HALO: NEW BEGINNINGS
PROLOGUE Location: Explorer class 2 UNSC translight ship, The New Beginnings Year: 2600
Captain Jacob Graham was sweating as he read the damage report. He had lost all but 2 of his radar antennas, decks 12 through 23 were all breached and there were fires reported in most parts of the ship. Godamn that was a close collision. The destroyed ship had appeared out of nowhere. It hadn’t come up on the radar and there was no view of it until it was too late. As it drifted past he saw its name on one of the ship view screens. The Black Sand. It had scorch marks stretching the length of the ship and a huge hole in the hull. The atmosphere had vented long ago and the metal of the ship had turned white. They decided to try and board it. 5 boarding crafts launched and latched onto the ship. Among one of the boarding crafts was technician Lee Humphreys. He nervously eyed the ship as it grew larger until eventually there was the rumble in the ship telling them that they had latched. They put on their atmosphere suits and opened the door. Inside it was dark, too dark. They turned on their torches and swept the inside of the ship. There were huge layers of dust on the walls and floor. Lee felt his foot connect with something and heard a crunch. He looked down and saw a skull. He screamed and everyone turned to see what had caused the commotion. There was the skull still attached to the skeleton. It was still wearing its navy uniform. The very old ballistic armour the old marines used to wear. There was a dusty old issue MA5B on the floor, as well as an ancient M6D pistol. Godamn how old was this ship? He saw a dusty piece of paper on a notice board and called the rest of the team over. He read it out loud. “Welcome to the Black Sand, built in 2522 and refitted with MAC’s in 2544, we hope you enjoy your stay.” Wow! This ship was old. But with no air to rot it, it was still as good as new. Except for the damage. There were ancient scorch marks from long gone fires and ancient human bodies scattered across the ship. He saw a sign pointing the way into the cryo bay. He walked in and saw the cryo tubes glowing. He walked over to the nearest one and wiped the ice off the window. Inside was a human. He was a bridge crew. He was wearing the uniform. He called the rest of the team over and they soon discovered that every cryo tube was occupied. They couldn’t release them, there was no atmosphere. The gravity was still working strangely enough and there must still be power to the ship if the cryo tubes were still active. He and 2 others proceeded to the bridge while the others checked out other parts of the ship. When they got there they discovered the skeleton of the captain. He had typed in a loophole navigation so that the ship was constantly moving. They moved the captain off the chair and set to work trying to vent the atmosphere by closing off the area where the hull breach was. They managed to fix the control panel and closed off the hull breach. They opened air filters and waited for it to oxygenate the ship. Eventually they picked up a reading of breathable air in the detection system and took off their atmosphere suits. “Go ahead and open the tubes. Air is breathable.” After decades of slumber, Colonel Jamie Dean awoke.
CHAPTER ONE: SURVIVORS Location: Aboard UNSC cruiser, The Black Sand
Lee walked down to the fusion reactor that powered the ship and found it to be in excellent shape. It had been supplying power for years, how it had kept going this long was beyond Lee but at least it had kept some of the original crew alive. Wow! He couldn’t believe that they were all over a hundred years old but looked in their 30’s and 20’s. They were getting help on how to walk properly, that much time spent in the freezer could do things like that to you. He heard the ship speakers fill with static until they burst on. “Technician Lee Humphreys to the bridge immediately.” He turned toward the bridge and walked down the narrow corridor that led to the bridge.
Jacob had picked up an active object on the far range sensors. It was moving toward their position fast. It was too far away to hail. He leaned in closer to the blurry image on the radar and muttered to himself “What are you?” “Captain, ship doesn’t match any known UNSC ships. Suggest we try for old models?” “No, it’s moving too fast to be a dead ship.” “Sir, picking up spikes of energy coming from the edges of the ship. It has come close enough for us to get a clear image. Patching it through now.” The ensign pressed a button on his command panel and streamed an image to the Captains personal computer. He stared at the purple object and scratched his head. He took in all the details, purple, sleek, a bulbous shape. It had faint glows along its side. Those must be the source of the energy spikes. “Lieutenant, arm the MAC, now! I don’t like the look of this thing.” “Yes sir!” He heard rapid typing and a dull thud echoed through the hull as the MAC came online. “Targeting solutions online now ensign.” “Yes sir!” “Be ready for action. That is definitely not a UNSC ship. Try hailing it.” “This is the UNSC explorer, New Beginnings hailing unknown ship, please respond or prepare to be fired upon.” A crude and gruff voice boomed through the ship speakers. “Hahaha, Humans, prepare for your destruction at the hands of the Gods!” “All hands at battle stations, you heard that message and it sure as hell isn’t friendly.”
Lee could hear the recall to the ship. He ran back to the boarding craft with the rest of the search team and also the original crew. They shut the hatches and shot off back toward the ship. They made contact with the hangar and parked up across the launch bay. They exited and took the ghost ship crew up toward the bridge. Lee was ordered to stay in the hangar and make sure the longswords were ready and the boarding craft were in good enough condition to fly if bad came to worse. They heard the Captains voice boom over the speakers. “We are making contact with the hostile vessel in 4 minutes.” He checked the nearest longsword and replaced its fuel before the alarm rang out. He heard loud thumps reverberate through the hull as three MAC rounds flew from the ship. A view screen popped on at the far corner of the hangar and they were able to watch the battle. The three MAC rounds thundered across space as the first round hit and spun the ship in a clockwise direction. A silvery shimmering shield flickered across the ship and blinked out. They had shields?! The second round impacted and made a hole in the side of the ship and spinning it round even more. The third round hit directly on the nose and crumpled it. Explosions ripped through its hull as the nose pushed inward crushing multiple decks. The ship started spinning uncontrollably and explosions continued to rip through the hull as the atmosphere was sucked out of the ship.
“Report! Is the ship down?” “Yes sir, the ship is dead in space sir. We won.” “Get us back to Earth, we have to warn them. We have recorded the battle?” “Yes sir.” “Then get us back to Earth.” Jamie Dean spoke up. “No Captain, I know exactly what that ship was.” “And what ship would that be?” “Captain, it was a covenant ship.”
CHAPTER TWO: UPRISING
Location: ONI private ship, Minutes To Midnight
“I don’t like this at all. A report of a covenant ship in the Pegasus system? What else next?!” “I don’t like this either Admiral but something has to be done. We could maybe double patrols in that area?” “What good would that do?” “Well we could send out an attack force to scout out the area where the ghost ship drifted from in the past 2 weeks. Send out probes, we can monitor that part of space.” “Not a bad idea. Assemble a new fleet. I will lead it personally.” “Of course Admiral. We will scout out this area for additional covenant ships.”
Matthew Hilton had volunteered for the trip to the Pegasus system. Anything to get him off this boring Earth detail. He would go to the system, scout it out for aliens and be back home in a few months. It all seemed perfect. But Matthew didn’t know what was going to happen on that fateful journey. “Hey buddy.” “Morning marine. State your name, rank and serial number please.” “Lieutenant Matthew Hilton, 442367.” “Very good, you check out. Move along to the ship and enjoy the trip. Next!” He hefted his bag and moved up to the small craft that was slowly filling up with marines. After 9 more people got on, it lifted into the air and flew toward the hangar of the ship. He saw the name of the ship in huge letters on the side. The Aphrodite. He whistled, it was a huge ship. The MAC’s on that puppy could take down a row of destroyers. He received a private message showing him the way to his cabin. He walked down a widely spaced corridor with hundreds of other people still trying to get to their rooms. He heard a loud rumble and realised the ship was taking off. He saw his room number after 30 minutes of shoving past people. Once inside he unpacked and looked out of the window. He could see a fleet of fifty other ships flying alongside him. The nearest one was an explorer class strangely enough. All the other ships were cruisers or destroyers. Oh well. He activated the control that would block out the window and lay back on his bed. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Location: Sanghelios, Daschamand sector
The Daschamand sector was devoted to the party of transcendence. This meant that countless sangheili would not be forced into the military. In the past 10 years, the planet had broken. Many of his brothers thought that the covenant believed in something true and pure. These people had started their own form of government. The party of holy cleansing was known as the new covenant. The unggoy and the kig yar were conscripted into the new covenant as well as the Lekgolo. There were huge military movements within the planet and a fleet of ships had recently been spotted leaving the planet. The new covenant had been gathering an army large enough to start invading. Yanme were a common site as well. Literally half the planet had been divided from the other half. One half remaining neutral, and the other half being pure military based. Things like this could not go on. There was also a guild of assassin’s, recently spurred into action. The brothers of the darkness. They were devoted to stopping great rifts like these. The covenant were simply too big to be stopped, but the new covenant were still growing. Maybe they could cause panic among its governors and hopefully end the party.
Lee was in a trance of boredom as he watched the longswords flying in and out of the hangar over and over again. He shook his head and looked to his left. There was a display that had red dots moving at a steady pace for the centre of the display. He then heard the speakers crackle on. “All hands to battle stations. We have encountered covenant ships inbound. Prepare to engage ships.” Lee felt I flurry of adrenalin as he rushed into the repair bay and started work on refuelling the longswords. Looks like today wouldn’t be so boring after all.
Location: ONI private ship, Minutes To Midnight
“I don’t like this at all. A report of a covenant ship in the Pegasus system? What else next?!” “I don’t like this either Admiral but something has to be done. We could maybe double patrols in that area?” “What good would that do?” “Well we could send out an attack force to scout out the area where the ghost ship drifted from in the past 2 weeks. Send out probes, we can monitor that part of space.” “Not a bad idea. Assemble a new fleet. I will lead it personally.” “Of course Admiral. We will scout out this area for additional covenant ships.”
Matthew Hilton had volunteered for the trip to the Pegasus system. Anything to get him off this boring Earth detail. He would go to the system, scout it out for aliens and be back home in a few months. It all seemed perfect. But Matthew didn’t know what was going to happen on that fateful journey. “Hey buddy.” “Morning marine. State your name, rank and serial number please.” “Lieutenant Matthew Hilton, 442367.” “Very good, you check out. Move along to the ship and enjoy the trip. Next!” He hefted his bag and moved up to the small craft that was slowly filling up with marines. After 9 more people got on, it lifted into the air and flew toward the hangar of the ship. He saw the name of the ship in huge letters on the side. The Aphrodite. He whistled, it was a huge ship. The MAC’s on that puppy could take down a row of destroyers. He received a private message showing him the way to his cabin. He walked down a widely spaced corridor with hundreds of other people still trying to get to their rooms. He heard a loud rumble and realised the ship was taking off. He saw his room number after 30 minutes of shoving past people. Once inside he unpacked and looked out of the window. He could see a fleet of fifty other ships flying alongside him. The nearest one was an explorer class strangely enough. All the other ships were cruisers or destroyers. Oh well. He activated the control that would block out the window and lay back on his bed. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Location: Sanghelios, Daschamand sector
The Daschamand sector was devoted to the party of transcendence. This meant that countless sangheili would not be forced into the military. In the past 10 years, the planet had broken. Many of his brothers thought that the covenant believed in something true and pure. These people had started their own form of government. The party of holy cleansing was known as the new covenant. The unggoy and the kig yar were conscripted into the new covenant as well as the Lekgolo. There were huge military movements within the planet and a fleet of ships had recently been spotted leaving the planet. The new covenant had been gathering an army large enough to start invading. Yanme were a common site as well. Literally half the planet had been divided from the other half. One half remaining neutral, and the other half being pure military based. Things like this could not go on. There was also a guild of assassin’s, recently spurred into action. The brothers of the darkness. They were devoted to stopping great rifts like these. The covenant were simply too big to be stopped, but the new covenant were still growing. Maybe they could cause panic among its governors and hopefully end the party.
Lee was in a trance of boredom as he watched the longswords flying in and out of the hangar over and over again. He shook his head and looked to his left. There was a display that had red dots moving at a steady pace for the centre of the display. He then heard the speakers crackle on. “All hands to battle stations. We have encountered covenant ships inbound. Prepare to engage ships.” Lee felt I flurry of adrenalin as he rushed into the repair bay and started work on refuelling the longswords. Looks like today wouldn’t be so boring after all.
Location: Aboard UNSC cruiser, The Black Sand
Lee walked down to the fusion reactor that powered the ship and found it to be in excellent shape. It had been supplying power for years, how it had kept going this long was beyond Lee but at least it had kept some of the original crew alive. Wow! He couldn’t believe that they were all over a hundred years old but looked in their 30’s and 20’s. They were getting help on how to walk properly, that much time spent in the freezer could do things like that to you. He heard the ship speakers fill with static until they burst on. “Technician Lee Humphreys to the bridge immediately.” He turned toward the bridge and walked down the narrow corridor that led to the bridge.
Jacob had picked up an active object on the far range sensors. It was moving toward their position fast. It was too far away to hail. He leaned in closer to the blurry image on the radar and muttered to himself “What are you?” “Captain, ship doesn’t match any known UNSC ships. Suggest we try for old models?” “No, it’s moving too fast to be a dead ship.” “Sir, picking up spikes of energy coming from the edges of the ship. It has come close enough for us to get a clear image. Patching it through now.” The ensign pressed a button on his command panel and streamed an image to the Captains personal computer. He stared at the purple object and scratched his head. He took in all the details, purple, sleek, a bulbous shape. It had faint glows along its side. Those must be the source of the energy spikes. “Lieutenant, arm the MAC, now! I don’t like the look of this thing.” “Yes sir!” He heard rapid typing and a dull thud echoed through the hull as the MAC came online. “Targeting solutions online now ensign.” “Yes sir!” “Be ready for action. That is definitely not a UNSC ship. Try hailing it.” “This is the UNSC explorer, New Beginnings hailing unknown ship, please respond or prepare to be fired upon.” A crude and gruff voice boomed through the ship speakers. “Hahaha, Humans, prepare for your destruction at the hands of the Gods!” “All hands at battle stations, you heard that message and it sure as hell isn’t friendly.”
Lee could hear the recall to the ship. He ran back to the boarding craft with the rest of the search team and also the original crew. They shut the hatches and shot off back toward the ship. They made contact with the hangar and parked up across the launch bay. They exited and took the ghost ship crew up toward the bridge. Lee was ordered to stay in the hangar and make sure the longswords were ready and the boarding craft were in good enough condition to fly if bad came to worse. They heard the Captains voice boom over the speakers. “We are making contact with the hostile vessel in 4 minutes.” He checked the nearest longsword and replaced its fuel before the alarm rang out. He heard loud thumps reverberate through the hull as three MAC rounds flew from the ship. A view screen popped on at the far corner of the hangar and they were able to watch the battle. The three MAC rounds thundered across space as the first round hit and spun the ship in a clockwise direction. A silvery shimmering shield flickered across the ship and blinked out. They had shields?! The second round impacted and made a hole in the side of the ship and spinning it round even more. The third round hit directly on the nose and crumpled it. Explosions ripped through its hull as the nose pushed inward crushing multiple decks. The ship started spinning uncontrollably and explosions continued to rip through the hull as the atmosphere was sucked out of the ship.
“Report! Is the ship down?” “Yes sir, the ship is dead in space sir. We won.” “Get us back to Earth, we have to warn them. We have recorded the battle?” “Yes sir.” “Then get us back to Earth.” Jamie Dean spoke up. “No Captain, I know exactly what that ship was.” “And what ship would that be?” “Captain, it was a covenant ship.”
CHAPTER TWO: UPRISING
Location: ONI private ship, Minutes To Midnight
“I don’t like this at all. A report of a covenant ship in the Pegasus system? What else next?!” “I don’t like this either Admiral but something has to be done. We could maybe double patrols in that area?” “What good would that do?” “Well we could send out an attack force to scout out the area where the ghost ship drifted from in the past 2 weeks. Send out probes, we can monitor that part of space.” “Not a bad idea. Assemble a new fleet. I will lead it personally.” “Of course Admiral. We will scout out this area for additional covenant ships.”
