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Chronicles of Uniform Six-Eight. Part 1: From Texas to Halo
Date: 27 June 2005, 7:19 pm

It was a cool and calm morning on the rolling plains of Texas when it was all turned into bloodshed. I was stationed there just outta boot at Camp Maxey in the northeastern part of the state, it was in "Lamar County." I had never seen combat, or a even a live covenant soldier for that matter, but I was ready and eager. The reason I joined up was like many other young men's reasons, because I heard the Covenant were getting close to Earth. I though about them landing in Texas and so I just decided to drop my job being a gun shop manager and join up. Covenant wouldn't attack Texas, I though, but I was dead wrong.

My buddies and I were on routine patrol. My buddies were Private Mitch Baker, Private Tommy Lane, and Corpral Phillip Kennedy. I was a lowly private also. I had been assigned to drive since Kennedy was a little touchy when it came to driving, he hadn't even wanted to drive the Scorpion tank in training. He told me it was because he had a warthog wreck which nearly claimed his life a few years ago. My thoughts were interrupted when we saw plasma coming from the intersection of Lamar and Grove street, about 600 meters ahead of our position. We speed down there just in time to see a woman get crushed by a Hunters massive metallic shield.

Baker opened up on the LAAG. Then in that place, at that particular time, the warthog dies. I tried to crank it but to no avail. Lane, Kennedy, and I abandoned the 'hog and began to run for cover, when we noticed Baker wasn't getting off the LAAG.

"GET THE HELL OUTTA THERE BAKER!" Kennedy yelled as we were running away from the 'hog.

Baker was like a madman on the LAAG, but the LAAG just wasn't powerful enough. He killed one of the Hunters but the other got pissed and just before Baker could swing the LAAG around to deal with the other him the Hunter was already shooting the 'hog. It exploded in a rain of shrapnel and fire. Kennedy and Lane gave the hunter a nice few burst of rifle fire. I was on the ground watching the happenings in awe. The hunter fell to the ground with a slight rumble.

"GET UP, MARINE!!!" Kennedy yelled at me as he tugged on my vest.

"Baker, are you OK?" Kennedy said as we were running to Baker's position.

Baker had been thrown from the 'hog and was still alive, but barely.

"Tell my girl, I fought hard today, and... that I love her." said Baker, trying to spit out some blood.
"You can tell her yourself, you be just fine, son." said Kennedy in a shaky voice.
"Get the hell outta here, Sir." said Baker as he gurgled and drown on his own blood and vomit.

We didn't know what he meant by that until 2 seconds later when plasma started hitting around us. He had seen more troops outta the side of his eye just before he died, what a nice guy.

Grunts, Jackels, Elites, and Banshees were coming straight into town. We hadn't noticed them because we were busy with Baker, but they were coming, and fast. We ran to a small shop to take cover.

"OK men, we need to the hell back to base. Any suggestions would be nice." Kennedy said as he, Lane, and I crouched in the corner of the small plant store for cover.

"Sir, we can radio HQ and get reinforcments. Or we could just take a civilian car and hope we make it out." said Lane.
"Ok then, Lane, we'll radio HQ and hold this position, tell them that there are about 15 Banshees circling us too." said Kennedy as he readied his battle rifle.

"Uniform Six-Eight to HQ! Uniform Six-Eight to HQ! Come in please." said Lane desperatly into the mic of the radio.

"HQ to Uniform Six-Eight, what do ya need?" came a voice over the com.
"We need reinforcements and lots of 'em, preferably warthogs, tanks, and a few aircraft. We are in Paris on Penson and 78th street at the plant store. There are about 200 Covenant ground troops and 15 Banshees. Please send help, we only have 3 men here." said Lane as he was desperatly trying to put a new magazine into his battle rifle.

"Roger that Uniform Six-Eight, we will send 'em in as fast as we can." said the voice over the com.

"Guess we ain't getting paid overtime for this one are we, Corporal?" I said as I readied my battle rifle on the window seal of the north window.

"Guess not." Kennedy said as he laughed.

A grunt came around the intersection's corner on my side, about 20 yards away.

"CONTACT!!!" I yelled as I fired at him. I put fifteen rounds into him just because I was scared of getting burned by plasma.

"Damn. Conserve your ammo or you're gonna be fighting with only your knife." Lane said

Ten minutes passed on. We thought maybe the covenant had went another direction. I was wrong. A gold elite came around the corner with his energy sword glowing hot death. I was stunned to see how huge they were, more than 8 ft. tall probably. I put 21 bullets into him, but he just kept coming. My rifle ran out of ammo.

"GET OUTTA HERE YOU UGLY BITCH!" I yelled as I started to pull out my smg since it would be easier to fire my smg than reload my rifle.

A sensation of undefinable fear overwhelmed me. The elite kept getting closer by the second. I could feel my heart beating at a highly dangerous rate. I aimed my smg at the elite and pulled the trigger. Kennedy and Lane turned and began to fire thier BR55's at him.

CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! The smg was apparently jammed.

I made a critical decision right then and there; I would try to save my team members, even though I was certain I was gonna die.

"RUN!!!" I yelled as I jumped over the window seal with my combat knife.

Then, a miracle happened...

CRACK!!! A tracer round hit the elite's shield. Just missing my right shoulder.

I fell to the ground and continued to gaze at the oncoming elite.

CRACK!!! Another round deflected by the elite's shield.

CRACK!!! The elite's shield flickered away and he stumbled back a bit. Apparently in confusion.

