while Bless twisted to bring her victim’s corpse between herself and the Skiff. Vargas put Bentley back onto the sand, and put himself over him. The bomb detonated, and heat washed over them. Vargas’ shields, which had only just began to come back to life, shattered again, and something sharp danced through the sand and cut into Bentley’s side. He was still too rattled to feel pain, but he knew that wasn’t going to last.
But the noise was the worst of it, even after the fire was gone, his ears rang like no tomorrow as he blinked his eyes open, and Vargas pushed himself off of the pilot. The Spartan turned, ensuring that Bless was indeed crawling out from beneath her latest victim. She was, amidst glassy sand, the Spartan squirmed out from under the charred ape, the sharp blue of her visor shining out from her blackened helmet. But she seemed unhurt.
“Can we move him?” She nodded to Bentley, who then looked down at his side, and the shrapnel protruding from it.
“I can, yeah. Got me covered?” Vargas answered, turning his attention back to Bentley once more.
“I’ll find a way to manage it.” Bless sighed, scanning the stars not for its own sake, but for the Banished air support no doubt beelining for their position as they spoke. Vargas put an arm around Bentley’s back, and another below his legs, and as he hefted him up, Bentley fought back a cry of pain.
“Carrelli.” He muttered through grit teeth.
“I know ‘Bent. We can mourn him later.” Vargas assured, but Bentley could only grunt as his head began to pound. Bless took the ODST’s battle rifle from the sand, and what might’ve been his dog tags, and came after them as they began to move.
He wanted to cry out in frustration, that he couldn’t do anything but put his grief aside, and in pride, that they’d done it, that he’d played his part and finished the mission. Pain and pride seemed to cancel one another out, and thus all he felt was numb. He looked at the stars, and tried to see Esperanza somewhere in them, and for the time that was enough.