Matthew Hilton had volunteered for the trip to the Pegasus system. Anything to get him off this boring Earth detail. He would go to the system, scout it out for aliens and be back home in a few months. It all seemed perfect. But Matthew didn’t know what was going to happen on that fateful journey. “Hey buddy.” “Morning marine. State your name, rank and serial number please.” “Lieutenant Matthew Hilton, 442367.” “Very good, you check out. Move along to the ship and enjoy the trip. Next!” He hefted his bag and moved up to the small craft that was slowly filling up with marines. After 9 more people got on, it lifted into the air and flew toward the hangar of the ship. He saw the name of the ship in huge letters on the side. The Aphrodite. He whistled, it was a huge ship. The MAC’s on that puppy could take down a row of destroyers. He received a private message showing him the way to his cabin. He walked down a widely spaced corridor with hundreds of other people still trying to get to their rooms. He heard a loud rumble and realised the ship was taking off. He saw his room number after 30 minutes of shoving past people. Once inside he unpacked and looked out of the window. He could see a fleet of fifty other ships flying alongside him. The nearest one was an explorer class strangely enough. All the other ships were cruisers or destroyers. Oh well. He activated the control that would block out the window and lay back on his bed. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Location: Sanghelios, Daschamand sector
The Daschamand sector was devoted to the party of transcendence. This meant that countless sangheili would not be forced into the military. In the past 10 years, the planet had broken. Many of his brothers thought that the covenant believed in something true and pure. These people had started their own form of government. The party of holy cleansing was known as the new covenant. The unggoy and the kig yar were conscripted into the new covenant as well as the Lekgolo. There were huge military movements within the planet and a fleet of ships had recently been spotted leaving the planet. The new covenant had been gathering an army large enough to start invading. Yanme were a common site as well. Literally half the planet had been divided from the other half. One half remaining neutral, and the other half being pure military based. Things like this could not go on. There was also a guild of assassin’s, recently spurred into action. The brothers of the darkness. They were devoted to stopping great rifts like these. The covenant were simply too big to be stopped, but the new covenant were still growing. Maybe they could cause panic among its governors and hopefully end the party.
Lee was in a trance of boredom as he watched the longswords flying in and out of the hangar over and over again. He shook his head and looked to his left. There was a display that had red dots moving at a steady pace for the centre of the display. He then heard the speakers crackle on. “All hands to battle stations. We have encountered covenant ships inbound. Prepare to engage ships.” Lee felt I flurry of adrenalin as he rushed into the repair bay and started work on refuelling the longswords. Looks like today wouldn’t be so boring after all.
Location: ONI private ship, Minutes To Midnight
“I don’t like this at all. A report of a covenant ship in the Pegasus system? What else next?!” “I don’t like this either Admiral but something has to be done. We could maybe double patrols in that area?” “What good would that do?” “Well we could send out an attack force to scout out the area where the ghost ship drifted from in the past 2 weeks. Send out probes, we can monitor that part of space.” “Not a bad idea. Assemble a new fleet. I will lead it personally.” “Of course Admiral. We will scout out this area for additional covenant ships.”
Matthew Hilton had volunteered for the trip to the Pegasus system. Anything to get him off this boring Earth detail. He would go to the system, scout it out for aliens and be back home in a few months. It all seemed perfect. But Matthew didn’t know what was going to happen on that fateful journey. “Hey buddy.” “Morning marine. State your name, rank and serial number please.” “Lieutenant Matthew Hilton, 442367.” “Very good, you check out. Move along to the ship and enjoy the trip. Next!” He hefted his bag and moved up to the small craft that was slowly filling up with marines. After 9 more people got on, it lifted into the air and flew toward the hangar of the ship. He saw the name of the ship in huge letters on the side. The Aphrodite. He whistled, it was a huge ship. The MAC’s on that puppy could take down a row of destroyers. He received a private message showing him the way to his cabin. He walked down a widely spaced corridor with hundreds of other people still trying to get to their rooms. He heard a loud rumble and realised the ship was taking off. He saw his room number after 30 minutes of shoving past people. Once inside he unpacked and looked out of the window. He could see a fleet of fifty other ships flying alongside him. The nearest one was an explorer class strangely enough. All the other ships were cruisers or destroyers. Oh well. He activated the control that would block out the window and lay back on his bed. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Location: Sanghelios, Daschamand sector
The Daschamand sector was devoted to the party of transcendence. This meant that countless sangheili would not be forced into the military. In the past 10 years, the planet had broken. Many of his brothers thought that the covenant believed in something true and pure. These people had started their own form of government. The party of holy cleansing was known as the new covenant. The unggoy and the kig yar were conscripted into the new covenant as well as the Lekgolo. There were huge military movements within the planet and a fleet of ships had recently been spotted leaving the planet. The new covenant had been gathering an army large enough to start invading. Yanme were a common site as well. Literally half the planet had been divided from the other half. One half remaining neutral, and the other half being pure military based. Things like this could not go on. There was also a guild of assassin’s, recently spurred into action. The brothers of the darkness. They were devoted to stopping great rifts like these. The covenant were simply too big to be stopped, but the new covenant were still growing. Maybe they could cause panic among its governors and hopefully end the party.
Lee was in a trance of boredom as he watched the longswords flying in and out of the hangar over and over again. He shook his head and looked to his left. There was a display that had red dots moving at a steady pace for the centre of the display. He then heard the speakers crackle on. “All hands to battle stations. We have encountered covenant ships inbound. Prepare to engage ships.” Lee felt I flurry of adrenalin as he rushed into the repair bay and started work on refuelling the longswords. Looks like today wouldn’t be so boring after all.
CHAPTER THREE: WAR
Lee was knocked to the floor as the ship shuddered from another impact. The red warning lights were illuminating the dark repair bay. The covenant had been defeated but then a hundred more ships broke through the slip stream and engaged them. They had lost over half of their ships. The covenant had only 50 ships left already. They would win but at a heavy price. He saw a line of alien plasma lance toward the Aphrodite. It hit her and she turned to the side as the impact knocked the ship off course. A thunderous amount of MAC rounds hit the lead alien ships, disintegrating hulls and crippling engines. The alien ships broke formation and were hit by heavy salvos of legionnaire missiles. They had the impact force of a prototype MAC cannon. The strongest ship combat missile ever developed. Ships exploded and careered into each other. The remaining 30 ships were enveloped by blue light and then they were gone.
Jacob saw the cowards retreat into slipspace. He laughed quietly to himself. “Should we follow them sir?” “Negative ensign, we won.” “Picking up move orders sir. Telling us to move to these coordinates.” “Set new heading.” “Yes sir, new heading set.”
Jamie Dean was staring at the walls of the cabin. He was in shock the doctor had said. He had been falling in and out of sleep. An explosion vibrated through the ship as a plasma torpedo struck them. He screamed and started shaking. He had remembered the last time he had felt a plasma torpedo hitting a ship. Nearly 60 years ago. He tried to stand but fell back on the bed again. He laid back and slowly felt his eyes closing. He stopped resisting and let the sleep take hold of him.
“We have to get back to Earth. We are too damaged to continue over.” “Roger that Aphrodite, you are cleared. Although I don’t think your ship will make it. Consider evacuating to another ship.” “Roger that sir, Aphrodite out.” Captain Purvis was worried about the state of his ship. A lot of the crew were dead from the explosions and the explosive decompressions. Half the ship was literally unoperational and he knew he wouldn’t make a slipspace jump that far. He sent all crew to the escape pods and got in the last one left with the rest of his bridge crew. As the door closed he whispered a goodbye to his faithful ship as the fail safes ripped it apart.
Matthew Hilton was worried about the ship when he saw miniature explosions rip through the hull. The ship imploded, scattering debris everywhere. He looked at the ship they were heading for. The New Beginnings. The explorer ship. *** it may have been an explorer ship but she was armed like a destroyer. He knew he would feel right at home on this ship. The boarding craft latched on and the doors opened to reveal a huge corridor.
Corporal William Gavin was proud of his heritage. He was descended from the great Patrick Gavin. Famous for being the only surviving member of alpha squad. He had died from natural causes 3 years ago and now William wanted to live up to his Grandfather. He fell asleep and awoke later to the sound of an alarm.
Captain Connor Metcalf was piloting the destroyer, Eiffel Tower. It was big but he hated the name, being British born and all. He saw 30 covenant ships appear out of slipspace in front of him. The MAC had been charged for some time now and he ordered targeting solutions. “Online sir, give em hell.” The MAC’s thundered and spewed projectiles at the lead alien frigates. 3 rounds hit the lead frigate. It exploded and destroyed the frigate next to it. Another 3 MAC rounds hit a battleship and sent it spinning through space. A few legionnaire missiles finished it off. The alien ships released a charge of plasma and destroyed 3 frigates, a cruiser and 4 battleships. They were severely weakened now. The aliens pushed forwards and were hit by a wave of MAC’s. 10 alien ships erupted and destroyed another 5 ships with the aftermath. The aliens had lost over half their ships already. They were attempting another jump out of the system. They all fired their missiles and destroyed 4 weakened destroyers. 8 alien ships were belching smoke and 3 of them exploded from within as fires reached somewhere critical. 5 alien ships managed to escape. Godamn they had won. The COM interceptor caught a message sent from the lead ship, Forgotten Voices. “This is the thunderstorm fleet, requesting more ships at our location now. We can’t continue with this current force. We have come under contact with enemy forces and have suffered heavy losses.” The report ended. The time until it arrived on Earth would be about 2 hours. That meant they had to wait for about 5 hours for the reinforcements. He sat back in the captain’s chair and fell asleep to dreams of a frigate exploding and taking a few others with it.
CHAPTER FOUR: THE SHIP YARD Location: Sangheili occupied space. The moon of the designated planet, Shantassnak
The name of the planet literally meant, divinity spectrum in the old sangheili language. The named ruler of the planet was the sangheili party of transcendence second in command, Inspu, Ratakam. He had ruled the planet with an iron fist. He had built many munitions factories and had placed a shipyard on the nearest orbiting moon. He had built a barracks spanning 300 miles across the biggest continent of the planet. It had its own transportation system and was more of a gargantuan metropolis. He was proud of the work he had done and the immense sizes of his factories and the shipyard itself covered half of the moon. The moon was amazingly rich in the materials needed for the ships and so was the planet itself. He had a huge fleet of over 500 ships ranging from the smallest radar ships to the biggest flagships. He was in orbit over the moon in the biggest flagship in the fleet, Rampant God. The name was considered blasphemy in most parts of the fleet but he cared not. It was a beautiful ship. Highly capable of shattering a planet into meteors. It had an extremely powerful weapon on board. The plasma orbital bombardment cannon. It fired a single ball of concentrated energy straight toward the planet. Once it hit, it did enough damage to shatter a planet completely. It had much the same effect a human nuclear device had done to a sangheili fleet and a nearby moon many years ago. Ratakam clambered into the energy shielded phantom awaiting him and descended toward one of the thousands of docking stations in the shipyard. He walked slowly out of the phantom and saw a group of sangheili technician’s bow before him. The honour guards ran past him and pushed the technician’s back away from him. He smiled at their cautiousness for his safety. He strolled past them and saw 2 black armoured hunters stand to attention as he walked past them. Of course everyone knew he was of great importance. It was hard to mistake him for anyone normal from his long purple robes and his ancient aesthetic armour. His helmet spikes shone in the bright illumination lights. The honour guards wore aesthetic armour to but they had red robes. Hidden underneath the robes were a dozen plasma grenades, 2 plasma rifles, a plasma pistol, and 2 energy swords. In their hands they carried the energy spears most of them favoured. They entered a large room filled with plasma conduits churning power to separate parts of the shipyard. The planet was incredibly rich in fore runner artefacts. They had relocated most of the artefacts to the museums on Sanghelios. In here there were many new forerunner glyphs inscribed on the walls which had yet to be deciphered. The sangheili had come into contact with humans outside the vicinity of the divine sanctum system. They had been crippled heavily by the human forces and they were scared. He was going to see his glorious leader and discuss with him the plans about possible things to do against the humans. They were known throughout Sanghelios as the holy Gods themselves, reincarnated. Ratakam himself saw it as a sin of the ultimate punishment to be fighting against the humans. He had his honour guards stand guard outside the door as he entered the personal code. As it opened, he and 2 other honour guards entered the room. He took hold of the energy blades handle and felt the shakes go away at the comforting feel of it. He sat down in front of the party of transcendence leader, Akau, Warack. He stared into Warack’s eyes before speaking. “What have you decided to do about the humans oh exalted one?” “I have decided to continue the war against them my young apprentice. They must learn not to underestimate us anymore.” “But sire that is heresy!” He felt like slicing his masters throat right here but knew he would have to wait. “Maybe it is heresy, maybe not. They may be ancestors of the Gods themselves but they are becoming too dangerous a threat to ignore. You saw what they did to a fleet that outnumbered them. It came back almost destroyed!” “But sire! They are not to be fought with. They will crush us.” “Exactly. We must take the fight to them first. Fight them on their own soil.” “But they are learning new technologies, with our help they will advance by hundreds of years. They will soon learn how to become like the Gods they once were. But only with our help.”
“My decision is final!” Warack’s voice boomed through the small office. “No, mine is.” With that the honour guards leapt onto the aged Sangheili and pinned him to the floor. Ratakam drew the energy sword and pointed it straight at Warack’s jugular. “Goodbye old friend.” “Do what you have to do, traitor. I will not stop you.” He thrust the energy sword downward and sliced open the throat of the Sangheili leader. Purple blood sprayed from the wound as Warack took his final breath before shuddering and finally dying. “Now I will lead this holy crusade as you so called it.”
CHAPTER FIVE: NEGOTIATIONS Location: 4th human colonized planet, Empire
It was a warm sunny day on Empire as 20 phantoms flew through the sky toward the palace. Civilians shielded their eyes from the sun as they looked up at the alien air craft travelling through the sky. The palace was big enough for the 20 phantoms to land and then the diplomacy would begin. The leader of the planet was stood waiting for the aliens to land. Specially trained guards surrounded the large garden and kept their high powered MK88 assault rifles hidden from view as the first alien ship opened and deposited a large group of honour guards. They made a large T shape formation and waited for the second ship to land. When it did an even bigger swarm of honour guards than the last swarmed out and made another formation of the same shape. Then a single figure walked off the ramp. He was wearing a long purple robe and an elongated helmet with very sharp looking spikes on either side of it which glistened brightly in the evening sun. The honour guards took up positions on either side of him as he walked up to the Emperor of the planet. He stood before him, a full 2 feet taller and bowed. The Emperor returned the gesture and escorted the alien into the palace. The honour guards followed close by. A phantom dropped off 4 hunter pairs in red armour and another ship dropped off green shielded jackals. They all stood outside nervously eyeing the humans searching for any hidden weapons. If any of them pointed a gun at each other, the peace would be shattered by many dead bodies. A hunter stared a human down and laughed quietly to itself. A group of grunts wearing green and black armour sat down in the grass and started to talk to each other about the awful food and the long hours. The last phantom deposited a huge amount of drones that weren’t allowed to fly off. They were ordered to be shot if they did. They had to walk and hover across the nearly full garden.
Inside the palace, Joseph Grimsley was very nervous as he led his alien guests through to the meeting room. They were incredibly fierce and tall. He bit his lip at the thought of fighting one of them. The aliens stood up as Joseph could see they had backwards knees. The translator he wore decoded the alien words that came out of the purple robed ones mouth. “We have come to your glorious planet today to offer you peace from our military and hopefully form an alliance with which we can give you technology and help you capture future planets.” “I have taken your offer into consideration and I have decided to allow an alliance of our two races.” “Very well human, we will begin our alliance with technology on your weapons. Please follow us to the flagship.” Joseph stood up and followed the aliens toward their dropships. He looked at all the other types of aliens outside. There were short grey skinned ones with a triangle shell on their backs. They wore black and green armour. There was reptilian bird like ones with a shimmering circular shield. They had purple armour and the shield was a green colour. Big 8 foot tall monsters with red armour and a large metal shield on one arm and a glowing cannon on the other. Giant insect like aliens darted from one shady area to another. They had green skin. He boarded the ship and watched the doors close. The ship lifted off toward space. He looked at one of the small grey skinned aliens and it looked into his eyes and gave a squeaky bark. It translated as “Hello God.” Joseph laughed loudly. “God? What do you mean God?” The elite nearest Joseph spoke up. “Our religion follows a race of people who vanished many years ago. We have learnt of the halo. The forerunner object that destroyed most of the flood and the forerunners themselves. We as well as another race, the san shyuum discovered our planets to be rich in the forerunner artefacts we coveted so much. We collected them and learnt from them. The san shyuum discovered a forerunner ship, the dreadnought. They claimed it for their own and performed sins against the very Gods themselves. They manipulated the artefacts to make better technology and then we waged war on them for their heresy. We eventually realised that the only way we could win against their superior technology would be to do what they did. Afterwards we formed an alliance and called ourselves: The covenant. A group of races who believed in the forerunners as Gods. We set out across the galaxy looking for the artefacts that would tell us more about these magnificent people. We then discovered your race. After a long and bloody war against you, we left you in peace. But during the final days of the Great War, we discovered you were descendants of the forerunners. The forerunners who managed to escape from the halo and make a new life on an unknown planet. In the past 10 years, our planet has been divided in 2 halves. But thanks to our great leader, we have joined back again. We have recently decided that it would be a terrible sin to fight against our Gods. We have allied with you, to worship you.” Joseph was at a loss for words. The human race was being worshipped by aliens. He heard the whine of the ships engines die down as it reached the hangar of the flagship. The doors slid open and revealed a busy hangar. Pink aliens on gas bladders floated up and down the hangar opening circuit boxes and extending their tentacles into them. He stared transfixed at the new alien. It looked so out of place.