CRACK!!! A fourth tracer went into the elite's chest. The elite fell backwards and clutched his gaping wound.

I walked over to the wounded elite and jabbed my knife into his throat. I looked back to see where the shots came from and saw group of four marines heading to the shop. One of them had a sniper rifle in his hands. I ran back to my window seal and reloaded my battle rifle and tried to fix my smg.

"Thanks for taking out that elite. I don't know what I was thinking when I jumped over that seal." I said to the sniper
"No problem. One down and 32 billion to go." he said as he took aim through his scope.
"Hey, I'll fix that for ya." said a new marine as he snatched the SMG away from my hand.
"O... kay." I replied, a bit surprised.

30 seconds later...

"Here you go." the marine said as he handed me the SMG
"Thanks." I replied
"That'll be thirty-one-fifty." he said witha smile
"Charge it to my Swiss... " I began to say before stopping to gaze down the street.

A whole group of about 20 grunts and jackals came around the corner about 100 yards away.

"OPEN UP ON 'EM, WE ARE GONNA HOLD THIS SHOP!" said Kennedy as he unloaded about 10 bullets into a singal jackal.

I opened up with my battle rifle. I chunked grenades as fast as I could from my window seal. The sniper took down SIX grunts with four shots because the grunts were so tightly packed. I emptied 1 mag and was jamming in a fresh one when a voice came over the radio...

"Firebird Seventeen to Uniform Six-Eight. We are inbound with some serious heat and some of the old school firepower, Over" said a manly rugged voice.
"Roger that Firebird Seventeen. We need support NOW. We are under heavy attack. Please give me an ETA!" said Lane into his mic.
"ETA about 3 minutes, just hold on Six-Eight." said the rugged voice.
"Roger that, by the way, there are about 15 Banshees hanging around here, so be careful, over" said Lane as he filled a grunts head full of lead.

About 2 1/2 minutes later, I heard something I had only heard in the movies. The "whoomp, whoomp, whoomp" of helicopter blades. Helicopter hadn't been used in the service since the appearance of the pelican. About 15 seconds later it came into sight. It was a VIETNAM WAR ERA Huey Gunship. They hadn't been in service since the late 21st century. I had only seen them in museums and movies, how did they get that thing to fly.

At that moment a group of over 120 soldier rounded the corner about 100 yards away.

"GET DOWN!!!" yelled Kennedy

We hit the floor just as plasma flew over our heads. We heard the chain guns begin to rattle off rounds of 50 cal fire into the group. I peeked my head over the wall and watched as the huey fired 2 missiles into the crowd of soldiers, exploding and spraying fire all over the group. I saw the huey fire some homing missiles at the banshees. He took out about 10 them with those rockets. Then the MAAG gunners took out two a piece. The remaining Banshees bugged out and headed off into the sky.

"Well, that wasn't too hard Uniform Six-Eight. Thanks for calling us, we were getting bored just sitting around base besides making mail call." said the huey pilot as he hovered above us.

"Thanks a lot Firebird Seventeen, we really needed that help. What do ya say we buy you and your boys a round of beers back at base?" said Kennedy into his mic.
"Sure, that would be great Six-Eight, I'll start the tab." said the huey pilot as he laughed.
"How 'bout ride when we get back to base, huh?" I said eagerly into the mic
"Sure, see ya'll then." said the huey pilot as he started towards the base.

We mopped up what was left of the dying covenant forces in the town. The missiles were apparently filled with phosphorous, since most of bodies were burn to ashes and nothing was left but a little bone debris. We returned to base and was debriefed.

I saw a kid crying in the hall. He told me his family was in New Mombasa, he said he didn't know if they had made it out in time. I kinda felt sorry for the guy. We got a few more additions to our squad: a White women medic PFC. Alex Foster; a Black demolitions specialist Pvt. Cody Dien; and a Hispanic sniper Pvt. Guy Alverez. Kennedy was promoted to Sergeant.

I decided that I should contact Baker's girlfriend. I got the number from the from his little booklet he had in his foot-locker. I went to a pay-phone and made the call, it rang about four times before she picked up.

"Hello." she said
"Is this Mitch Baker's girlfriend?" I asked
"Yes. Why?" she asked
"Well, we had an accident today. He was killed by Covenant forces." I said grimly.
"How?" she asked
"A hunter blew up the warthog he was in. He wanted me to call you and he said that he will always love you." I said
"Thank you for your call." she said as she began to cry.

CLICK!!!

The phone went dead. She hung up on me. We were all called to a briefing in our squads bunk house. Our sarge was briefing us on where the Covenant were moving. We were going to be lifting off and going to the Orbital Defense Grid to help protect it against more covenant ships that were coming in. They were already under attack and I heard rumors of the "MASTER CHIEF" being on the one we were going to, the Cairo. I never got that huey ride.

"Sir, how could they have gotten through the EDP's?" I asked Kennedy
"Well, two ships got through due to sheer force. One was destroyed and the other is presently in Africa." he replied
"How did covenant get HERE, though?" I asked
"Well, the destroyed ship had launched a few forces aimed blindly at earth. Most landed in the southern portion of the county on farmland and neutralized anyone they came upon. A few of them have been reported in California though. Reports say thay have been eliminated already. We don't have to worry about any enemy forces in this part of the planet, only in New Mombasa." he said
"When are we leaving?" Lane asked
"Three minutes." Kennedy replied

We loaded up on the pelican and shot off into the darkness of space toward the EDP's. This might be fun, I thought.

