New Mombasa Drop

A Halo fanfic that attempts to chronicle the events of Halo ODST. Set during the final months of the war and following the squad from the games, it jumps between short chapters about Rookie and lengthier chapters showing the battles of the fellow squad members. A work in progress, it can be found here.

It contains multiple Continuity Nods to Halo, the books and the anime shorts. It is also an attempt to present combat in the Haloverse in a more realistic light, and an understanding of combined infantry tactics.

This page, and the fic, are works in progress, so add tropes as you see them.

Tropes used in New Mombasa Drop include:

• Adaptation Expansion: The author seems to desire to lengthen the sections with the specialists of the squad, often at the cost of Rookie's chapters being short.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: The standard tactics of the Covenant. Until their squad leaders and armour support are neutralised.
• Armour Is Useless: Averted. ODST battle armour is capable of taking direct plasma hits, and dispersing it, albeit ineffectively.
  • Played straight with Brute Spiker rounds, which went right through Rookie's greave.
• Badass Normal: Gunnery Sergeant Buck, who is unafraid to take on a Covenant assault squad whilst they are covered by a Dropship. The rest of the squad, arguably.
• Badass Creed: Rookie has a simple one, as the first thing of the fic: "I shall find a way, or I shall make one."
• Beam Spam: The Spartan Laser has a secondary fire function which projects several beams as a 'shotgun' style attack. It sits quite neatly in the Awesome Yet Impractical territory.
• BFG: Dutch's Spartan Laser, Mickey's Missile Launcher and Romeo's Sniper Rifle. The Hunter's Fuel Rod cannons deserve an honourable mention.
• Big Damn Heroes: Romeo sniping the Engineer as it 'attacks' Buck. And Dutch saving a Marine Squad in Chapter 2 from a Wraith.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Plasma weapons are shown inflicting considerable damage, and a Hunter's Fuel Rod shot outright vaporises a fireteam of Marines.
• Blood Knight: All the ODSTS, (with the possible exception of Mickey), enjoy slaughtering Covenant. Considering what the Covenant do to Humanity it's not unjustified.
• Bunny Ears Lawyer: Each of the squadmates are quite quirky individuals, but they are ODSTs and are fantastic at their specialisations.
• Chunky Salsa Rule: Three fifty calibre miniguns used against a squad of grunts results in this.
• Combat Breakdown: Rookie constantly notes that his ammunition is slowly, but almost certainly running low. Cue Knife Nut moments.
• Description Porn: The Spartan laser receives a two paragraph description by Dutch, extolling it's creation, it's function and how Awesome it is. Most Encyclopedia Exposita excerpts at the end of each chapter can head into this territory.
• Deflector Shields: Used by the Covenant squad leaders.
• Earth Is a Battlefield: What Buck and Dare both fear.
• Elite Mooks: Brutes are stronger, faster and are equipped with Powered Armour. Not that it does them much good.
• Encyclopedia Exposita: The end of each chapter contains a brief (or not so brief) examination on the UNSC's weapons, infanty and tactics.
• Feel No Pain: A Brute driven to a Berserk Rage takes dozens of rifle rounds. He is finally brought down by a Sniper squad.
• Flat What: The author's response to seeing that Longsword's main weapons are 120mm autocannons.
• Frickin' Laser Beams: Used by Dutch as his preferred weapon.
• Gatling Good: In the form of the M41 Warthog .50cal chaingun or the .30 Calibre AIE-486 chaingun.
• Heroic Mime: Averted with Rookie, though he is The Quiet One or The Stoic.
• Kill It with Fire: Rookie Using the spill from a fuel tanker to incinerate a Brute Stalker squad
• Kill Sat: The UNSC's Orbital MAC stations.
• Knife Nut: Rookie is shaping up into this.
• Magnetic Weapons: Present as a Encyclopedia Exposita report, and in the form of the M99 gauss rifle.
• More Dakka: The Heavy weapon platoon Dutch encounters are armed primarily with AIE-486 Chainguns. Not forgetting the iconic Warthog's fifty cal.
• New Meat: Rookie.
• No One Gets Left Behind: Buck's entire motivation and objective during ODST.
• Oh Crap: Pulled when the Covenant Super Carrier pulls a slipspace jump in atmosphere as Buck's ODSTS are dropping from orbit.
• Powered Armour: Worn by the Brutes and references in the Encyclopedia Exposita to the "Prototype" suit.
• Precision F-Strike: Averted quite hilariously by Buck, and Lampshaded in the following narration.

Buck: Aw, nuts.

• Pretty Little Headshots: Averted. Particularly by the standard 14.5mm Sniper Rifle.
• Tank Goodness: The Scorpion tanks, and all their variants.
• War Is Hell
• We Have Reserves: The Covenant's Ideology in warfare. Considering they draw from six different species, it's justified. Averted by the UNSC, who have dwindling man power at this point.