They eventually came to a large room filled with the aliens with the spikes and the big shields. They walked around hunched up and one of them even roared at Joseph. He saw some of the small aliens with the shells throwing large rocks at some green worms. One of them squealed when it got a kill. He saw the big aliens sit down at a table. He sat down on the floor. The alien started to talk.
Back on the ground Gunnery Sergeant Daniels kept his rifle hidden from the aliens as they walked across the large garden. The big bastards with the shields were scaring him now. “Get a grip Daniels, your in the 14th ODST division for Christ’s sake.” A huge rumble sounded through the quiet garden as a massive ship appeared over the city. Hundreds of black dots appeared in the sky and they started to descend. He realised they were dropships. He pulled out his gun after he saw the reaction of the aliens. The big ones hunched up and bristled their spikes. The smaller ones tried to run away but were brought under control. The other humans pulled out their guns and took cover as one of the dropships came near them and opened fire. Plasma fire strafed a marine to Daniels right. He turned and ran into the palace. The big aliens fired their cannons and soon blew it out of the sky. He emerged out and started hearing emergency broadcasts on his COM. “I need help. They are everywhere. Someone get over here now! Oh ***, open fire!” “Need reinforcements- at these co- any assistance wi- be much- STOP! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Daniels was truly scared now. The aliens charged into the city to stop the new aliens. He hefted his MK88 and followed suit. The battle for Empire had begun.
CHAPTER SIX: THE BATTLE FOR EMPIRE Location: 4th human colonized planet, Empire Daniels was running down a chaotic street. Civilians were running from a threat Daniels couldn’t see. The aliens who were his allies were completely calm about this. Daniels had heard the news that the aliens worshipped his race. He had (he thought) his own personal bodyguards. Two of the big aliens with the spikes and cannons on their arms. They didn’t let him out of their sight. They even managed to stay with him through the rampaging hordes of civilians. They were very careful not to hurt anyone. Along the street, Daniels swore he saw a few dead ODST’s. But they were swept from his view by the tide of evacuees. After a few minutes of wading through the crowd, he stumbled upon hundreds of dead civilians. And behind the dead, were a massive horde of ape like aliens with black pistol like weapons with menacing looking spikes on the bottom of the gun. They were spraying wildly into the masses of civilians. They were being cut down by glowing red spikes at least the size of a 2 litre bottle. The liens next to him crouched behind their metal plates and charged their cannons. Daniels fired his MK88 at one of the apes faces. Its head exploded in a shower of red blood, which covered its friends in gore. The aliens next to him mercilessly cut down at least 4 of the apes. The fired his gun in bursts. It seemed to be very effective against their armour. They soon fell one by one as Daniels and the aliens fired an onslaught of plasma and lead. Daniels regrouped with a platoon of Regs and learned from an elite there the names of all the aliens including the attacking ones. At least now he knew what he was dealing with. The platoon were due to be moving out. They had 10 minutes at most to get ready. They had a few spiders (An AA vehicle much like wolverines.) and a dragonfly (A light armoured tank with a powerful cannon.) and 5 Sharks (A heavy armoured all terrain vehicle with enough space for 8 soldiers plus 2 guns on the back, a machine gun turret and a gauss turret.) They were due to move out now. Daniels boarded a sharks passenger seat and buckled up. It was time. In the distance there could be seen the flash of exploding artillery and the distant crump of shells. The shark drove off into the distance with the platoon and took the fight to the enemy. CHAPTER SEVEN: FOXTROT 5-9 “This is Foxtrot 5-9, is anyone reading me, over?” “I repeat, this is Foxtrot 5-9 is anyone read-” Daniels saw dead littering the streets. Civilians and soldiers alike. A shell screamed over their heads and landed behind a group of buildings. The Sergeant in the front of the Shark looked back at the 5 men with him. “Ok, we have received a distress signal from a group of men. Designation is Foxtrot 5-9. They then mysteriously cut out. We think they have been overrun but we can’t be sure. We have a large attack force heading towards the Yellow square. We think they were part of the local defence force. So, we rescue these men and take back Yellow Square in the process. Are you ready men?” “Sir yes Sir!” “Out fu**ing standing men!” The Shark veered sharply as a plasma mortar landed close by. Daniels saw a marine, Lloyd, get thrown out of the vehicle. “We need to move away from the mortar zone!” A scream filled the air and the Shark became wild. It swerved left and right. Daniels clambered over the seats to the front. “What the fu** are you doing?!?!” He grabbed the driver by the shoulder and his hand came away sticky with blood. A huge spike had lodged itself into his heart. “Sh**! Sir, the drivers down!” “Well then get in it marine!” Daniels climbed into the front and pulled the dead soldier into the back of the Shark. He put the vehicle in gear and corrected its course. He saw a group of the ape like Aliens in front of the vehicle. One of them roared and the group opened fire at the vehicles tires. A spike struck home and the Shark smashed into a wall. Daniels heard the horn blaring as his vision returned. He heard gunfire, the rattle of MK88’s. He felt around for his weapon and found an M10B Pistol. He sat up slowly and looked around. He saw his team under heavy fire from the Aliens. He saw a dead man lying against the wall. He had an MK88 in his hand. Daniels rushed from the vehicle and gasped at every spike that sliced the air in front of him. He dived behind the wall and scooped the rifle from the dead man. He fired a burst at an Alien that charged across the battle ground. Bullets ripped into it and it fell to the ground with a yell. His Sergeant was still alive. He motioned over the top of the barrier they were behind. “Hit ‘em hard!” The men clambered over the wall. They sprayed rapidly at the Aliens. One of them wearing dark blue armour fell to the floor. The other 3 retreated. “Ok shithead. TALK!” The Sergeant punched the Alien in the face. It grunted and spat at the Sergeant. The marines all had translator devices in. “Pathetic creatures! You think you can break me?!” “No, but we can give it a shot. Daniels, bring in the Bouncing Bee.” Daniels ran to the wreckage of the Shark and brought out a small cylinder with tiny black balls hanging on to it. Daniels planted it in the ground in front of the injured Brute. He armed it and they all retreated to a safe distance. “Daniels, when your ready.” Daniels pressed the detonator and the device launched into the air and exploded, sending shrapnel and titanium balls in a wide circle. Daniels peeked over the wall and saw blood coating the ground. He walked over to where the Brute had once been. Entrails were everywhere and a piece of the Brutes leg was dangling off a street sign. A roar filled the air and a Seagull (A gunship) hovered into sight. It flew over them and headed towards the city centre. Another 3 Seagulls followed it. The Sergeant opened his COM to the attack fleet. “This is Sergeant Clifford, can we get a Raven over here? We need pick up to Yellow Square.” “Negative Clifford. We have a 3 Spiders, 8 Dragonfly’s and a about 10 Sharks heading for your position. You will board a Shark or man the 50. Cal on a Dragonfly.” “Roger that Sir, Clifford out.” A Shark sped past them, followed by 7 more. The ground shook as a Dragonfly came into view. It stopped in front of the battle weary marines. “Heard you guys needed a lift.” The Captain of the Tank had popped open the hatch and was talking to them directly. “Umm, you! Get on the 50. And the rest of you can board the others.” Daniels climbed onto the Dragonfly and the rest of his team took their pick of the tanks. Daniels pulled the metal shield around him and the gun and got ready to fight. CHAPTER EIGHT: YELLOW SQUARE Daniels switched his radio to the local frequency so he could hear reports from the battle. He also had a radar so he could detect enemies. The metal shield around him and his gun was a great protection. The spikes couldn’t penetrate it. He didn’t need to worry about the regular infantry. Just the specialist infantry. They had anti-tank weaponry. “We have vehicles coming at us… Engaging.” We can’t hold ‘em off much longer!” “Reinforcements at the Hotel, immediately!” “Daniels, wake up! Targets North!” Daniels swung the gun North and saw a bunch of the Aliens retreating. They fired wildly at the infantry column. Daniels thumbed off the safety and let the weapon rip. He had to fire it in short bursts to stop it from swinging around. He saw Brute after Brute fall to the ground in a shower of blood. The main gun of the tank fired at a Brute vehicle. Weird looking thing. Had a big wheel at the front and the rest of it hovered. It also had two big guns on either side of it. The gun made short work of it however. The vehicle exploded in a shower of a yellow and orange and the driver was blown apart. YELLOW SQUARE Chris was prone in the wreckage of an old building. He was camouflaged rather well with a grey uniform on. His spotter, Erik, was picking up targets at a rapid rate. Chris looked out of his scope and saw a large column of Brute vehicles and infantry walking towards Yellow square. Chris looked again and saw a big Alien. It wore a very decorated headdress and wielded a vicious looking hammer. It was surrounded by body guards. “Chris! Take that one out, with the hammer.” “Roger that.” Chris sighted on the creatures head. It looked towards him. He swore it could see him. He pressed his finger to the trigger and flinched as the M77 fired a deadly bullet. The Aliens head exploded and covered its comrades in gore. It dropped to its knees and flopped to the ground, the whole while blood sprayed from the wound. The echo of the gun blast was only just dying out. “Sh**! Sergeant, I recommend we move, they know where the shot came from!” “I am aware of that Erik!” Chris strapped the M77 on to his back and ripped off his KR22. He stood and ran back from the building. He looked back at his former hiding spot and saw it explode in a flash of blue. Growls sounded outside. A lone Brute ran through into the building. Chris fired 2 three round bursts from his weapon and the Brute fell back into the wall in a sitting position. Blood came down in a trail where it had slid down. Chris saw a grenade fly into the wall near him. “***! Eri-” The grenade exploded and sent spikes flying in all directions. One of them stuck in the wall an inch from Chris’s face. He was panting heavily. He heard a roar outside and regained his senses. He ran out the back and saw Erik waiting for him across the street. He had his M77 out and was aiming at something across the street. He fired once, pulled back the bolt and fired again. He slid behind a ruined wall and reloaded. He motioned to Chris to run quickly. Chris ran to the wall where Erik had been and aimed back towards the house. 3 Brutes ran out. They saw Chris but were cut down in a few bursts from his KR22. He ran after Erik and saw him running out in the street in front of him. Spikes shot after him and one of them impaled him through the spine. He fell with a yelp to the ground. Chris looked on in horror as an Alien approached and fired a killing shot into his head. Chris ran into a house across the road and waited around the door. He heard heavy breathing and saw the hot, steamy breath of the Brute before it entered. As soon as it came into view, Chris had blown its brains over the walls. He sprinted down a corridor straight after and heard the sound of battle outside. He looked out of a window and saw a large group of Humans with Sharks and Dragonfly’s engaging the Brute convoy. A Group of 3 marines was wiped out by a mortar and a man clambered out of a Dragonfly before it was incinerated by a Wraith bombardment. The marine stumbled as he dodged incoming spikes. He ran into the building Chris was in. Daniels had climbed out of the tank when he had run out of bullets. He saw a Wraith fire a mortar into the air and he knew it had his name on it. He climbed off the turret and fell off the treads. He rolled and regained his footing. He ran and felt the heat as the mortar blew up his Dragonfly. He burst through a door that led into a house. Inside was another marine. A sniper. His patch said 3rd Recon and had the insignia of a man throwing thunderbolts. Daniel saw the Sergeant patch and saluted him. “Sir, I could use you’re help.” “What with private?” “Sniping. Help my squad.” “Ok son, where do you need me?” Chris was positioned in a church tower. He saw a target to his left. It had a Brute shot. He took aim and fired. The bullet travelled straight and true and smashed through its head. It dropped the weapon but fired it as it fell and the shot travelled into a Chopper. The vehicle was veered to the side and smashed into a group of Brutes. The wheel crushed a Brute. Its screams of agony could be heard over the din of the battle. Daniels was covering the entrance to the church. He heard the first shot and knew that after the third shot, the Brutes would attempt to kill him. He saw a Brute approach the church. He crouched down and unleashed a salvo from his MK88. Bullets ripped through the Aliens fragile armour and put it down for good. A second shot sounded and then a third. A large cluster of Brutes appeared around the corner. They hadn’t seen him. He opened a private com link to Chris. “Sir, there’s about 20 of them. I can kill about 5 but then I have to retreat. I recommend you wrap up there.” “Roger that.” Daniels took aim at the lead Brute. He fired his gun. Chris fired a fourth shot and saw a Brute fall down with blood spraying from its chest. A fifth shot brought down a Brute with a flamethrower. It landed on its fuel tank and the thing ignited. 3 Brutes near the flamethrower were incinerated. Chris fired his fifth bullet and a Brute staggered back, holding its entrails. “I can’t hold em off Sir, get out of there now!” Daniels killed his 4th Brute and took cover as spikes flew past his head. He threw a grenade and ran into the church. He turned back and planted a bouncing bee. He set the time detonator to 7 seconds. He shouted up the stairs to Chris. “Sir, we have to get out of here!” Chris ran down the stairs as fast as he could. When he reached the bottom, he heard a loud explosion and multiple roars of pain. A Brute head slid across the floor and settled itself in front of Chris. He kicked it away and ran after Daniels. Clifford was in a gauss turret. He fired at a Chopper and whooped as it burst into flames. He fired again and blew a Brute apart. He saw a marine in front of him get impaled by a spike to the throat. A Dragonfly next to him fired its main cannon and a Wraith exploded in a brilliant flash of blue. Clifford fired again and a Brute had its legs blown off. It crawled for a while before a Dragonfly crushed it with its treads. Clifford climbed out of the Shark as he saw the mass of the Brute army retreating. Large balls of plasma followed them. A large group of Phantoms swooped over the panicking Brutes. Followed by a column of Ghosts. Then the infantry came. Elites, Grunts, Jackals, Hunters. Everything was hitting them. Yellow Square would be won. This army that had just been beaten was the army that would be reinforcing its broken forces at Yellow Square. The leader of the operation, General Marsh, had sent 2 armies. One to the square and the others around it. A very tactical move as it allowed ambushes of the Brute support. CHAPTER NINE: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE Staff Sergeant Marcus Wensjoe nervously waited in the tree. He heard bird calls in the distance but also the sound of bombing. He saw his platoon face down in the grass with their ghilly suits on. Others like Marcus, were sat in trees with Stormers and M77’s. Marcus had a Stormer. He had opened it’s bipod on a large branch. He didn’t take his eyes off the sight. Other soldiers sat behind cover. They were the distraction. The Brutes would enter, see the men, open fire on them and then the men in the trees as well as the men in the grass would open up from behind. But there had been a snag. The Brute plans they had snatched had told of an attack through the jungle. But the Brutes were late. They were supposed to be there at Dawn, it was now Noon and nothing had been seen of them. A twig snapped suddenly. Marcus looked down and saw a Brute walking cautiously. A group of 5 followed him and then a group of 10. They had been facing the wrong way the whole time. The Brute army had walked into the grassy area where the ghilly suited men hid. A Brute gave a surprised roar but was shot in the face by an unseen soldier. The men in the Ghilly suits rose up and blasted shotguns into the Brutes. Many fell but they regained their composure quite quickly. Men started dying. Marcus yelled down his COM. “OPEN FIRE!!!!!!” He aimed his Stormer downward and sprayed at a cluster of Brutes. They were blown apart by the explosive rounds of the Stormer. The Brutes began to realise that they were in the trees. They fired wildly up and even got a few lucky hits. Marcus crawled as far back as he could to avoid the deadly spikes. He looked left and saw a marine take a spike to the head. He toppled from the tree with his rope. The rope snagged on a branch and the marine dangled from the rope. The Brutes were being beaten badly. There were only a handful left and they were taking a lot of hits. They had started throwing incendiary grenades at the trees nearest them. Marcus saw a glowing ball of flame heading straight for his tree. He jumped off just as the tree burst into flame. As he landed, he heard a crack and pain surged up his leg. He looked down at his leg and saw bloody bone poking out of it. He gasped wildly as he thought of how the Brutes would kill him. He saw one of them loom over him. It grinned and bore down on him with a knife. Marcus felt around for something, anything. He found it. He lifted the object up and hit the Brute in the face with it. It gave a grunt and rolled off him. It spat out blood and charged him. Marcus had picked up a large rock. He threw it at the beast as it charged. The Brute stumbled and tripped. It landed right on top of Marcus. Marcus drew out his knife and quickly stabbed the monster as it tried to get back up. The knife stuck in it’s throat and refused to come back out. The Brute was silent as it breathed it’s last breath. Marcus crawled away as the sounds of battle became quieter and quieter. He looked back and saw his men running at him. One of them stopped in front of him and began to administer first aid. Marcus would make it out after all. CHAPTER TEN: CALL ME RAWLINS “Seagull one nine reporting a heavy concentration of Brute vehicles in the civilian zone. Requesting reinforcements to save those civilians. Dropping off my load. Over.” Williams dropped from the Gunship and ran forward with the rest of his squad. They looked up to him for his lieutenant badge. He was also proud to lead them. He saw a group of civilians lay on the floor. A Brute was walking around them, making menacing movements with the wicked looking blade it held. Before he could react, it sliced downward decapitating a hostage. The