20 minutes pass...

"Were going to sit down on the Cairo in 5 minutes. Prep for arrival." said the pilot of our pelican.

CLANK! Was the sound I heard when we were inside the Pelican Bay on the ODG. I never even got to unbuckle my belt before we were being given orders.

"Uniform Six-Eight, I need you to go to the In Ambor Clad. They have set down in New Mombasa. They need a few more Marines on hand since they had to send some marines with the chief. Can you do it?" said a tall and middle-aged man by the name of Lord Hood.
"Yes SIR" we said as we picked up our gear and started into the hallway.

An explosion happened, our entrance back to the pelican bay was blocked now.

"We're going to have to take the long way. Aren't we, sarge?" I asked
"Hell yeah. Let's move." he replied
"Ok men, there ARE Covenant forces in this thing, so be careful." said Kennedy as he leveled his battle rifle.

We began running down a long hall. The space-station was a grayish white on the interior and had a very futuristic feel to it.

I could think of nothing but the firefight I'd engaged in an hour or two ago. What if the covenant did win this war, we would all die in a no chance struggle against them. I thought of what it might be like to have Earth with billions of rotting human corpses roasting in the sun. The thought sent a shiver up my spine. I shook off the thought because I needed to be alert now.

"WATCH OUT!" yelled Kennedy as he saw a plasma grenade materialize out of nowhere and be hurled at him. It exploded just in front of him, temporarily blinding him. He was smart and started running backwards until I caught him and pushed him into saftey. Foster caught him and began to flush his eyes with water.

"WE GOT STEALTH ELITES IN HERE!" yelled Lane as he checked the bullet counter on his rifle.
"NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!" said Kennedy, still in a daze.
"I'LL TAKE THAT SON OF A BITCH OUT!" said Dien.

Dien peeked around the corner and fired a couple of rockets at each distant wall. He must have gotten lucky or had a keen eye because all I saw a stealth Elite's hand fly past my cover a few seconds after he fired.

"You're a regular Billy the Kid ain't ya?" said Kennedy staggering to his feet.
"Well Sir, I do try" said Dien as laughed about sarge's little comment.

"Well come on people, the ship isn't gonna come to us, LET'S GO!" said Kennedy as we began running to the ship.

We finally made it back to the pelican bay after 5 minutes of searching for it. We managed to get in and get secured just in time to be wisked away from the Cairo. I could feel the gravity taking effect again as we entered the atmosphere. We headed to the In Ambor Clad. It was about 5 minutes away. We could see the covenant cruiser up ahead.

"Did you boys wanna get ON the In Ambor Clad?" the pilot asked
"Yeah, we need to get there as soon as possible." replied Kennedy.
"Well we just received a report from Keyes that the cruiser is about to jump. A comm operater advised we could followed them through the slipspace if we get there fast enough. Tell your men to buckle in. We are going to be bookin' it!" said the pilot.
"Everyone hear that?" Kennedy said as he looked at us.
"Yes, sir." we said in unison.

"Uniform Six-Eight to Captain Keyes on Tac forty-nine." said Kennedy.
"Go ahead Six-Eight, this is Captain Keyes." said Keyes over our helmet comms.
"My squad was advised to assist you. Are you sure we can survive the slipspace jump?" asked Kennedy
"Yes, just get in behind the cruiser as close as you can and when we arrive I want you to board this vessel." she replied
"We will follow your approach. Uniform Six-Eight, Out." Kennedy said
"You heard the lady. Let's get to it." Kennedy said as he gave a thumbs up to the pilot.

I saw a bright, immense light and felt a very sharp pain the back of my head. I felt with my fingers and looked at them, they were a little bit bloody. I dazed out and fell into unconsiousness.

I awoke in a dazed and confused state. Foster was stitching the back of my head up. She finished and helped me to my feet.

"Must've been this fire extingusher, Debo. When we jumped it came loose and the next thing ya know we all see you dead-looking. Hope you're OK." said Foster as she sprayed the area with a light coating of bio-foam.
"Thanks, it hurts, can I have something for the pain? PLEASE" I said as I felt the back of my head to survey the damage.
"Sure." she said as she pulled out some pills from her kit.

I decided to have look out the window to see if we had jumped to a Covenant held planet. . . when I saw it. It was a huge ring that resembled a hula-hoop at first glance.

"What the hell is that? I think it might be Mama Clumps wedding ring." I chuckled as I turned to the other to get a response. Apparently, they had never seen the Eddie Murphy movies.
"It is a ringworld called halo, Private. Master Chief has already been sent down with a group of ODSTs to set up an LZ and try to find that Prophet of Regret. They've been gone for about an hour now. I hope you didn't wanna go." said Kennedy is strong tone.
"Sir, the Covenant have landed on it? I asked.
"Yes they have, Private. I think they are just primarily protecting the Prophet's palaces though." said Kennedy

"All hands, strap in, we are going to enter the ring's atmosphere is 3 minutes. Prepare for cold climates, we are going to be in a very cold part of ring. Also, max out on EVERYTHING you can; ammo, grenades, EVERYTHING! We may have to fight our way back to the ship, Keyes out." said Keyes over the comm.

"Fight our way back to the ship? What are we gonna do? Go for a nice wintery picnic." said Alverez with sarcasm.
"Maybe so." said Dien as he rubbed the barrel of his rocket launcher.

We got strapped in and took great care to make sure everything was secure this time. We entered the atmosphere and nothing went wrong, thankfully.