others screamed as the Alien circled them laughing. Williams fired a burst from his KR22 and the brute was holding a wound in it’s head. It pulled away it’s hand, felt the blood and then dropped with a sigh. The civilians heaped praise on the soldiers as they were freed from the magnet like holding devices that were strapped to their arms and legs. They ran as fast as they could away from the Brute body. Williams ran forward to the sound of gunfire. A Dragonfly had wandered through to the street that was filled to the brim with Brute infantry. It fired a shell at a building and the building collapsed on a few of the Brutes taking cover behind cars. Williams motioned towards an old cinema. In the top window, a Brute was firing at the tank with a Brute Shot. The Dragonfly’s armour was dented in a part. If the Brute kept up the fire, they were dead. His men ran forward through the side of the battle. A Brute took a bullet from the Stormer in the throat and sprayed blood on his comrades. Williams winced at the sight and ran into the building. Up the stairs, the Brute was reloading and failed to spot the trio of grenades that flew through the crack in the door. The grenades detonated and the Brute roared in surprise as it was blown in half. Williams charged through the door and looked out of the window. A Brute was blown apart by the tanks main gun and a few others were cut down by the Stormer on the front. The Aliens threw grenades at the tank but to no effect. They retreated back at the command of a gold armour Alien. The tank fired a departing shell at them and stopped in the middle of a road. The hatch opened and the Captain in the tank looked up towards the cinema. He saw the soldiers. He waved and the men waved back. The Captain pointed through the street. The soldiers nodded and vanished from sight. Williams ushered his soldiers out of the door and up to the tank. “Evening Lieutenant, nice weather huh?” “Yes Sir. So where we heading?” “Cut the Sir sh** kid, call me Rawlins. I like it better.” “Yes Rawlins. How are we doing on the other side?” “Our guys cut through the vehicles and are mopping up the stragglers. But we have word the main bulk of the retreating army is heading right for us. So I called in for reinforcements. We have a sh** load of boys coming in with fire support and mines. Maybe even a few Bees. I love those little bastards!” The sound of the approaching Brutes was audible even over the roar of the Spider AA vehicles. They were pounding the heck out of the Brute rearguard so that the army could push through. The vehicles stopped as the first few forward elements of the Brute army clambered over the debris wall set up by the Marines. The Stormers set up on the wall near Williams opened up and cut them down almost instantly. But then more came over. And then more. And more. A marine next to Williams was shot through the chest. He gasped as the impact knocked him backward onto another soldier. The Dragonfly fired its turret and fired its own machine gun. A Brute had a menacing looking weapon with a massive rocket protruding from the tube. It aimed and fired. The rocket soared over the tank. “Williams! Kill that ***** with the rocket!” Williams fired repeatedly at the Brute. It had not taken cover when it was reloading. The bullets knocked it flat on its back. As it tried to raise, the tank fired and blew the Brute to pieces. A Banshee swooped over the Brute army and unleashed a deadly torrent of plasma and a torpedo. The Brutes hurriedly fired at it and panicked as more of the aircraft flew over and devastated the ranks. That’s when the Brutes got worried. They were shooting wildly now. Some still managed to kill a soldier but they weren’t as good all of a sudden. The Brutes began yelling and firing into their own ranks. It became evident why when a few Ghosts burst through the huddled mass of Brutes and crushed most of them. The Covenant had come to help them. Williams shot a burst at a Brute crawling for a rocket launcher. Blood exploded from its head violently. Williams smiled at the kill and turned his attention to the Covenant attack. A few plasma mortars began landing in them. This battle was over. As Williams turned to get some rest, a lone shot rang out. He didn’t know why he managed to hear the shot over the screaming of dying Brutes and the wails of the Banshees, but he did. A spike flew over the barbed wire defence, inches past a marines head, deflected off the tank… And lodged itself into the back of Williams throat. He wheezed as he fell to the floor clutching the wound. Blood seeped around him in a puddle as the world got darker. He swore he heard a voice. “WILLIAMS! CALL FOR E-! Sh**!” Location: 4th human colonized planet, Empire
It was a warm sunny day on Empire as 20 phantoms flew through the sky toward the palace. Civilians shielded their eyes from the sun as they looked up at the alien air craft travelling through the sky. The palace was big enough for the 20 phantoms to land and then the diplomacy would begin. The leader of the planet was stood waiting for the aliens to land. Specially trained guards surrounded the large garden and kept their high powered MK88 assault rifles hidden from view as the first alien ship opened and deposited a large group of honour guards. They made a large T shape formation and waited for the second ship to land. When it did an even bigger swarm of honour guards than the last swarmed out and made another formation of the same shape. Then a single figure walked off the ramp. He was wearing a long purple robe and an elongated helmet with very sharp looking spikes on either side of it which glistened brightly in the evening sun. The honour guards took up positions on either side of him as he walked up to the Emperor of the planet. He stood before him, a full 2 feet taller and bowed. The Emperor returned the gesture and escorted the alien into the palace. The honour guards followed close by. A phantom dropped off 4 hunter pairs in red armour and another ship dropped off green shielded jackals. They all stood outside nervously eyeing the humans searching for any hidden weapons. If any of them pointed a gun at each other, the peace would be shattered by many dead bodies. A hunter stared a human down and laughed quietly to itself. A group of grunts wearing green and black armour sat down in the grass and started to talk to each other about the awful food and the long hours. The last phantom deposited a huge amount of drones that weren’t allowed to fly off. They were ordered to be shot if they did. They had to walk and hover across the nearly full garden.
Inside the palace, Joseph Grimsley was very nervous as he led his alien guests through to the meeting room. They were incredibly fierce and tall. He bit his lip at the thought of fighting one of them. The aliens stood up as Joseph could see they had backwards knees. The translator he wore decoded the alien words that came out of the purple robed ones mouth. “We have come to your glorious planet today to offer you peace from our military and hopefully form an alliance with which we can give you technology and help you capture future planets.” “I have taken your offer into consideration and I have decided to allow an alliance of our two races.” “Very well human, we will begin our alliance with technology on your weapons. Please follow us to the flagship.” Joseph stood up and followed the aliens toward their dropships. He looked at all the other types of aliens outside. There were short grey skinned ones with a triangle shell on their backs. They wore black and green armour. There was reptilian bird like ones with a shimmering circular shield. They had purple armour and the shield was a green colour. Big 8 foot tall monsters with red armour and a large metal shield on one arm and a glowing cannon on the other. Giant insect like aliens darted from one shady area to another. They had green skin. He boarded the ship and watched the doors close. The ship lifted off toward space. He looked at one of the small grey skinned aliens and it looked into his eyes and gave a squeaky bark. It translated as “Hello God.” Joseph laughed loudly. “God? What do you mean God?” The elite nearest Joseph spoke up. “Our religion follows a race of people who vanished many years ago. We have learnt of the halo. The forerunner object that destroyed most of the flood and the forerunners themselves. We as well as another race, the san shyuum discovered our planets to be rich in the forerunner artefacts we coveted so much. We collected them and learnt from them. The san shyuum discovered a forerunner ship, the dreadnought. They claimed it for their own and performed sins against the very Gods themselves. They manipulated the artefacts to make better technology and then we waged war on them for their heresy. We eventually realised that the only way we could win against their superior technology would be to do what they did. Afterwards we formed an alliance and called ourselves: The covenant. A group of races who believed in the forerunners as Gods. We set out across the galaxy looking for the artefacts that would tell us more about these magnificent people. We then discovered your race. After a long and bloody war against you, we left you in peace. But during the final days of the Great War, we discovered you were descendants of the forerunners. The forerunners who managed to escape from the halo and make a new life on an unknown planet. In the past 10 years, our planet has been divided in 2 halves. But thanks to our great leader, we have joined back again. We have recently decided that it would be a terrible sin to fight against our Gods. We have allied with you, to worship you.” Joseph was at a loss for words. The human race was being worshipped by aliens. He heard the whine of the ships engines die down as it reached the hangar of the flagship. The doors slid open and revealed a busy hangar. Pink aliens on gas bladders floated up and down the hangar opening circuit boxes and extending their tentacles into them. He stared transfixed at the new alien. It looked so out of place.
They eventually came to a large room filled with the aliens with the spikes and the big shields. They walked around hunched up and one of them even roared at Joseph. He saw some of the small aliens with the shells throwing large rocks at some green worms. One of them squealed when it got a kill. He saw the big aliens sit down at a table. He sat down on the floor. The alien started to talk.
Back on the ground Gunnery Sergeant Daniels kept his rifle hidden from the aliens as they walked across the large garden. The big bastards with the shields were scaring him now. “Get a grip Daniels, your in the 14th ODST division for Christ’s sake.” A huge rumble sounded through the quiet garden as a massive ship appeared over the city. Hundreds of black dots appeared in the sky and they started to descend. He realised they were dropships. He pulled out his gun after he saw the reaction of the aliens. The big ones hunched up and bristled their spikes. The smaller ones tried to run away but were brought under control. The other humans pulled out their guns and took cover as one of the dropships came near them and opened fire. Plasma fire strafed a marine to Daniels right. He turned and ran into the palace. The big aliens fired their cannons and soon blew it out of the sky. He emerged out and started hearing emergency broadcasts on his COM. “I need help. They are everywhere. Someone get over here now! Oh ***, open fire!” “Need reinforcements- at these co- any assistance wi- be much- STOP! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Daniels was truly scared now. The aliens charged into the city to stop the new aliens. He hefted his MK88 and followed suit. The battle for Empire had begun.
CHAPTER SIX: THE BATTLE FOR EMPIRE Location: 4th human colonized planet, Empire Daniels was running down a chaotic street. Civilians were running from a threat Daniels couldn’t see. The aliens who were his allies were completely calm about this. Daniels had heard the news that the aliens worshipped his race. He had (he thought) his own personal bodyguards. Two of the big aliens with the spikes and cannons on their arms. They didn’t let him out of their sight. They even managed to stay with him through the rampaging hordes of civilians. They were very careful not to hurt anyone. Along the street, Daniels swore he saw a few dead ODST’s. But they were swept from his view by the tide of evacuees. After a few minutes of wading through the crowd, he stumbled upon hundreds of dead civilians. And behind the dead, were a massive horde of ape like aliens with black pistol like weapons with menacing looking spikes on the bottom of the gun. They were spraying wildly into the masses of civilians. They were being cut down by glowing red spikes at least the size of a 2 litre bottle. The liens next to him crouched behind their metal plates and charged their cannons. Daniels fired his MK88 at one of the apes faces. Its head exploded in a shower of red blood, which covered its friends in gore. The aliens next to him mercilessly cut down at least 4 of the apes. The fired his gun in bursts. It seemed to be very effective against their armour. They soon fell one by one as Daniels and the aliens fired an onslaught of plasma and lead. Daniels regrouped with a platoon of Regs and learned from an elite there the names of all the aliens including the attacking ones. At least now he knew what he was dealing with. The platoon were due to be moving out. They had 10 minutes at most to get ready. They had a few spiders (An AA vehicle much like wolverines.) and a dragonfly (A light armoured tank with a powerful cannon.) and 5 Sharks (A heavy armoured all terrain vehicle with enough space for 8 soldiers plus 2 guns on the back, a machine gun turret and a gauss turret.) They were due to move out now. Daniels boarded a sharks passenger seat and buckled up. It was time. In the distance there could be seen the flash of exploding artillery and the distant crump of shells. The shark drove off into the distance with the platoon and took the fight to the enemy. CHAPTER SEVEN: FOXTROT 5-9 “This is Foxtrot 5-9, is anyone reading me, over?” “I repeat, this is Foxtrot 5-9 is anyone read-” Daniels saw dead littering the streets. Civilians and soldiers alike. A shell screamed over their heads and landed behind a group of buildings. The Sergeant in the front of the Shark looked back at the 5 men with him. “Ok, we have received a distress signal from a group of men. Designation is Foxtrot 5-9. They then mysteriously cut out. We think they have been overrun but we can’t be sure. We have a large attack force heading towards the Yellow square. We think they were part of the local defence force. So, we rescue these men and take back Yellow Square in the process. Are you ready men?” “Sir yes Sir!” “Out fu**ing standing men!” The Shark veered sharply as a plasma mortar landed close by. Daniels saw a marine, Lloyd, get thrown out of the vehicle. “We need to move away from the mortar zone!” A scream filled the air and the Shark became wild. It swerved left and right. Daniels clambered over the seats to the front. “What the fu** are you doing?!?!” He grabbed the driver by the shoulder and his hand came away sticky with blood. A huge spike had lodged itself into his heart. “Sh**! Sir, the drivers down!” “Well then get in it marine!” Daniels climbed into the front and pulled the dead soldier into the back of the Shark. He put the vehicle in gear and corrected its course. He saw a group of the ape like Aliens in front of the vehicle. One of them roared and the group opened fire at the vehicles tires. A spike struck home and the Shark smashed into a wall. Daniels heard the horn blaring as his vision returned. He heard gunfire, the rattle of MK88’s. He felt around for his weapon and found an M10B Pistol. He sat up slowly and looked around. He saw his team under heavy fire from the Aliens. He saw a dead man lying against the wall. He had an MK88 in his hand. Daniels rushed from the vehicle and gasped at every spike that sliced the air in front of him. He dived behind the wall and scooped the rifle from the dead man. He fired a burst at an Alien that charged across the battle ground. Bullets ripped into it and it fell to the ground with a yell. His Sergeant was still alive. He motioned over the top of the barrier they were behind. “Hit ‘em hard!” The men clambered over the wall. They sprayed rapidly at the Aliens. One of them wearing dark blue armour fell to the floor. The other 3 retreated. “Ok shithead. TALK!” The Sergeant punched the Alien in the face. It grunted and spat at the Sergeant. The marines all had translator devices in. “Pathetic creatures! You think you can break me?!” “No, but we can give it a shot. Daniels, bring in the Bouncing Bee.” Daniels ran to the wreckage of the Shark and brought out a small cylinder with tiny black balls hanging on to it. Daniels planted it in the ground in front of the injured Brute. He armed it and they all retreated to a safe distance. “Daniels, when your ready.” Daniels pressed the detonator and the device launched into the air and exploded, sending shrapnel and titanium balls in a wide circle. Daniels peeked over the wall and saw blood coating the ground. He walked over to where the Brute had once been. Entrails were everywhere and a piece of the Brutes leg was dangling off a street sign. A roar filled the air and a Seagull (A gunship) hovered into sight. It flew over them and headed towards the city centre. Another 3 Seagulls followed it. The Sergeant opened his COM to the attack fleet. “This is Sergeant Clifford, can we get a Raven over here? We need pick up to Yellow Square.” “Negative Clifford. We have a 3 Spiders, 8 Dragonfly’s and a about 10 Sharks heading for your position. You will board a Shark or man the 50. Cal on a Dragonfly.” “Roger that Sir, Clifford out.” A Shark sped past them, followed by 7 more. The ground shook as a Dragonfly came into view. It stopped in front of the battle weary marines. “Heard you guys needed a lift.” The Captain of the Tank had popped open the hatch and was talking to them directly. “Umm, you! Get on the 50. And the rest of you can board the others.” Daniels climbed onto the Dragonfly and the rest of his team took their pick of the tanks. Daniels pulled the metal shield around him and the gun and got ready to fight. CHAPTER EIGHT: YELLOW SQUARE Daniels switched his radio to the local frequency so he could hear reports from the battle. He also had a radar so he could detect enemies. The metal shield around him and his gun was a great protection. The spikes couldn’t penetrate it. He didn’t need to worry about the regular infantry. Just the specialist infantry. They had anti-tank weaponry. “We have vehicles coming at us… Engaging.” We can’t hold ‘em off much longer!” “Reinforcements at the Hotel, immediately!” “Daniels, wake up! Targets North!” Daniels swung the gun North and saw a bunch of the Aliens retreating. They fired wildly at the infantry column. Daniels thumbed off the safety and let the weapon rip. He had to fire it in short bursts to stop it from swinging around. He saw Brute after Brute fall to the ground in a shower of blood. The main gun of the tank fired at a Brute vehicle. Weird looking thing. Had a big wheel at the front and the rest of it hovered. It also had two big guns on either side of it. The gun made short work of it however. The vehicle exploded in a shower of a yellow and orange and the driver was blown apart. YELLOW SQUARE Chris was prone in the wreckage of an old building. He was camouflaged rather well with a grey uniform on. His spotter, Erik, was picking up targets at a rapid rate. Chris looked out of his scope and saw a large column of Brute vehicles and infantry walking towards Yellow square. Chris looked again and saw a big Alien. It wore a very decorated headdress and wielded a vicious looking hammer. It was surrounded by body guards. “Chris! Take that one out, with the hammer.” “Roger that.” Chris sighted on the creatures head. It looked towards him. He swore it could see him. He pressed his finger to the trigger and flinched as the M77 fired a deadly bullet. The Aliens head exploded and covered its comrades in gore. It dropped to its knees and flopped to the ground, the whole while blood sprayed from the wound. The echo of the gun blast was only just dying out. “Sh**! Sergeant, I recommend we move, they know where the shot came from!” “I am aware of that Erik!” Chris strapped the M77 on to his back and ripped off his KR22. He stood and ran back from the building. He looked back at his former hiding spot and saw it explode in a flash of blue. Growls sounded outside. A lone Brute ran through into the building. Chris fired 2 three round bursts from his weapon and the Brute fell back into the wall in a sitting position. Blood came down in a trail where it had slid down. Chris saw a grenade fly into the wall near him. “***! Eri-” The grenade exploded and sent spikes flying in all directions. One of them stuck in the wall an inch from Chris’s face. He was panting heavily. He heard a roar outside and regained his senses. He ran out the back and saw Erik waiting for him across the street. He had his M77 out and was aiming at something across the street. He fired once, pulled back the bolt and fired again. He slid behind a ruined wall and reloaded. He motioned to Chris to run quickly. Chris ran to the wall where Erik had been and aimed back towards the house. 3 Brutes ran out. They saw Chris but were cut down in a few bursts from his KR22. He ran after Erik and saw him running out in the street in front of him. Spikes shot after him and one of them impaled him through the spine. He fell with a yelp to the ground. Chris looked on in horror as an Alien approached and fired a killing shot into his head. Chris ran into a house across the road and waited around the door. He heard heavy breathing and saw the hot, steamy breath of the Brute before it entered. As soon as it came into view, Chris had blown its brains over the walls. He sprinted down a corridor straight after and heard the sound of battle outside. He looked out of a window and saw a large group of Humans with Sharks and Dragonfly’s engaging the Brute convoy. A Group of 3 marines was wiped out by a mortar and a man clambered out of a Dragonfly before it was incinerated by a Wraith bombardment. The marine stumbled as he dodged incoming spikes. He ran into the building Chris was in. Daniels had climbed out of the tank when he had run out of bullets. He saw a Wraith fire a mortar into the air and he knew it had his name on it. He climbed off the turret and fell off the treads. He rolled and regained his footing. He ran and felt the heat as the mortar blew up his Dragonfly. He burst through a door that led into a house. Inside was another marine. A sniper. His patch said 3rd Recon and had the insignia of a man throwing thunderbolts. Daniel saw the Sergeant patch and saluted him. “Sir, I could use you’re help.” “What with private?” “Sniping. Help my squad.” “Ok son, where do you need me?” Chris was positioned in a church tower. He saw a target to his left. It had a Brute shot. He took aim and fired. The bullet travelled straight and true and smashed through its head. It dropped the weapon but fired it as it fell and the shot travelled into a Chopper. The vehicle was veered to the side and smashed into a group of Brutes. The wheel crushed a Brute. Its screams of agony could be heard over the din of the battle. Daniels was covering the entrance to the church. He heard the first shot and knew that after the third shot, the Brutes would attempt to kill him. He saw a Brute approach the church. He crouched down and unleashed a salvo from his MK88. Bullets ripped through the Aliens fragile armour and put it down for good. A second shot sounded and then a third. A large cluster of Brutes appeared around the corner. They hadn’t seen him. He opened a private com link to Chris. “Sir, there’s about 20 of them. I can kill about 5 but then I have to retreat. I recommend you wrap up there.” “Roger that.” Daniels took aim at the lead Brute. He fired his gun. Chris fired a fourth shot and saw a Brute fall down with blood spraying from its chest. A fifth shot brought down a Brute with a flamethrower. It landed on its fuel tank and the thing ignited. 3 Brutes near the flamethrower were incinerated. Chris fired his fifth bullet and a Brute staggered back, holding its entrails. “I can’t hold em off Sir, get out of there now!” Daniels killed his 4th Brute and took cover as spikes flew past his head. He threw a grenade and ran into the church. He turned back and planted a bouncing bee. He set the time detonator to 7 seconds. He shouted up the stairs to Chris. “Sir, we have to get out of here!” Chris ran down the stairs as fast as he could. When he reached the bottom, he heard a loud explosion and multiple roars of pain. A Brute head slid across the floor and settled itself in front of Chris. He kicked it away and ran after Daniels. Clifford was in a gauss turret. He fired at a Chopper and whooped as it burst into flames. He fired again and blew a Brute apart. He saw a marine in front of him get impaled by a spike to the throat. A Dragonfly next to him fired its main cannon and a Wraith exploded in a brilliant flash of blue. Clifford fired again and a Brute had its legs blown off. It crawled for a while before a Dragonfly crushed it with its treads. Clifford climbed out of the Shark as he saw the mass of the Brute army retreating. Large balls of plasma followed them. A large group of Phantoms swooped over the panicking Brutes. Followed by a column of Ghosts. Then the infantry came. Elites, Grunts, Jackals, Hunters. Everything was hitting them. Yellow Square would be won. This army that had just been beaten was the army that would be reinforcing its broken forces at Yellow Square. The leader of the operation, General Marsh, had sent 2 armies. One to the square and the others around it. A very tactical move as it allowed ambushes of the Brute support. CHAPTER NINE: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE Staff Sergeant Marcus Wensjoe nervously waited in the tree. He heard bird calls in the distance but also the sound of bombing. He saw his platoon face down in the grass with their ghilly suits on. Others like Marcus, were sat in trees with Stormers and M77’s. Marcus had a Stormer. He had opened it’s bipod on a large branch. He didn’t take his eyes off the sight. Other soldiers sat behind cover. They were the distraction. The Brutes would enter, see the men, open fire on them and then the men in the trees as well as the men in the grass would open up from behind. But there had been a snag. The Brute plans they had snatched had told of an attack through the jungle. But the Brutes were late. They were supposed to be there at Dawn, it was now Noon and nothing had been seen of them. A twig snapped suddenly. Marcus looked down and saw a Brute walking cautiously. A group of 5 followed him and then a group of 10. They had been facing the wrong way the whole time. The Brute army had walked into the grassy area where the ghilly suited men hid. A Brute gave a surprised roar but was shot in the face by an unseen soldier. The men in the Ghilly suits rose up and blasted shotguns into the Brutes. Many fell but they regained their composure quite quickly. Men started dying. Marcus yelled down his COM. “OPEN FIRE!!!!!!” He aimed his Stormer downward and sprayed at a cluster of Brutes. They were blown apart by the explosive rounds of the Stormer. The Brutes began to realise that they were in the trees. They fired wildly up and even got a few lucky hits. Marcus crawled as far back as he could to avoid the deadly spikes. He looked left and saw a marine take a spike to the head. He toppled from the tree with his rope. The rope snagged on a branch and the marine dangled from the rope. The Brutes were being beaten badly. There were only a handful left and they were taking a lot of hits. They had started throwing incendiary grenades at the trees nearest them. Marcus saw a glowing ball of flame heading straight for his tree. He jumped off just as the tree burst into flame. As he landed, he heard a crack and pain surged up his leg. He looked down at his leg and saw bloody bone poking out of it. He gasped wildly as he thought of how the Brutes would kill him. He saw one of them loom over him. It grinned and bore down on him with a knife. Marcus felt around for something, anything. He found it. He lifted the object up and hit the Brute in the face with it. It gave a grunt and rolled off him. It spat out blood and charged him. Marcus had picked up a large rock. He threw it at the beast as it charged. The Brute stumbled and tripped. It landed right on top of Marcus. Marcus drew out his knife and quickly stabbed the monster as it tried to get back up. The knife stuck in it’s throat and refused to come back out. The Brute was silent as it breathed it’s last breath. Marcus crawled away as the sounds of battle became quieter and quieter. He looked back and saw his men running at him. One of them stopped in front of him and began to administer first aid. Marcus would make it out after all. CHAPTER TEN: CALL ME RAWLINS “Seagull one nine reporting a heavy concentration of Brute vehicles in the civilian zone. Requesting reinforcements to save those civilians. Dropping off my load. Over.” Williams dropped from the Gunship and ran forward with the rest of his squad. They looked up to him for his lieutenant badge. He was also proud to lead them. He saw a group of civilians lay on the floor. A Brute was walking around them, making menacing movements with the wicked looking blade it held. Before he could react, it sliced downward decapitating a hostage. The others screamed as the Alien circled them laughing. Williams fired a burst from his KR22 and the brute was holding a wound in it’s head. It pulled away it’s hand, felt the blood and then dropped with a sigh. The civilians heaped praise on the soldiers as they were freed from the magnet like holding devices that were strapped to their arms and legs. They ran as fast as they could away from the Brute body. Williams ran forward to the sound of gunfire. A Dragonfly had wandered through to the street that was filled to the brim with Brute infantry. It fired a shell at a building and the building collapsed on a few of the Brutes taking cover behind cars. Williams motioned towards an old cinema. In the top window, a Brute was firing at the tank with a Brute Shot. The Dragonfly’s armour was dented in a part. If the Brute kept up the fire, they were dead. His men ran forward through the side of the battle. A Brute took a bullet from the Stormer in the throat and sprayed blood on his comrades. Williams winced at the sight and ran into the building. Up the stairs, the Brute was reloading and failed to spot the trio of grenades that flew through the crack in the door. The grenades detonated and the Brute roared in surprise as it was blown in half. Williams charged through the door and looked out of the window. A Brute was blown apart by the tanks main gun and a few others were cut down by the Stormer on the front. The Aliens threw grenades at the tank but to no effect. They retreated back at the command of a gold armour Alien. The tank fired a departing shell at them and stopped in the middle of a road. The hatch opened and the Captain in the tank looked up towards the cinema. He saw the soldiers. He waved and the men waved back. The Captain pointed through the street. The soldiers nodded and vanished from sight. Williams ushered his soldiers out of the door and up to the tank. “Evening Lieutenant, nice weather huh?” “Yes Sir. So where we heading?” “Cut the Sir sh** kid, call me Rawlins. I like it better.” “Yes Rawlins. How are we doing on the other side?” “Our guys cut through the vehicles and are mopping up the stragglers. But we have word the main bulk of the retreating army is heading right for us. So I called in for reinforcements. We have a sh** load of boys coming in with fire support and mines. Maybe even a few Bees. I love those little bastards!” The sound of the approaching Brutes was audible even over the roar of the Spider AA vehicles. They were pounding the heck out of the Brute rearguard so that the army could push through. The vehicles stopped as the first few forward elements of the Brute army clambered over the debris wall set up by the Marines. The Stormers set up on the wall near Williams opened up and cut them down almost instantly. But then more came over. And then more. And more. A marine next to Williams was shot through the chest. He gasped as the impact knocked him backward onto another soldier. The Dragonfly fired its turret and fired its own machine gun. A Brute had a menacing looking weapon with a massive rocket protruding from the tube. It aimed and fired. The rocket soared over the tank. “Williams! Kill that ***** with the rocket!” Williams fired repeatedly at the Brute. It had not taken cover when it was reloading. The bullets knocked it flat on its back. As it tried to raise, the tank fired and blew the Brute to pieces. A Banshee swooped over the Brute army and unleashed a deadly torrent of plasma and a torpedo. The Brutes hurriedly fired at it and panicked as more of the aircraft flew over and devastated the ranks. That’s when the Brutes got worried. They were shooting wildly now. Some still managed to kill a soldier but they weren’t as good all of a sudden. The Brutes began yelling and firing into their own ranks. It became evident why when a few Ghosts burst through the huddled mass of Brutes and crushed most of them. The Covenant had come to help them. Williams shot a burst at a Brute crawling for a rocket launcher. Blood exploded from its head violently. Williams smiled at the kill and turned his attention to the Covenant attack. A few plasma mortars began landing in them. This battle was over. As Williams turned to get some rest, a lone shot rang out. He didn’t know why he managed to hear the shot over the screaming of dying Brutes and the wails of the Banshees, but he did. A spike flew over the barbed wire defence, inches past a marines head, deflected off the tank… And lodged itself into the back of Williams throat. He wheezed as he fell to the floor clutching the wound. Blood seeped around him in a puddle as the world got darker. He swore he heard a voice. “WILLIAMS! CALL FOR E-! Sh**!” Location: Sangheili occupied space. The moon of the designated planet, Shantassnak
The name of the planet literally meant, divinity spectrum in the old sangheili language. The named ruler of the planet was the sangheili party of transcendence second in command, Inspu, Ratakam. He had ruled the planet with an iron fist. He had built many munitions factories and had placed a shipyard on the nearest orbiting moon. He had built a barracks spanning 300 miles across the biggest continent of the planet. It had its own transportation system and was more of a gargantuan metropolis. He was proud of the work he had done and the immense sizes of his factories and the shipyard itself covered half of the moon. The moon was amazingly rich in the materials needed for the ships and so was the planet itself. He had a huge fleet of over 500 ships ranging from the smallest radar ships to the biggest flagships. He was in orbit over the moon in the biggest flagship in the fleet, Rampant God. The name was considered blasphemy in most parts of the fleet but he cared not. It was a beautiful ship. Highly capable of shattering a planet into meteors. It had an extremely powerful weapon on board. The plasma orbital bombardment cannon. It fired a single ball of concentrated energy straight toward the planet. Once it hit, it did enough damage to shatter a planet completely. It had much the same effect a human nuclear device had done to a sangheili fleet and a nearby moon many years ago. Ratakam clambered into the energy shielded phantom awaiting him and descended toward one of the thousands of docking stations in the shipyard. He walked slowly out of the phantom and saw a group of sangheili technician’s bow before him. The honour guards ran past him and pushed the technician’s back away from him. He smiled at their cautiousness for his safety. He strolled past them and saw 2 black armoured hunters stand to attention as he walked past them. Of course everyone knew he was of great importance. It was hard to mistake him for anyone normal from his long purple robes and his ancient aesthetic armour. His helmet spikes shone in the bright illumination lights. The honour guards wore aesthetic armour to but they had red robes. Hidden underneath the robes were a dozen plasma grenades, 2 plasma rifles, a plasma pistol, and 2 energy swords. In their hands they carried the energy spears most of them favoured. They entered a large room filled with plasma conduits churning power to separate parts of the shipyard. The planet was incredibly rich in fore runner artefacts. They had relocated most of the artefacts to the museums on Sanghelios. In here there were many new forerunner glyphs inscribed on the walls which had yet to be deciphered. The sangheili had come into contact with humans outside the vicinity of the divine sanctum system. They had been crippled heavily by the human forces and they were scared. He was going to see his glorious leader and discuss with him the plans about possible things to do against the humans. They were known throughout Sanghelios as the holy Gods themselves, reincarnated. Ratakam himself saw it as a sin of the ultimate punishment to be fighting against the humans. He had his honour guards stand guard outside the door as he entered the personal code. As it opened, he and 2 other honour guards entered the room. He took hold of the energy blades handle and felt the shakes go away at the comforting feel of it. He sat down in front of the party of transcendence leader, Akau, Warack. He stared into Warack’s eyes before speaking. “What have you decided to do about the humans oh exalted one?” “I have decided to continue the war against them my young apprentice. They must learn not to underestimate us anymore.” “But sire that is heresy!” He felt like slicing his masters throat right here but knew he would have to wait. “Maybe it is heresy, maybe not. They may be ancestors of the Gods themselves but they are becoming too dangerous a threat to ignore. You saw what they did to a fleet that outnumbered them. It came back almost destroyed!” “But sire! They are not to be fought with. They will crush us.” “Exactly. We must take the fight to them first. Fight them on their own soil.” “But they are learning new technologies, with our help they will advance by hundreds of years. They will soon learn how to become like the Gods they once were. But only with our help.”
“My decision is final!” Warack’s voice boomed through the small office. “No, mine is.” With that the honour guards leapt onto the aged Sangheili and pinned him to the floor. Ratakam drew the energy sword and pointed it straight at Warack’s jugular. “Goodbye old friend.” “Do what you have to do, traitor. I will not stop you.” He thrust the energy sword downward and sliced open the throat of the Sangheili leader. Purple blood sprayed from the wound as Warack took his final breath before shuddering and finally dying. “Now I will lead this holy crusade as you so called it.”