Sarge got a call to go to the Bridge for a briefing, lucky him, we had to stay in the damp personell portion of the ship. We waited for about 50 minutes before he came back. When he did come back he had cold and hard look of uncertainty upon his face.

"Ok men... and woman. I have been briefed on what our orders are. The reasons we are landing is that a HUGE covenant fleet has been detected exiting slipspace. Also, we have to retrieve something. We are ordered to support Keyes and Johnson and help them get to the 'library' of this ring. They have found it and we are heading there now. We will accompany Johnson and Keyes to get the 'Index' from the 'library'. If we fail and the Covenant gets the index, then they will fire halo and kill ALL sentient life in the galaxy, and I do mean ALL. I have also been told that there is another faction on halo, known as 'the Flood'. There are combat forms, covenant and humans types, spore carriers, and infection forms. The infection forms can get on your back and control you, ultimately making YOU into a flood also. They are all parasites, kill them if you see them. The carriers explode if you get to near them or shoot them, the effect is equvilent to that of a frag grenade. Shotguns are reported to be most effective against the flood, so I want everyone to take a shotgun along with another weapon of your choice. By the way, we learned that there is some type of civil war going on in the covenant, something with heretics is what we've been picking up from deep space frequencies on the most outlying planets. Any questions?" said Kennedy in a cold, hard tone of voice.

"Yes Sir" said Lane "Will we have any vehicles to support us?"
"Yes you will, in fact, we will all be riding in one. Well, two warthogs actually." said Kennedy

"I got a question, Sarge." said Foster "You said those infection forms can make us into flood too. So can it punch through our armor plating?"
"I'm afraid so, PFC. If you get one attached then get someone to get it off of you pretty quick, or you will have your spine snapped in two by the little thing and it will move up into your chest cavity, while your still alive, and start to control your body." said Kennedy in a mild voice

"Oh man, looks like were pretty screwed!" said Alverez as he looked through his snipers scope
"By the way, Alverez, sniper bullets won't kill the flood. The bullets will just go through them. I would recommend a battle rifle, son." said Kennedy
"Yes Sir. Guess I won't get any headshots this time around." he said disappointedly under his breath

"All hands, we will arrive at our destination in 7 minutes. Keep a close eye out for any enemies. especially those 'flood' enemies. We must first try to find a way to take a shield down that is surrounding the whole Quarentine Zone. Be ready, people. Keyes Out." said Keyes over the loudspeakers

About one minute before we landed, the shield surrounding the quarentine zone just simply retracted and disappeared.

"The shield has somehow been deactivated. We are proceeding now. Let's go, people." said Keyes over the comm.

Our squad went to the pelican bay and got loaded up on our pelican. I took a seat near the back of the pelican so I could see the land we would be traversing. As we took-off I looked out the back of the pelican. The In Ambor Clad was a whole lot bigger than I thought it was. I guess being inside makes it seem a little bit smaller.

We landed in a desolate canyon area. It was well below 30 degrees and there was absolutely no sun to warm us up. Our warthogs were delivered to our squad about 2 minutes after arrival. I hadn't killed no flood of any kind. I thought about what the flood would look like, what they would sound like, and what there combat tactics were. We could hear a battle in the distance, against Covenant and Flood. I hated to leave our nice place of safety, but I had to. We loaded up our 'hogs and followed Johnson and Keyes in their's, along with the rest of the platoon.

We passed a sight of a previous battle, a very bloody one. It was strewn with bodies of Covenant and Flood and even a few unlucky ODSTs that became flood, poor souls. The smell of the flood was overpowering, they smelled like rotten eggs mixed with burning flesh. I saw one of the Covenant, surrounded by dead flood, twitch as I passed him. Apparently he was still alive, though very badly wounded.

"FOSTER, GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW!" I yelled

I thought about what he must be going through, and I would want someone to help me too, even if it was the enemy.

"What is it Debo?" Foster said as she looked at the Elite, knowing what was going through my mind "Are you crazy, that is an Elite. He could decide to cut us all to pieces once he's back to health."
"I will help you if you help me, I have experience fighting .... owww.... the flood. I was saw as a heretic by my superiors, and so I started to listen to the heretics and I now know what the Index is for. The Prophets are going to try to fire all the halos and kill us all. They think it is a path into the divine beyond, a GREAT JOURNEY. I could help you get the Index. I don't want to die." said the Elite.

Apparently the Elite had been convinced by those heretics...

"Alright, but if I see you even look at a human wrong, I will put down regardless of my handywork with stitching." said Foster in a moderate tone of voice.
"Thank you human. What is your names?" inquired the elite
"I'm Debo Johanson, this is Alex Foster." I said pointing a finger at Foster, "She is a medic and I am a regular foot soldier."
"I am Romalee, former high guard of the hierarchs." said the Elite

1 1/2 minutes later...

"There we go, all done. Remember what I said Elite." said Foster
"Yes, I will, thank you for saving me." said Romalee

We got an old combat helmet that was just big enough to fit the Elite and I gave him a patch to stick on his armor, so he would have comm and everyone knew not to shoot him.We mounted up again and headed to catch up with Johnson and Keyes. We soon found them engaged in battle with the flood., so naturally we joined in. Lane was a little paranoid about having an elite riding shotgun with him in his tank, but got over it soon enough when the elite started shooting flood with his carbine.

"Get away, Parasite." yelled Romalee in anger.
"Hell yeah, Mr. Elite, kill 'em all!" said Lane over the mic.