CHAPTER FIVE: NEGOTIATIONS Location: 4th human colonized planet, Empire
It was a warm sunny day on Empire as 20 phantoms flew through the sky toward the palace. Civilians shielded their eyes from the sun as they looked up at the alien air craft travelling through the sky. The palace was big enough for the 20 phantoms to land and then the diplomacy would begin. The leader of the planet was stood waiting for the aliens to land. Specially trained guards surrounded the large garden and kept their high powered MK88 assault rifles hidden from view as the first alien ship opened and deposited a large group of honour guards. They made a large T shape formation and waited for the second ship to land. When it did an even bigger swarm of honour guards than the last swarmed out and made another formation of the same shape. Then a single figure walked off the ramp. He was wearing a long purple robe and an elongated helmet with very sharp looking spikes on either side of it which glistened brightly in the evening sun. The honour guards took up positions on either side of him as he walked up to the Emperor of the planet. He stood before him, a full 2 feet taller and bowed. The Emperor returned the gesture and escorted the alien into the palace. The honour guards followed close by. A phantom dropped off 4 hunter pairs in red armour and another ship dropped off green shielded jackals. They all stood outside nervously eyeing the humans searching for any hidden weapons. If any of them pointed a gun at each other, the peace would be shattered by many dead bodies. A hunter stared a human down and laughed quietly to itself. A group of grunts wearing green and black armour sat down in the grass and started to talk to each other about the awful food and the long hours. The last phantom deposited a huge amount of drones that weren’t allowed to fly off. They were ordered to be shot if they did. They had to walk and hover across the nearly full garden.
Inside the palace, Joseph Grimsley was very nervous as he led his alien guests through to the meeting room. They were incredibly fierce and tall. He bit his lip at the thought of fighting one of them. The aliens stood up as Joseph could see they had backwards knees. The translator he wore decoded the alien words that came out of the purple robed ones mouth. “We have come to your glorious planet today to offer you peace from our military and hopefully form an alliance with which we can give you technology and help you capture future planets.” “I have taken your offer into consideration and I have decided to allow an alliance of our two races.” “Very well human, we will begin our alliance with technology on your weapons. Please follow us to the flagship.” Joseph stood up and followed the aliens toward their dropships. He looked at all the other types of aliens outside. There were short grey skinned ones with a triangle shell on their backs. They wore black and green armour. There was reptilian bird like ones with a shimmering circular shield. They had purple armour and the shield was a green colour. Big 8 foot tall monsters with red armour and a large metal shield on one arm and a glowing cannon on the other. Giant insect like aliens darted from one shady area to another. They had green skin. He boarded the ship and watched the doors close. The ship lifted off toward space. He looked at one of the small grey skinned aliens and it looked into his eyes and gave a squeaky bark. It translated as “Hello God.” Joseph laughed loudly. “God? What do you mean God?” The elite nearest Joseph spoke up. “Our religion follows a race of people who vanished many years ago. We have learnt of the halo. The forerunner object that destroyed most of the flood and the forerunners themselves. We as well as another race, the san shyuum discovered our planets to be rich in the forerunner artefacts we coveted so much. We collected them and learnt from them. The san shyuum discovered a forerunner ship, the dreadnought. They claimed it for their own and performed sins against the very Gods themselves. They manipulated the artefacts to make better technology and then we waged war on them for their heresy. We eventually realised that the only way we could win against their superior technology would be to do what they did. Afterwards we formed an alliance and called ourselves: The covenant. A group of races who believed in the forerunners as Gods. We set out across the galaxy looking for the artefacts that would tell us more about these magnificent people. We then discovered your race. After a long and bloody war against you, we left you in peace. But during the final days of the Great War, we discovered you were descendants of the forerunners. The forerunners who managed to escape from the halo and make a new life on an unknown planet. In the past 10 years, our planet has been divided in 2 halves. But thanks to our great leader, we have joined back again. We have recently decided that it would be a terrible sin to fight against our Gods. We have allied with you, to worship you.” Joseph was at a loss for words. The human race was being worshipped by aliens. He heard the whine of the ships engines die down as it reached the hangar of the flagship. The doors slid open and revealed a busy hangar. Pink aliens on gas bladders floated up and down the hangar opening circuit boxes and extending their tentacles into them. He stared transfixed at the new alien. It looked so out of place.
They eventually came to a large room filled with the aliens with the spikes and the big shields. They walked around hunched up and one of them even roared at Joseph. He saw some of the small aliens with the shells throwing large rocks at some green worms. One of them squealed when it got a kill. He saw the big aliens sit down at a table. He sat down on the floor. The alien started to talk.
Back on the ground Gunnery Sergeant Daniels kept his rifle hidden from the aliens as they walked across the large garden. The big bastards with the shields were scaring him now. “Get a grip Daniels, your in the 14th ODST division for Christ’s sake.” A huge rumble sounded through the quiet garden as a massive ship appeared over the city. Hundreds of black dots appeared in the sky and they started to descend. He realised they were dropships. He pulled out his gun after he saw the reaction of the aliens. The big ones hunched up and bristled their spikes. The smaller ones tried to run away but were brought under control. The other humans pulled out their guns and took cover as one of the dropships came near them and opened fire. Plasma fire strafed a marine to Daniels right. He turned and ran into the palace. The big aliens fired their cannons and soon blew it out of the sky. He emerged out and started hearing emergency broadcasts on his COM. “I need help. They are everywhere. Someone get over here now! Oh ***, open fire!” “Need reinforcements- at these co- any assistance wi- be much- STOP! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Daniels was truly scared now. The aliens charged into the city to stop the new aliens. He hefted his MK88 and followed suit. The battle for Empire had begun.
CHAPTER SIX: THE BATTLE FOR EMPIRE Location: 4th human colonized planet, Empire Daniels was running down a chaotic street. Civilians were running from a threat Daniels couldn’t see. The aliens who were his allies were completely calm about this. Daniels had heard the news that the aliens worshipped his race. He had (he thought) his own personal bodyguards. Two of the big aliens with the spikes and cannons on their arms. They didn’t let him out of their sight. They even managed to stay with him through the rampaging hordes of civilians. They were very careful not to hurt anyone. Along the street, Daniels swore he saw a few dead ODST’s. But they were swept from his view by the tide of evacuees. After a few minutes of wading through the crowd, he stumbled upon hundreds of dead civilians. And behind the dead, were a massive horde of ape like aliens with black pistol like weapons with menacing looking spikes on the bottom of the gun. They were spraying wildly into the masses of civilians. They were being cut down by glowing red spikes at least the size of a 2 litre bottle. The liens next to him crouched behind their metal plates and charged their cannons. Daniels fired his MK88 at one of the apes faces. Its head exploded in a shower of red blood, which covered its friends in gore. The aliens next to him mercilessly cut down at least 4 of the apes. The fired his gun in bursts. It seemed to be very effective against their armour. They soon fell one by one as Daniels and the aliens fired an onslaught of plasma and lead. Daniels regrouped with a platoon of Regs and learned from an elite there the names of all the aliens including the attacking ones. At least now he knew what he was dealing with. The platoon were due to be moving out. They had 10 minutes at most to get ready. They had a few spiders (An AA vehicle much like wolverines.) and a dragonfly (A light armoured tank with a powerful cannon.) and 5 Sharks (A heavy armoured all terrain vehicle with enough space for 8 soldiers plus 2 guns on the back, a machine gun turret and a gauss turret.) They were due to move out now. Daniels boarded a sharks passenger seat and buckled up. It was time. In the distance there could be seen the flash of exploding artillery and the distant crump of shells. The shark drove off into the distance with the platoon and took the fight to the enemy. CHAPTER SEVEN: FOXTROT 5-9 “This is Foxtrot 5-9, is anyone reading me, over?” “I repeat, this is Foxtrot 5-9 is anyone read-” Daniels saw dead littering the streets. Civilians and soldiers alike. A shell screamed over their heads and landed behind a group of buildings. The Sergeant in the front of the Shark looked back at the 5 men with him. “Ok, we have received a distress signal from a group of men. Designation is Foxtrot 5-9. They then mysteriously cut out. We think they have been overrun but we can’t be sure. We have a large attack force heading towards the Yellow square. We think they were part of the local defence force. So, we rescue these men and take back Yellow Square in the process. Are you ready men?” “Sir yes Sir!” “Out fu**ing standing men!” The Shark veered sharply as a plasma mortar landed close by. Daniels saw a marine, Lloyd, get thrown out of the vehicle. “We need to move away from the mortar zone!” A scream filled the air and the Shark became wild. It swerved left and right. Daniels clambered over the seats to the front. “What the fu** are you doing?!?!” He grabbed the driver by the shoulder and his hand came away sticky with blood. A huge spike had lodged itself into his heart. “Sh**! Sir, the drivers down!” “Well then get in it marine!” Daniels climbed into the front and pulled the dead soldier into the back of the Shark. He put the vehicle in gear and corrected its course. He saw a group of the ape like Aliens in front of the vehicle. One of them roared and the group opened fire at the vehicles tires. A spike struck home and the Shark smashed into a wall. Daniels heard the horn blaring as his vision returned. He heard gunfire, the rattle of MK88’s. He felt around for his weapon and found an M10B Pistol. He sat up slowly and looked around. He saw his team under heavy fire from the Aliens. He saw a dead man lying against the wall. He had an MK88 in his hand. Daniels rushed from the vehicle and gasped at every spike that sliced the air in front of him. He dived behind the wall and scooped the rifle from the dead man. He fired a burst at an Alien that charged across the battle ground. Bullets ripped into it and it fell to the ground with a yell. His Sergeant was still alive. He motioned over the top of the barrier they were behind. “Hit ‘em hard!” The men clambered over the wall. They sprayed rapidly at the Aliens. One of them wearing dark blue armour fell to the floor. The other 3 retreated. “Ok shithead. TALK!” The Sergeant punched the Alien in the face. It grunted and spat at the Sergeant. The marines all had translator devices in. “Pathetic creatures! You think you can break me?!” “No, but we can give it a shot. Daniels, bring in the Bouncing Bee.” Daniels ran to the wreckage of the Shark and brought out a small cylinder with tiny black balls hanging on to it. Daniels planted it in the ground in front of the injured Brute. He armed it and they all retreated to a safe distance. “Daniels, when your ready.” Daniels pressed the detonator and the device launched into the air and exploded, sending shrapnel and titanium balls in a wide circle. Daniels peeked over the wall and saw blood coating the ground. He walked over to where the Brute had once been. Entrails were everywhere and a piece of the Brutes leg was dangling off a street sign. A roar filled the air and a Seagull (A gunship) hovered into sight. It flew over them and headed towards the city centre. Another 3 Seagulls followed it. The Sergeant opened his COM to the attack fleet. “This is Sergeant Clifford, can we get a Raven over here? We need pick up to Yellow Square.” “Negative Clifford. We have a 3 Spiders, 8 Dragonfly’s and a about 10 Sharks heading for your position. You will board a Shark or man the 50. Cal on a Dragonfly.” “Roger that Sir, Clifford out.” A Shark sped past them, followed by 7 more. The ground shook as a Dragonfly came into view. It stopped in front of the battle weary marines. “Heard you guys needed a lift.” The Captain of the Tank had popped open the hatch and was talking to them directly. “Umm, you! Get on the 50. And the rest of you can board the others.” Daniels climbed onto the Dragonfly and the rest of his team took their pick of the tanks. Daniels pulled the metal shield around him and the gun and got ready to fight. CHAPTER EIGHT: YELLOW SQUARE Daniels switched his radio to the local frequency so he could hear reports from the battle. He also had a radar so he could detect enemies. The metal shield around him and his gun was a great protection. The spikes couldn’t penetrate it. He didn’t need to worry about the regular infantry. Just the specialist infantry. They had anti-tank weaponry. “We have vehicles coming at us… Engaging.” We can’t hold ‘em off much longer!” “Reinforcements at the Hotel, immediately!” “Daniels, wake up! Targets North!” Daniels swung the gun North and saw a bunch of the Aliens retreating. They fired wildly at the infantry column. Daniels thumbed off the safety and let the weapon rip. He had to fire it in short bursts to stop it from swinging around. He saw Brute after Brute fall to the ground in a shower of blood. The main gun of the tank fired at a Brute vehicle. Weird looking thing. Had a big wheel at the front and the rest of it hovered. It also had two big guns on either side of it. The gun made short work of it however. The vehicle exploded in a shower of a yellow and orange and the driver was blown apart. YELLOW SQUARE Chris was prone in the wreckage of an old building. He was camouflaged rather well with a grey uniform on. His spotter, Erik, was picking up targets at a rapid rate. Chris looked out of his scope and saw a large column of Brute vehicles and infantry walking towards Yellow square. Chris looked again and saw a big Alien. It wore a very decorated headdress and wielded a vicious looking hammer. It was surrounded by body guards. “Chris! Take that one out, with the hammer.” “Roger that.” Chris sighted on the creatures head. It looked towards him. He swore it could see him. He pressed his finger to the trigger and flinched as the M77 fired a deadly bullet. The Aliens head exploded and covered its comrades in gore. It dropped to its knees and flopped to the ground, the whole while blood sprayed from the wound. The echo of the gun blast was only just dying out. “Sh**! Sergeant, I recommend we move, they know where the shot came from!” “I am aware of that Erik!” Chris strapped the M77 on to his back and ripped off his KR22. He stood and ran back from the building. He looked back at his former hiding spot and saw it explode in a flash of blue. Growls sounded outside. A lone Brute ran through into the building. Chris fired 2 three round bursts from his weapon and the Brute fell back into the wall in a sitting position. Blood came down in a trail where it had slid down. Chris saw a grenade fly into the wall near him. “***! Eri-” The grenade exploded and sent spikes flying in all directions. One of them stuck in the wall an inch from Chris’s face. He was panting heavily. He heard a roar outside and regained his senses. He ran out the back and saw Erik waiting for him across the street. He had his M77 out and was aiming at something across the street. He fired once, pulled back the bolt and fired again. He slid behind a ruined wall and reloaded. He motioned to Chris to run quickly. Chris ran to the wall where Erik had been and aimed back towards the house. 3 Brutes ran out. They saw Chris but were cut down in a few bursts from his KR22. He ran after Erik and saw him running out in the street in front of him. Spikes shot after him and one of them impaled him through the spine. He fell with a yelp to the ground. Chris looked on in horror as an Alien approached and fired a killing shot into his head. Chris ran into a house across the road and waited around the door. He heard heavy breathing and saw the hot, steamy breath of the Brute before it entered. As soon as it came into view, Chris had blown its brains over the walls. He sprinted down a corridor straight after and heard the sound of battle outside. He looked out of a window and saw a large group of Humans with Sharks and Dragonfly’s engaging the Brute convoy. A Group of 3 marines was wiped out by a mortar and a man clambered out of a Dragonfly before it was incinerated by a Wraith bombardment. The marine stumbled as he dodged incoming spikes. He ran into the building Chris was in. Daniels had climbed out of the tank when he had run out of bullets. He saw a Wraith fire a mortar into the air and he knew it had his name on it. He climbed off the turret and fell off the treads. He rolled and regained his footing. He ran and felt the heat as the mortar blew up his Dragonfly. He burst through a door that led into a house. Inside was another marine. A sniper. His patch said 3rd Recon and had the insignia of a man throwing thunderbolts. Daniel saw the Sergeant patch and saluted him. “Sir, I could use you’re help.” “What with private?” “Sniping. Help my squad.” “Ok son, where do you need me?” Chris was positioned in a church tower. He saw a target to his left. It had a Brute shot. He took aim and fired. The bullet travelled straight and true and smashed through its head. It dropped the weapon but fired it as it fell and the shot travelled into a Chopper. The vehicle was veered to the side and smashed into a group of Brutes. The wheel crushed a Brute. Its screams of agony could be heard over the din of the battle. Daniels was covering the entrance to the church. He heard the first shot and knew that after the third shot, the Brutes would attempt to kill him. He saw a Brute approach the church. He crouched down and unleashed a salvo from his MK88. Bullets ripped through the Aliens fragile armour and put it down for good. A second shot sounded and then a third. A large cluster of Brutes appeared around the corner. They hadn’t seen him. He opened a private com link to Chris. “Sir, there’s about 20 of them. I can kill about 5 but then I have to retreat. I recommend you wrap up there.” “Roger that.” Daniels took aim at the lead Brute. He fired his gun. Chris fired a fourth shot and saw a Brute fall down with blood spraying from its chest. A fifth shot brought down a Brute with a flamethrower. It landed on its fuel tank and the thing ignited. 3 Brutes near the flamethrower were incinerated. Chris fired his fifth bullet and a Brute staggered back, holding its entrails. “I can’t hold em off Sir, get out of there now!” Daniels killed his 4th Brute and took cover as spikes flew past his head. He threw a grenade and ran into the church. He turned back and planted a bouncing bee. He set the time detonator to 7 seconds. He shouted up the stairs to Chris. “Sir, we have to get out of here!” Chris ran down the stairs as fast as he could. When he reached the bottom, he heard a loud explosion and multiple roars of pain. A Brute head slid across the floor and settled itself in front of Chris. He kicked it away and ran after Daniels. Clifford was in a gauss turret. He fired at a Chopper and whooped as it burst into flames. He fired again and blew a Brute apart. He saw a marine in front of him get impaled by a spike to the throat. A Dragonfly next to him fired its main cannon and a Wraith exploded in a brilliant flash of blue. Clifford fired again and a Brute had its legs blown off. It crawled for a while before a Dragonfly crushed it with its treads. Clifford climbed out of the Shark as he saw the mass of the Brute army retreating. Large balls of plasma followed them. A large group of Phantoms swooped over the panicking Brutes. Followed by a column of Ghosts. Then the infantry came. Elites, Grunts, Jackals, Hunters. Everything was hitting them. Yellow Square would be won. This army that had just been beaten was the army that would be reinforcing its broken forces at Yellow Square. The leader of the operation, General Marsh, had sent 2 armies. One to the square and the others around it. A very tactical move as it allowed ambushes of the Brute support. CHAPTER NINE: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE Staff Sergeant Marcus Wensjoe nervously waited in the tree. He heard bird calls in the distance but also the sound of bombing. He saw his platoon face down in the grass with their ghilly suits on. Others like Marcus, were sat in trees with Stormers and M77’s. Marcus had a Stormer. He had opened it’s bipod on a large branch. He didn’t take his eyes off the sight. Other soldiers sat behind cover. They were the distraction. The Brutes would enter, see the men, open fire on them and then the men in the trees as well as the men in the grass would open up from behind. But there had been a snag. The Brute plans they had snatched had told of an attack through the jungle. But the Brutes were late. They were supposed to be there at Dawn, it was now Noon and nothing had been seen of them. A twig snapped suddenly. Marcus looked down and saw a Brute walking cautiously. A group of 5 followed him and then a group of 10. They had been facing the wrong way the whole time. The Brute army had walked into the grassy area where the ghilly suited men hid. A Brute gave a surprised roar but was shot in the face by an unseen soldier. The men in the Ghilly suits rose up and blasted shotguns into the Brutes. Many fell but they regained their composure quite quickly. Men started dying. Marcus yelled down his COM. “OPEN FIRE!!!!!!” He aimed his Stormer downward and sprayed at a cluster of Brutes. They were blown apart by the explosive rounds of the Stormer. The Brutes began to realise that they were in the trees. They fired wildly up and even got a few lucky hits. Marcus crawled as far back as he could to avoid the deadly spikes. He looked left and saw a marine take a spike to the head. He toppled from the tree with his rope. The rope snagged on a branch and the marine dangled from the rope. The Brutes were being beaten badly. There were only a handful left and they were taking a lot of hits. They had started throwing incendiary grenades at the trees nearest them. Marcus saw a glowing ball of flame heading straight for his tree. He jumped off just as the tree burst into flame. As he landed, he heard a crack and pain surged up his leg. He looked down at his leg and saw bloody bone poking out of it. He gasped wildly as he thought of how the Brutes would kill him. He saw one of them loom over him. It grinned and bore down on him with a knife. Marcus felt around for something, anything. He found it. He lifted the object up and hit the Brute in the face with it. It gave a grunt and rolled off him. It spat out blood and charged him. Marcus had picked up a large rock. He threw it at the beast as it charged. The Brute stumbled and tripped. It landed right on top of Marcus. Marcus drew out his knife and quickly stabbed the monster as it tried to get back up. The knife stuck in it’s throat and refused to come back out. The Brute was silent as it breathed it’s last breath. Marcus crawled away as the sounds of battle became quieter and quieter. He looked back and saw his men running at him. One of them stopped in front of him and began to administer first aid. Marcus would make it out after all. CHAPTER TEN: CALL ME RAWLINS “Seagull one nine reporting a heavy concentration of Brute vehicles in the civilian zone. Requesting reinforcements to save those civilians. Dropping off my load. Over.” Williams dropped from the Gunship and ran forward with the rest of his squad. They looked up to him for his lieutenant badge. He was also proud to lead them. He saw a group of civilians lay on the floor. A Brute was walking around them, making menacing movements with the wicked looking blade it held. Before he could react, it sliced downward decapitating a hostage. The others screamed as the Alien circled them laughing. Williams fired a burst from his KR22 and the brute was holding a wound in it’s head. It pulled away it’s hand, felt the blood and then dropped with a sigh. The civilians heaped praise on the soldiers as they were freed from the magnet like holding devices that were strapped to their arms and legs. They ran as fast as they could away from the Brute body. Williams ran forward to the sound of gunfire. A Dragonfly had wandered through to the street that was filled to the brim with Brute infantry. It fired a shell at a building and the building collapsed on a few of the Brutes taking cover behind cars. Williams motioned towards an old cinema. In the top window, a Brute was firing at the tank with a Brute Shot. The Dragonfly’s armour was dented in a part. If the Brute kept up the fire, they were dead. His men ran forward through the side of the battle. A Brute took a bullet from the Stormer in the throat and sprayed blood on his comrades. Williams winced at the sight and ran into the building. Up the stairs, the Brute was reloading and failed to spot the trio of grenades that flew through the crack in the door. The grenades detonated and the Brute roared in surprise as it was blown in half. Williams charged through the door and looked out of the window. A Brute was blown apart by the tanks main gun and a few others were cut down by the Stormer on the front. The Aliens threw grenades at the tank but to no effect. They retreated back at the command of a gold armour Alien. The tank fired a departing shell at them and stopped in the middle of a road. The hatch opened and the Captain in the tank looked up towards the cinema. He saw the soldiers. He waved and the men waved back. The Captain pointed through the street. The soldiers nodded and vanished from sight. Williams ushered his soldiers out of the door and up to the tank. “Evening Lieutenant, nice weather huh?” “Yes Sir. So where we heading?” “Cut the Sir sh** kid, call me Rawlins. I like it better.” “Yes Rawlins. How are we doing on the other side?” “Our guys cut through the vehicles and are mopping up the stragglers. But we have word the main bulk of the retreating army is heading right for us. So I called in for reinforcements. We have a sh** load of boys coming in with fire support and mines. Maybe even a few Bees. I love those little bastards!” The sound of the approaching Brutes was audible even over the roar of the Spider AA vehicles. They were pounding the heck out of the Brute rearguard so that the army could push through. The vehicles stopped as the first few forward elements of the Brute army clambered over the debris wall set up by the Marines. The Stormers set up on the wall near Williams opened up and cut them down almost instantly. But then more came over. And then more. And more. A marine next to Williams was shot through the chest. He gasped as the impact knocked him backward onto another soldier. The Dragonfly fired its turret and fired its own machine gun. A Brute had a menacing looking weapon with a massive rocket protruding from the tube. It aimed and fired. The rocket soared over the tank. “Williams! Kill that ***** with the rocket!” Williams fired repeatedly at the Brute. It had not taken cover when it was reloading. The bullets knocked it flat on its back. As it tried to raise, the tank fired and blew the Brute to pieces. A Banshee swooped over the Brute army and unleashed a deadly torrent of plasma and a torpedo. The Brutes hurriedly fired at it and panicked as more of the aircraft flew over and devastated the ranks. That’s when the Brutes got worried. They were shooting wildly now. Some still managed to kill a soldier but they weren’t as good all of a sudden. The Brutes began yelling and firing into their own ranks. It became evident why when a few Ghosts burst through the huddled mass of Brutes and crushed most of them. The Covenant had come to help them. Williams shot a burst at a Brute crawling for a rocket launcher. Blood exploded from its head violently. Williams smiled at the kill and turned his attention to the Covenant attack. A few plasma mortars began landing in them. This battle was over. As Williams turned to get some rest, a lone shot rang out. He didn’t know why he managed to hear the shot over the screaming of dying Brutes and the wails of the Banshees, but he did. A spike flew over the barbed wire defence, inches past a marines head, deflected off the tank… And lodged itself into the back of Williams throat. He wheezed as he fell to the floor clutching the wound. Blood seeped around him in a puddle as the world got darker. He swore he heard a voice. “WILLIAMS! CALL FOR E-! Sh**!” Location: 4th human colonized planet, Empire
It was a warm sunny day on Empire as 20 phantoms flew through the sky toward the palace. Civilians shielded their eyes from the sun as they looked up at the alien air craft travelling through the sky. The palace was big enough for the 20 phantoms to land and then the diplomacy would begin. The leader of the planet was stood waiting for the aliens to land. Specially trained guards surrounded the large garden and kept their high powered MK88 assault rifles hidden from view as the first alien ship opened and deposited a large group of honour guards. They made a large T shape formation and waited for the second ship to land. When it did an even bigger swarm of honour guards than the last swarmed out and made another formation of the same shape. Then a single figure walked off the ramp. He was wearing a long purple robe and an elongated helmet with very sharp looking spikes on either side of it which glistened brightly in the evening sun. The honour guards took up positions on either side of him as he walked up to the Emperor of the planet. He stood before him, a full 2 feet taller and bowed. The Emperor returned the gesture and escorted the alien into the palace. The honour guards followed close by. A phantom dropped off 4 hunter pairs in red armour and another ship dropped off green shielded jackals. They all stood outside nervously eyeing the humans searching for any hidden weapons. If any of them pointed a gun at each other, the peace would be shattered by many dead bodies. A hunter stared a human down and laughed quietly to itself. A group of grunts wearing green and black armour sat down in the grass and started to talk to each other about the awful food and the long hours. The last phantom deposited a huge amount of drones that weren’t allowed to fly off. They were ordered to be shot if they did. They had to walk and hover across the nearly full garden.
Inside the palace, Joseph Grimsley was very nervous as he led his alien guests through to the meeting room. They were incredibly fierce and tall. He bit his lip at the thought of fighting one of them. The aliens stood up as Joseph could see they had backwards knees. The translator he wore decoded the alien words that came out of the purple robed ones mouth. “We have come to your glorious planet today to offer you peace from our military and hopefully form an alliance with which we can give you technology and help you capture future planets.” “I have taken your offer into consideration and I have decided to allow an alliance of our two races.” “Very well human, we will begin our alliance with technology on your weapons. Please follow us to the flagship.” Joseph stood up and followed the aliens toward their dropships. He looked at all the other types of aliens outside. There were short grey skinned ones with a triangle shell on their backs. They wore black and green armour. There was reptilian bird like ones with a shimmering circular shield. They had purple armour and the shield was a green colour. Big 8 foot tall monsters with red armour and a large metal shield on one arm and a glowing cannon on the other. Giant insect like aliens darted from one shady area to another. They had green skin. He boarded the ship and watched the doors close. The ship lifted off toward space. He looked at one of the small grey skinned aliens and it looked into his eyes and gave a squeaky bark. It translated as “Hello God.” Joseph laughed loudly. “God? What do you mean God?” The elite nearest Joseph spoke up. “Our religion follows a race of people who vanished many years ago. We have learnt of the halo. The forerunner object that destroyed most of the flood and the forerunners themselves. We as well as another race, the san shyuum discovered our planets to be rich in the forerunner artefacts we coveted so much. We collected them and learnt from them. The san shyuum discovered a forerunner ship, the dreadnought. They claimed it for their own and performed sins against the very Gods themselves. They manipulated the artefacts to make better technology and then we waged war on them for their heresy. We eventually realised that the only way we could win against their superior technology would be to do what they did. Afterwards we formed an alliance and called ourselves: The covenant. A group of races who believed in the forerunners as Gods. We set out across the galaxy looking for the artefacts that would tell us more about these magnificent people. We then discovered your race. After a long and bloody war against you, we left you in peace. But during the final days of the Great War, we discovered you were descendants of the forerunners. The forerunners who managed to escape from the halo and make a new life on an unknown planet. In the past 10 years, our planet has been divided in 2 halves. But thanks to our great leader, we have joined back again. We have recently decided that it would be a terrible sin to fight against our Gods. We have allied with you, to worship you.” Joseph was at a loss for words. The human race was being worshipped by aliens. He heard the whine of the ships engines die down as it reached the hangar of the flagship. The doors slid open and revealed a busy hangar. Pink aliens on gas bladders floated up and down the hangar opening circuit boxes and extending their tentacles into them. He stared transfixed at the new alien. It looked so out of place.
They eventually came to a large room filled with the aliens with the spikes and the big shields. They walked around hunched up and one of them even roared at Joseph. He saw some of the small aliens with the shells throwing large rocks at some green worms. One of them squealed when it got a kill. He saw the big aliens sit down at a table. He sat down on the floor. The alien started to talk.
Back on the ground Gunnery Sergeant Daniels kept his rifle hidden from the aliens as they walked across the large garden. The big bastards with the shields were scaring him now. “Get a grip Daniels, your in the 14th ODST division for Christ’s sake.” A huge rumble sounded through the quiet garden as a massive ship appeared over the city. Hundreds of black dots appeared in the sky and they started to descend. He realised they were dropships. He pulled out his gun after he saw the reaction of the aliens. The big ones hunched up and bristled their spikes. The smaller ones tried to run away but were brought under control. The other humans pulled out their guns and took cover as one of the dropships came near them and opened fire. Plasma fire strafed a marine to Daniels right. He turned and ran into the palace. The big aliens fired their cannons and soon blew it out of the sky. He emerged out and started hearing emergency broadcasts on his COM. “I need help. They are everywhere. Someone get over here now! Oh ***, open fire!” “Need reinforcements- at these co- any assistance wi- be much- STOP! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Daniels was truly scared now. The aliens charged into the city to stop the new aliens. He hefted his MK88 and followed suit. The battle for Empire had begun.