Suddenly, a distorted radio message came over the comm.
"Pelican Six-One-Niner...we have crashed and we nee...lp...we are running low o...ease help!...re at Kilo-Ch...even-Eight...GET IT OFF!" said a man on the other end of the radio, apparently scared to death.

"We got to do something, help 'em somehow." exclaimed Dien.

I wanted to help them too, but I knew we were dead if we went to help them, but they needed help.

"Sarge, my team volunteers to go and help the downed pelican." I said
"Go ahead, we'll continue on. Good luck, soldiers." said Kennedy
"Sir, can we take the Elite and the tank with us?" I said
"Roger that, you'll need them more than we do. Good luck again."Kennedy said as he saluted us.

Chronicles of Uniform Six-Eight. Part 2: Friends, Flood, and Low Ammo
Date: 3 August 2005, 6:47 am

We raced across the barren tundra, trying to not lose the Scorpion. We came to the top of a hill and off in the distance we saw the downed pelican on its side and smoking heavily. We also saw about 200 flood combat forms and about a 1000 infections that were just waiting to sink their tentacles into us. Everyone looked into the valley in disbelief as they locked their weapons.

"What are we gonna do, Debo?" said Foster in a cool tone.
"We are gonna run over as many of 'em as we can in order to get to the pelican. Then we will help defend the pelican." I said into the mic. for all my squad to hear.
"We're with you, Sir." I heard everyone say into their mics, even Romalee.

We took off at full speed, the scorpion could crush combat forms beneath it massive body and take out large groups with its main gun, it would be fine on its own. I started doing fishtails to try to kill as many flood as possible, it worked. I also did some figure 8s for a minute, then I tore ass to get to the pelican. I saw in the distance the Scorpion taking out huge numbers of flood, and not retaining even a scratch. Foster and I jumped outta the warthog, leaving Dien to man the LAAG, who began to kill flood in waves.

"The stench is so horrible, how can these things smell so bad?" said Alverez.
"Hey, maybe it's because they eat a lot of Mexican people for lunch." said Dien jokingly over the comm.
"This is no time for jokes. We could die here." said Lane into comm as he mowed down a wave of combat forms.

Foster and I ran up behind a group of soldiers firing a heavy mounted machine gun.

"Where's your CO?" I asked a marine who had a bandage over his eye.
"I'm the CO. Glad ya'll made it." He said
"Sorry for the delay, we got held up because the tank was so slow." I said as I shot an bulbous exploding flood.
"We need all the help we can get. I need you two here with me." he said
"No problem." I replied

A flood infected marine landed between a marine and I. The flood raised his arm to strike the marine. Just as he did this I took out my knife and jammed it deep into its back until half of my hand was in the rotting flesh. It turned around and a tentacle in its chest tried to grab at my armor. The CO turned around and shot the flood in the back with his shotgun. A green liquid explosion erupted from its chest and splashed on my chest and face.

"Thanks." I said
"Just another confirmed kill." he chuckled

I killed a flood about two foot in front of the machine gun line. He dropped a shotgun, which I promptly picked up and began firing at more of his friends.

"Look!" said Foster as she pointed to the flood I'd just killed.

An infection was on its back and now burrowing into its back towards its chest. The body began to twitch and stood up as I watched in amazement.

"Shit." I said in disbelief, just before the CO put a round into the flood's chest.

23 minutes later...

TAT-TAT-TAT!!! I put three rounds into the chest of a mutated elite. That was the last of the flood in this area. The CO walked over to me and put on his jungle boonie and threw his helmet to a marine with no helmet.

"Boy howdy, we sure showed them." said the CO.
"You must be from the southern U.S." I said
"Yep, born and raised there, by the way, I'm the one that was on the radio with ya." he said
"Really, what's your name, soldier." I inquired
"Name's Bob, Bob Stooker." said Bob
"How'd ya'll end up out here?" I asked him
"We coming to reinforce the commanders column. A plasma burst from a wraith caught our wing and took out the engine." he said
"Must've been good piloting. Where are the pilots?" I asked
"The cockpit was crushed when we hit. They didn't stand a chance." he replied as he shook his head.
"At least the rest of ya made it." I said

We started to mop-up the place, look for any undead enemies and make 'em dead. I was inspecting the flood bodies when I heard screaming on the other side of the Scorpion tank. I ran around to see what was happening and jumped around the front of the tank to discover a single infection form had survived, and was now crawling up Diens back, he ran around screaming, obviously scared outta his wits.

"GET IT OFF! OH MY GOD HELP ME! HELP ME! OH MY GOD! GOD! SOMEONE PLEASE GET IT OFF!" Dien yelled as he ran past me.

Dien was running at full speed when it happened. SNAP! We suddenly heard come from his body, then he hit the ground, not budging a bit. The little creature vanished into Diens back very quickly, before any of us could even try to get it off of him. Diens body began to twitch, it shook violenty, then Dien stood up with a glazed over look in his eyes, and started to charge at us.

"OH NO!" yelled Alverez.
"OH SHIT!" I said as I opened up on Dien with my battle rifle.

Dien hit the ground and stopped moving, he had become infected obviously, it must've been a very horrible feeling, knowing death was only seconds away, a very painful one too. As I reloaded my clip I walked over to Alverez, who was leaning against the Scorpion.

"It's all my fault, Sir. I should've pulled it off his back. I should've stabbed it with my bayonet." said Alverez
"It's not your fault, Alverez. It's just war. You were scared the same as he was. No one could've helped him. He was destined to die that way and he would've died that way no matter what you did. Don't blame yourself, it is NOT your fault." I said reassureingly to Alverez.

I was consoling Alverez when I noticed I didn't see Romalee anywhere.

"Where did Romalee go?" I asked Alverez
"He went down during the middle of the fight. He took out his energy sword and went all ninja-style on the flood. He took out about twenty or thirty probably, before a swarm of infection forms got him." Alverez said.

We were still in mop-up when we saw a warthog top the hill at full speed. I had a bad feeling about it, I don't know why. It looked like it had been riddled with bullets and it had a very green look to it. I squinted to try to get a better look and made out a few marines in the seats. The one on the LAAG looked very tall and big with his helmet hanging off the back of his head.

"Excellant. Maybe there are more warthogs for us to drive outta here." said a Marine from the crash.

At about that time the 'hog came barreling at our position. A chill ran up my spine that told me to get behind the scorpion and hunker down. As the hog got closer I could see that the passenger was hanging half way out of the warthog. The guy on the LAAG turned towards us and began opening fire. The tracers began to impact around our position.

"HIT THE DECK!!!" Foster yelled.
"KNOCK THAT THING OUT, SANDERS!" yelled a Marine to my right.

A Marine stood up and fired a rocket at the warthog. The rocket started a spiral toward the oncoming warthog and with amazing accuracy it impacted on the driver side of the warthog. The 'hog flipped over and exploded, killing everyone inside it. We ran to it to investigate. Lane was there first. He stared at the bodies in disbelief.

"Oh my God, the flood can control our vehicles!" said Lane as he examined the flood bodies.
"This means... WE GOT TO GET BACK TO THE IN AMBOR CLAD!" I yelled to everyone.
"Why?" said a short, runty Marine
"Because if we don't, then the flood will take our ship and get off the ring." I said in desperation.

Sgt. Bob Stooker looked at me and began to order everyone to get all the ammo they can and pile on any available vehicle.

"Ok everyone. You heard the man, we gotta get back to the Clad so the flood bastards don't take it away." said Stooker
"Yes, Sir!" everyone said in unison.
"Stooker, my team is working independent of your team. Correct?" I asked
"Sure. You're very much a leader as far as I can see." he replied
"We're going to go find another ride outta here. We'll be back in a few." I said to Stooker
"No problem. We'll be here." he replied with a smile.
"Lane, Alverez, we will take our hog and search around for any available vehicles. We need to get to the ship with as many men as we can." I said in a rapid tone.
"Yes, Sir!" they both said.

We jumped in our warthog and away we went. We went about two miles and had found nothing, until we topped a hill and saw a fresh pelican just sitting the middle of an open area. We started slowly towards it. We stopped and got out. Alverez remained on the LAAG in case of an emergency.

"Lane, I'll go in and check to see if this thing can fly. Stay here and watch for trouble." I said

As I pushed the external opening switch for the bay doors of the pelican I heard something clank. I walked slowly into the dimly lit troop bay and turned on my helmet light for illumination. I heard something else clank in the direction of the equipment locker.

"Lane, get in here. NOW!" I whispered into my mic.

He came up slowly and took up a position beside me.

"There's someone in there. Open it up and I'll shoot if it's a hostile." I said to Lane

Lane got in front of the sliding door and jerked it open as fast as he could. A pilot was standing with a shotgun in my face, he then lowered it gently.

"Thank God. I though I was the only one who'd made it. I'm Lt. Cliff Heffton." he said
"What happened here?" I asked
"We were flying support for Keyes when we got a distress call from another pelican in the area. My fuel gauge was apparently wrong because we had to make an emergency landing due to no fuel. My gunner, co-pilot, and crew cheif said they were going for help and to stay with the pelican. I got scared when I saw about a dozen combat forms run by the pelican, so I stayed in the weapons locker. I've been in there for about 35 minutes." he said
"Well, we have about twenty marines that need transport to the Clad. Will this thing fly?" I asked
"Yes, but we don't have any fuel." he replied
"I think that maybe we can get some from the downed pelican we just helped defend. Probably the same one you were going to support." I said
"Yes, I heard your traffic across the comm and though for sure you all would be killed. By the way, have you seen the rest of my crew?" he asked
"I'm sorry, we haven't. Can you stay here while we go and get the men and fuel?" I asked
"Sure, I stayed here before." he said

Lane and I got back in the warthog and managed to find an additional two warthogs that we drove to the downed pelican. We arrived back at the downed pelican and began to formulate a plan.

"Sgt. Stooker, we found an abandoned Pelican about 2 miles away with no fuel in it, at ALL. Besides that, the pelican seems to be fine. Do you have ANY fuel at all left in this thing?" I asked him, pointing to the smoldering pelican.
"Yes I do, probably about 3/4 of its supply. We could use the scorpion to tow it back here and transfer the fuel from this useless pelican to the other pelican." said Stooker in an excited voice.
"Why don't we just take the fuel from this thing and haul it to the other pelican. It's easier and would be a whole lot more safer." I said
"That's two miles of basically open area. We could be ambushed by flood at any time." he said
"Well, then we better get everyone on a vehicle." I said
"Yes, sir." Stooker replied

Stooker began ordering his remaining troops and breifing them on our plan. In about 20 minutes we had everyone on a vehicle and the fuel in some canisters for safe transport. There were three canisters, so we put one canister in each of the vehicles, just in case we did get ambushed. Our column would have the tank at the front and then the three warthogs would fall in behind. Alverez and a new marine would be driving the tank. My warthog was just behind the tank, I was riding with Lane, and Foster. I went to it and mounted up.