CHAPTER SIX: THE BATTLE FOR EMPIRE Location: 4th human colonized planet, Empire Daniels was running down a chaotic street. Civilians were running from a threat Daniels couldn’t see. The aliens who were his allies were completely calm about this. Daniels had heard the news that the aliens worshipped his race. He had (he thought) his own personal bodyguards. Two of the big aliens with the spikes and cannons on their arms. They didn’t let him out of their sight. They even managed to stay with him through the rampaging hordes of civilians. They were very careful not to hurt anyone. Along the street, Daniels swore he saw a few dead ODST’s. But they were swept from his view by the tide of evacuees. After a few minutes of wading through the crowd, he stumbled upon hundreds of dead civilians. And behind the dead, were a massive horde of ape like aliens with black pistol like weapons with menacing looking spikes on the bottom of the gun. They were spraying wildly into the masses of civilians. They were being cut down by glowing red spikes at least the size of a 2 litre bottle. The liens next to him crouched behind their metal plates and charged their cannons. Daniels fired his MK88 at one of the apes faces. Its head exploded in a shower of red blood, which covered its friends in gore. The aliens next to him mercilessly cut down at least 4 of the apes. The fired his gun in bursts. It seemed to be very effective against their armour. They soon fell one by one as Daniels and the aliens fired an onslaught of plasma and lead. Daniels regrouped with a platoon of Regs and learned from an elite there the names of all the aliens including the attacking ones. At least now he knew what he was dealing with. The platoon were due to be moving out. They had 10 minutes at most to get ready. They had a few spiders (An AA vehicle much like wolverines.) and a dragonfly (A light armoured tank with a powerful cannon.) and 5 Sharks (A heavy armoured all terrain vehicle with enough space for 8 soldiers plus 2 guns on the back, a machine gun turret and a gauss turret.) They were due to move out now. Daniels boarded a sharks passenger seat and buckled up. It was time. In the distance there could be seen the flash of exploding artillery and the distant crump of shells. The shark drove off into the distance with the platoon and took the fight to the enemy. CHAPTER SEVEN: FOXTROT 5-9 “This is Foxtrot 5-9, is anyone reading me, over?” “I repeat, this is Foxtrot 5-9 is anyone read-” Daniels saw dead littering the streets. Civilians and soldiers alike. A shell screamed over their heads and landed behind a group of buildings. The Sergeant in the front of the Shark looked back at the 5 men with him. “Ok, we have received a distress signal from a group of men. Designation is Foxtrot 5-9. They then mysteriously cut out. We think they have been overrun but we can’t be sure. We have a large attack force heading towards the Yellow square. We think they were part of the local defence force. So, we rescue these men and take back Yellow Square in the process. Are you ready men?” “Sir yes Sir!” “Out fu**ing standing men!” The Shark veered sharply as a plasma mortar landed close by. Daniels saw a marine, Lloyd, get thrown out of the vehicle. “We need to move away from the mortar zone!” A scream filled the air and the Shark became wild. It swerved left and right. Daniels clambered over the seats to the front. “What the fu** are you doing?!?!” He grabbed the driver by the shoulder and his hand came away sticky with blood. A huge spike had lodged itself into his heart. “Sh**! Sir, the drivers down!” “Well then get in it marine!” Daniels climbed into the front and pulled the dead soldier into the back of the Shark. He put the vehicle in gear and corrected its course. He saw a group of the ape like Aliens in front of the vehicle. One of them roared and the group opened fire at the vehicles tires. A spike struck home and the Shark smashed into a wall. Daniels heard the horn blaring as his vision returned. He heard gunfire, the rattle of MK88’s. He felt around for his weapon and found an M10B Pistol. He sat up slowly and looked around. He saw his team under heavy fire from the Aliens. He saw a dead man lying against the wall. He had an MK88 in his hand. Daniels rushed from the vehicle and gasped at every spike that sliced the air in front of him. He dived behind the wall and scooped the rifle from the dead man. He fired a burst at an Alien that charged across the battle ground. Bullets ripped into it and it fell to the ground with a yell. His Sergeant was still alive. He motioned over the top of the barrier they were behind. “Hit ‘em hard!” The men clambered over the wall. They sprayed rapidly at the Aliens. One of them wearing dark blue armour fell to the floor. The other 3 retreated. “Ok shithead. TALK!” The Sergeant punched the Alien in the face. It grunted and spat at the Sergeant. The marines all had translator devices in. “Pathetic creatures! You think you can break me?!” “No, but we can give it a shot. Daniels, bring in the Bouncing Bee.” Daniels ran to the wreckage of the Shark and brought out a small cylinder with tiny black balls hanging on to it. Daniels planted it in the ground in front of the injured Brute. He armed it and they all retreated to a safe distance. “Daniels, when your ready.” Daniels pressed the detonator and the device launched into the air and exploded, sending shrapnel and titanium balls in a wide circle. Daniels peeked over the wall and saw blood coating the ground. He walked over to where the Brute had once been. Entrails were everywhere and a piece of the Brutes leg was dangling off a street sign. A roar filled the air and a Seagull (A gunship) hovered into sight. It flew over them and headed towards the city centre. Another 3 Seagulls followed it. The Sergeant opened his COM to the attack fleet. “This is Sergeant Clifford, can we get a Raven over here? We need pick up to Yellow Square.” “Negative Clifford. We have a 3 Spiders, 8 Dragonfly’s and a about 10 Sharks heading for your position. You will board a Shark or man the 50. Cal on a Dragonfly.” “Roger that Sir, Clifford out.” A Shark sped past them, followed by 7 more. The ground shook as a Dragonfly came into view. It stopped in front of the battle weary marines. “Heard you guys needed a lift.” The Captain of the Tank had popped open the hatch and was talking to them directly. “Umm, you! Get on the 50. And the rest of you can board the others.” Daniels climbed onto the Dragonfly and the rest of his team took their pick of the tanks. Daniels pulled the metal shield around him and the gun and got ready to fight. CHAPTER EIGHT: YELLOW SQUARE Daniels switched his radio to the local frequency so he could hear reports from the battle. He also had a radar so he could detect enemies. The metal shield around him and his gun was a great protection. The spikes couldn’t penetrate it. He didn’t need to worry about the regular infantry. Just the specialist infantry. They had anti-tank weaponry. “We have vehicles coming at us… Engaging.” We can’t hold ‘em off much longer!” “Reinforcements at the Hotel, immediately!” “Daniels, wake up! Targets North!” Daniels swung the gun North and saw a bunch of the Aliens retreating. They fired wildly at the infantry column. Daniels thumbed off the safety and let the weapon rip. He had to fire it in short bursts to stop it from swinging around. He saw Brute after Brute fall to the ground in a shower of blood. The main gun of the tank fired at a Brute vehicle. Weird looking thing. Had a big wheel at the front and the rest of it hovered. It also had two big guns on either side of it. The gun made short work of it however. The vehicle exploded in a shower of a yellow and orange and the driver was blown apart. YELLOW SQUARE Chris was prone in the wreckage of an old building. He was camouflaged rather well with a grey uniform on. His spotter, Erik, was picking up targets at a rapid rate. Chris looked out of his scope and saw a large column of Brute vehicles and infantry walking towards Yellow square. Chris looked again and saw a big Alien. It wore a very decorated headdress and wielded a vicious looking hammer. It was surrounded by body guards. “Chris! Take that one out, with the hammer.” “Roger that.” Chris sighted on the creatures head. It looked towards him. He swore it could see him. He pressed his finger to the trigger and flinched as the M77 fired a deadly bullet. The Aliens head exploded and covered its comrades in gore. It dropped to its knees and flopped to the ground, the whole while blood sprayed from the wound. The echo of the gun blast was only just dying out. “Sh**! Sergeant, I recommend we move, they know where the shot came from!” “I am aware of that Erik!” Chris strapped the M77 on to his back and ripped off his KR22. He stood and ran back from the building. He looked back at his former hiding spot and saw it explode in a flash of blue. Growls sounded outside. A lone Brute ran through into the building. Chris fired 2 three round bursts from his weapon and the Brute fell back into the wall in a sitting position. Blood came down in a trail where it had slid down. Chris saw a grenade fly into the wall near him. “***! Eri-” The grenade exploded and sent spikes flying in all directions. One of them stuck in the wall an inch from Chris’s face. He was panting heavily. He heard a roar outside and regained his senses. He ran out the back and saw Erik waiting for him across the street. He had his M77 out and was aiming at something across the street. He fired once, pulled back the bolt and fired again. He slid behind a ruined wall and reloaded. He motioned to Chris to run quickly. Chris ran to the wall where Erik had been and aimed back towards the house. 3 Brutes ran out. They saw Chris but were cut down in a few bursts from his KR22. He ran after Erik and saw him running out in the street in front of him. Spikes shot after him and one of them impaled him through the spine. He fell with a yelp to the ground. Chris looked on in horror as an Alien approached and fired a killing shot into his head. Chris ran into a house across the road and waited around the door. He heard heavy breathing and saw the hot, steamy breath of the Brute before it entered. As soon as it came into view, Chris had blown its brains over the walls. He sprinted down a corridor straight after and heard the sound of battle outside. He looked out of a window and saw a large group of Humans with Sharks and Dragonfly’s engaging the Brute convoy. A Group of 3 marines was wiped out by a mortar and a man clambered out of a Dragonfly before it was incinerated by a Wraith bombardment. The marine stumbled as he dodged incoming spikes. He ran into the building Chris was in. Daniels had climbed out of the tank when he had run out of bullets. He saw a Wraith fire a mortar into the air and he knew it had his name on it. He climbed off the turret and fell off the treads. He rolled and regained his footing. He ran and felt the heat as the mortar blew up his Dragonfly. He burst through a door that led into a house. Inside was another marine. A sniper. His patch said 3rd Recon and had the insignia of a man throwing thunderbolts. Daniel saw the Sergeant patch and saluted him. “Sir, I could use you’re help.” “What with private?” “Sniping. Help my squad.” “Ok son, where do you need me?” Chris was positioned in a church tower. He saw a target to his left. It had a Brute shot. He took aim and fired. The bullet travelled straight and true and smashed through its head. It dropped the weapon but fired it as it fell and the shot travelled into a Chopper. The vehicle was veered to the side and smashed into a group of Brutes. The wheel crushed a Brute. Its screams of agony could be heard over the din of the battle. Daniels was covering the entrance to the church. He heard the first shot and knew that after the third shot, the Brutes would attempt to kill him. He saw a Brute approach the church. He crouched down and unleashed a salvo from his MK88. Bullets ripped through the Aliens fragile armour and put it down for good. A second shot sounded and then a third. A large cluster of Brutes appeared around the corner. They hadn’t seen him. He opened a private com link to Chris. “Sir, there’s about 20 of them. I can kill about 5 but then I have to retreat. I recommend you wrap up there.” “Roger that.” Daniels took aim at the lead Brute. He fired his gun. Chris fired a fourth shot and saw a Brute fall down with blood spraying from its chest. A fifth shot brought down a Brute with a flamethrower. It landed on its fuel tank and the thing ignited. 3 Brutes near the flamethrower were incinerated. Chris fired his fifth bullet and a Brute staggered back, holding its entrails. “I can’t hold em off Sir, get out of there now!” Daniels killed his 4th Brute and took cover as spikes flew past his head. He threw a grenade and ran into the church. He turned back and planted a bouncing bee. He set the time detonator to 7 seconds. He shouted up the stairs to Chris. “Sir, we have to get out of here!” Chris ran down the stairs as fast as he could. When he reached the bottom, he heard a loud explosion and multiple roars of pain. A Brute head slid across the floor and settled itself in front of Chris. He kicked it away and ran after Daniels. Clifford was in a gauss turret. He fired at a Chopper and whooped as it burst into flames. He fired again and blew a Brute apart. He saw a marine in front of him get impaled by a spike to the throat. A Dragonfly next to him fired its main cannon and a Wraith exploded in a brilliant flash of blue. Clifford fired again and a Brute had its legs blown off. It crawled for a while before a Dragonfly crushed it with its treads. Clifford climbed out of the Shark as he saw the mass of the Brute army retreating. Large balls of plasma followed them. A large group of Phantoms swooped over the panicking Brutes. Followed by a column of Ghosts. Then the infantry came. Elites, Grunts, Jackals, Hunters. Everything was hitting them. Yellow Square would be won. This army that had just been beaten was the army that would be reinforcing its broken forces at Yellow Square. The leader of the operation, General Marsh, had sent 2 armies. One to the square and the others around it. A very tactical move as it allowed ambushes of the Brute support. CHAPTER NINE: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE Staff Sergeant Marcus Wensjoe nervously waited in the tree. He heard bird calls in the distance but also the sound of bombing. He saw his platoon face down in the grass with their ghilly suits on. Others like Marcus, were sat in trees with Stormers and M77’s. Marcus had a Stormer. He had opened it’s bipod on a large branch. He didn’t take his eyes off the sight. Other soldiers sat behind cover. They were the distraction. The Brutes would enter, see the men, open fire on them and then the men in the trees as well as the men in the grass would open up from behind. But there had been a snag. The Brute plans they had snatched had told of an attack through the jungle. But the Brutes were late. They were supposed to be there at Dawn, it was now Noon and nothing had been seen of them. A twig snapped suddenly. Marcus looked down and saw a Brute walking cautiously. A group of 5 followed him and then a group of 10. They had been facing the wrong way the whole time. The Brute army had walked into the grassy area where the ghilly suited men hid. A Brute gave a surprised roar but was shot in the face by an unseen soldier. The men in the Ghilly suits rose up and blasted shotguns into the Brutes. Many fell but they regained their composure quite quickly. Men started dying. Marcus yelled down his COM. “OPEN FIRE!!!!!!” He aimed his Stormer downward and sprayed at a cluster of Brutes. They were blown apart by the explosive rounds of the Stormer. The Brutes began to realise that they were in the trees. They fired wildly up and even got a few lucky hits. Marcus crawled as far back as he could to avoid the deadly spikes. He looked left and saw a marine take a spike to the head. He toppled from the tree with his rope. The rope snagged on a branch and the marine dangled from the rope. The Brutes were being beaten badly. There were only a handful left and they were taking a lot of hits. They had started throwing incendiary grenades at the trees nearest them. Marcus saw a glowing ball of flame heading straight for his tree. He jumped off just as the tree burst into flame. As he landed, he heard a crack and pain surged up his leg. He looked down at his leg and saw bloody bone poking out of it. He gasped wildly as he thought of how the Brutes would kill him. He saw one of them loom over him. It grinned and bore down on him with a knife. Marcus felt around for something, anything. He found it. He lifted the object up and hit the Brute in the face with it. It gave a grunt and rolled off him. It spat out blood and charged him. Marcus had picked up a large rock. He threw it at the beast as it charged. The Brute stumbled and tripped. It landed right on top of Marcus. Marcus drew out his knife and quickly stabbed the monster as it tried to get back up. The knife stuck in it’s throat and refused to come back out. The Brute was silent as it breathed it’s last breath. Marcus crawled away as the sounds of battle became quieter and quieter. He looked back and saw his men running at him. One of them stopped in front of him and began to administer first aid. Marcus would make it out after all. CHAPTER TEN: CALL ME RAWLINS “Seagull one nine reporting a heavy concentration of Brute vehicles in the civilian zone. Requesting reinforcements to save those civilians. Dropping off my load. Over.” Williams dropped from the Gunship and ran forward with the rest of his squad. They looked up to him for his lieutenant badge. He was also proud to lead them. He saw a group of civilians lay on the floor. A Brute was walking around them, making menacing movements with the wicked looking blade it held. Before he could react, it sliced downward decapitating a hostage. The others screamed as the Alien circled them laughing. Williams fired a burst from his KR22 and the brute was holding a wound in it’s head. It pulled away it’s hand, felt the blood and then dropped with a sigh. The civilians heaped praise on the soldiers as they were freed from the magnet like holding devices that were strapped to their arms and legs. They ran as fast as they could away from the Brute body. Williams ran forward to the sound of gunfire. A Dragonfly had wandered through to the street that was filled to the brim with Brute infantry. It fired a shell at a building and the building collapsed on a few of the Brutes taking cover behind cars. Williams motioned towards an old cinema. In the top window, a Brute was firing at the tank with a Brute Shot. The Dragonfly’s armour was dented in a part. If the Brute kept up the fire, they were dead. His men ran forward through the side of the battle. A Brute took a bullet from the Stormer in the throat and sprayed blood on his comrades. Williams winced at the sight and ran into the building. Up the stairs, the Brute was reloading and failed to spot the trio of grenades that flew through the crack in the door. The grenades detonated and the Brute roared in surprise as it was blown in half. Williams charged through the door and looked out of the window. A Brute was blown apart by the tanks main gun and a few others were cut down by the Stormer on the front. The Aliens threw grenades at the tank but to no effect. They retreated back at the command of a gold armour Alien. The tank fired a departing shell at them and stopped in the middle of a road. The hatch opened and the Captain in the tank looked up towards the cinema. He saw the soldiers. He waved and the men waved back. The Captain pointed through the street. The soldiers nodded and vanished from sight. Williams ushered his soldiers out of the door and up to the tank. “Evening Lieutenant, nice weather huh?” “Yes Sir. So where we heading?” “Cut the Sir sh** kid, call me Rawlins. I like it better.” “Yes Rawlins. How are we doing on the other side?” “Our guys cut through the vehicles and are mopping up the stragglers. But we have word the main bulk of the retreating army is heading right for us. So I called in for reinforcements. We have a sh** load of boys coming in with fire support and mines. Maybe even a few Bees. I love those little bastards!” The sound of the approaching Brutes was audible even over the roar of the Spider AA vehicles. They were pounding the heck out of the Brute rearguard so that the army could push through. The vehicles stopped as the first few forward elements of the Brute army clambered over the debris wall set up by the Marines. The Stormers set up on the wall near Williams opened up and cut them down almost instantly. But then more came over. And then more. And more. A marine next to Williams was shot through the chest. He gasped as the impact knocked him backward onto another soldier. The Dragonfly fired its turret and fired its own machine gun. A Brute had a menacing looking weapon with a massive rocket protruding from the tube. It aimed and fired. The rocket soared over the tank. “Williams! Kill that ***** with the rocket!” Williams fired repeatedly at the Brute. It had not taken cover when it was reloading. The bullets knocked it flat on its back. As it tried to raise, the tank fired and blew the Brute to pieces. A Banshee swooped over the Brute army and unleashed a deadly torrent of plasma and a torpedo. The Brutes hurriedly fired at it and panicked as more of the aircraft flew over and devastated the ranks. That’s when the Brutes got worried. They were shooting wildly now. Some still managed to kill a soldier but they weren’t as good all of a sudden. The Brutes began yelling and firing into their own ranks. It became evident why when a few Ghosts burst through the huddled mass of Brutes and crushed most of them. The Covenant had come to help them. Williams shot a burst at a Brute crawling for a rocket launcher. Blood exploded from its head violently. Williams smiled at the kill and turned his attention to the Covenant attack. A few plasma mortars began landing in them. This battle was over. As Williams turned to get some rest, a lone shot rang out. He didn’t know why he managed to hear the shot over the screaming of dying Brutes and the wails of the Banshees, but he did. A spike flew over the barbed wire defence, inches past a marines head, deflected off the tank… And lodged itself into the back of Williams throat. He wheezed as he fell to the floor clutching the wound. Blood seeped around him in a puddle as the world got darker. He swore he heard a voice. “WILLIAMS! CALL FOR E-! Sh**!”
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