"Alright Alverez, move out." I said into the comm.

The massive machine began to take off at slow speed and gradually built up a rather moderate rate of travel. All I could think about was how we would manage if the flood DID attack us while en route to the pelican. We would survive, just not all of us.

"FLOOD! WE GOT FLOOD CLOSING IN ON OUR ASSES! MOVE IT!" I heard a marine yell over the comm.

I turned around just in time to see gunfire erupt from the trailing warthog. Over three dozen combat forms were chasing the our convoy, followed by close to 500 infection forms. The warthog hit a rock and caught a little bit of air, that was just enough for the passenger to fall out of his seat and hit the ground.

"STOP! JIMMY'S FALLEN OUT!" the gunner yelled to the driver.

The marine got up and began firing as fast as his BR55 would allow. Flood were firing weapons at him. Eleven pink needles begin to spiral towards him and all impacted on his left leg and buttocks. The marine clutched his rifle and just looked up into the sky as he waited for the needle explosion to rip him apart. A pink explosion happened and the upper torso of the soldier was thrown a few feet and came down with a wet crunch because his bones had been shattered.

"GOD DAMNIT! GOD DAMNIT!" the gunner yelled in fury.

The gunner stopped firing his controlled burst and simply held the trigger down. He wanted revenge for his apparent friend's death. We were only about a mile away from the pelican now. The flood was gaining ground on our convoy, the trailing warthog couldn't compete with the number of bodies being thrown at him.

"C'mon warthog number 3, we only have about 1200 meters to the pelican." I said over the comm.
"Don't worry, sir. We got this shi ... " the driver said before being cut off.

I was looking back at the 'hog when this occured, a single bolt of plasma had it the fuel canister onboard, causing a massive explosion. The explosion blew the warthog apart and killed about a dozen combat forms in the immediate are of the vehicle. They never knew what hit them.

"SIR, WE NEED TO GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!" Stooker yelled over the comm.
"Alright, Alverez. Stop the tank and let us pass, then start bringing up the rear and tear those fuckers a new one. Got it?" I said
"This is Alverez, we got it." he replied

The tank stopped and we drove past them at lightning speed. We topped the ridge that overlooked the small valley the pelican sat in.

"HELL YEAH! WE MIGHT JUST MAKE IT OUTTA HERE!" I heard a marine yelled.

We drove to the pelican and began unloading the fuel. Cliff stepped out of the troop bay and had a HUGE grin on his face.

"Johanson to Alverez. Keep those bastards back while we fuel. What's your position?" I said into the mic.
"We are about 300 meters from the pelican. We got only light resistance left. We'll be there in a matter of minutes."he replied
"Copy that, I still want you to stage at the entrance of the area in case of another attack." I said
"Roger that." he said

I turned to Stooker.

"Get your men to get that pelican fueled NOW!" I said
"Already on it." he said happily
"We need to get it done FASTER!" I said, putting emphasis at the end.

He commanded his men to do so. In about 10 minutes the fuel transfer was complete, now the moment that we all had been waiting for. Cliff stepped into the seat and pushed a button. The pelican spit and sputtered, but didn't start.

"Oh shit, we're dead man. DEAD!" said a Marine in a maniacal tone
"Pull yourself together, man.! We are going to get outta here. Know why? BECAUSE I AM NOT GOING TO DIE HERE!" said Stooker in a strong tone
"Yes, Sir." said the marine
"Try the engines once more, Mike." said Stooker in a hopeful voice.

I could hear Cliff say a little prayer as he pushed the ignition button.

BRRREEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!

The engines hummed to life. Everyone cheered and shot their guns into the air.

"Thank you, God!" said Cliff as he nearly passed out.
"Looks like we are going to get to the In Ambor Clad." said Stooker
"Yes it does." I said "Alverez, you can move up to the LZ now. Marines, get that scorpion attached to the pelican asap, we'll be needing it."
"Yes, sir. We'll be right there." said Alverez

We got the scorpion hooked up to the pelican and threw in all the ammo we could fit. We could barely fit everyone in it because of the ammo, but we got everyone in anyway.

"EVERYONE IN?" asked Cliff
"GOOD TO GO!" said everyone in unison.
"Good job, Sir. I didn't think you were the leader type, but you proved me wrong." said Foster.

I took one last look over battle field, at the downed pelican, at all the dead bodies as we were lifting off. I would never see this place again, nor did I want to. It was a breeding ground for death. A lot of ment lost their lives here, and no one would probably even hear of this story if the Covies had anything to do with it.

Onward towards the lightly guarded In Ambor Clad. A single pelican with fourteen Marines on board and a scorpion MBT for back-up. The next battle would surely be my last I thought to myself. How could we win? There is an unknown number of flood, thousands of Covenant, and only about a 250 Marines, 88 ODST's, 200 of the ship's crew, and a small number of ONI operatives that came here. Only about 115 Marines, 47 ODST's, 60 crew members, and 3 ONI operatives are left that I know of.

We flew about 300 feet off the ground at about 110 mph. It would take at least 40 minutes to get to the Clad. I thought about home. How it might be if we lost the war and the human race became extinct. Rotting corpses roasting in the August sun. No one around to pick-up the bodies, to bury them. No one around to report to HQ what happened, no HQ to report to. The thought of it sent a chill down my back. Foster saw me shake and sat next to me.

"Something the matter?" She asked
"No, just thinking of home." I said
"Do you think we'll make it off this ring?" she said
"I don't know." I said "Right now I'm thinking we will all die at the hand of the flood."
"Don't think that way. We survived a flood attack of three-hundred men strong, we only had nineteen, and we still won." she said

That cheered me up a little, but not much.

"I just don't wanna die out here in space." I said.
"Oh come on. I think we will be just fine." she said
"Thanks but I don't think we will, Alex." I replied

For about 30 minutes we talked about this and that, trying to forget our problems. She was nice, I had never noticed her beautiful brown eyes and that dark brown hair with blonde high-lights. Right then, she looked like and angel that had come to take me home, through a battle zone that is.

"ETA TEN MINUTES. GEAR UP AND LOCK AND LOAD. I JUST CONTACTED THE CLAD AND IT IS UNDER HEAVY ATTACK FROM THE FLOOD. BE PREPARED, THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG FIGHT." said the pilot over the comm.

We all got prepared for the landing. The tank, which Alverez and another Marine would be operating, would land about 1/4 of a mile away and start taking out as many flood as they could. While the rest of us would go on and land at the Clad and help defend it.

"ETA 30 SECONDS. GET THAT TANK READY TO DROP AS SOON AS WE HIT THE DECK." Yelled the pilot.

"SHTHUNK!" the tank was released about 8 feet from the ground. As soon as it hit the ground it started rolling towards the Clad. I saluted Alverez as he saluted me when we took off. I would probably never see him alive again.

"ETA TO IN AMBOR CLAD... 40 SECONDS. GET PREPARED!" said the pilot.
"What are you gonna do after you drop us off?" I asked the pilot
"I am gonna get two marines to stay onboard and help support ya'll. I will fly as much as I can, but I gotta get refueled and rearmed first." said the pilot.
"Ok buddy. Thanks" I said

We landed in the pelican bay and unloaded everyone. Lane and I went to the bridge to see where the CO needed us.

"Uniform Six-Eight reporting for orders, Sir" I said to the CO
"Six-Eight, we need you and your men to go and help defend the lower vehicle entrances to the ship. These things are getting in everywhere." said the CO

We went to the lower levels of the ship to defend the vehicle bay, which was empty except for two warthogs.

"Stooker, get your men out there on those 'hogs to help the scorpion." I said
"Yes Sir." he said

Stooker got six of his men to volunteer for it. They loaded up the 'hogs and out the door they went. What brave men they were. The knew they would get infected within a few minutes. They loaded up anyway and sped into the heat of the battle. I watched as they began tearing through waves of flood.

103 minutes later...

"GET DOWN!" I said, Lane hit the deck just as I pumped a flood full of lead.

It dropped a plasma pistol in the snow. For some reason, I picked it up and put it in my pants pocket. I might need it later I though to my self. By this time, we had lost the lower levels of the ship.We lost the vehicles bays except for the pelicans, which had two pelicans in it. The 2 warthogs had been destroyed by the sheer number of flood that continued to thrash at them, but we still had the scorpion going strong.

"Alverez to Johanson." Alverez said over the comm.
"Yes, what is it?" I asked
"Sir, we are out of cannon rounds, all we have left is coaxial ammo, and that is running low. They are coming at us in waves, please come help us." said Alverez
"I can't Alverez. You have to hold on. Keeping running those bastards down and conserve your ammo. How much ammo do you have left now?" I said
"Sir, we only got about a thousand rounds." He said desperately over the comm.

Oh no, these men are gonna die and it's all my fault. If we had held the vehicle bay then we would've been able to get them in here. I went to the CO to try to get a new plan in order.

"CO, why don't we just lift off and land somewhere else that isn't infested with flood?" I asked
"We were told to hold here and defend the ship. Besides, if we were to go somewhere else then the Captain might not be able to find us." he said
"Why haven't you tried to contact Keyes and tell her what's going on?" I asked
"Because she is probably out of comm range. Also, if we moved locations then the Covenant might shoot us down in the process. Trust me, the Covenant don't want to risk one of their ships just to board a single human vessel in a flood infested region." he said
"CO, how many of your men are left?" I asked
"Forty-Seven." he said in a low hopeless voice.
"Sir, when we were in the pelican bay earlier I saw two unused pelicans, not including the one we brought. All we need is some pilots." I said
"And leave our only means of transportation back home. I am not leaving, but you all can. Besides, all our pelican pilots are dead." he said maniacally
"Sir, we will loose this ship if we stay or go. Only difference is how many people die. My squad is gonna pull out." I said
"Fine, take everyone and get out. I will stay here and defend the bridge. I will set up lotus mines at the entrances after everyone is gone." he said
"Sir, you really should come with us." I said sternly
"Don't get an attitude with me. Go now, before I take someone with me." He said as he leveled his gun to my chest.

I took this opportunity to start searching for everyone to get them into the pelican bay and tell them what was going on. Before I could start a voice came over the comm.

"All hands, report to pelican bay three for extraction. Abandon the ship NOW. Don't try to enter the bridge, it is booby trapped. Good luck, everyone." said the CO over loudspeaker.

Everyone ran as fast as they could to the pelican bay. I got there almost last.

"Ok everyone. We are getting outta here, we will go to another part of the ring and establish a CP. Any questions?" I said
"No, Sir" everyone said to my amazement.
"Is there anyone that knows how to fly a pelican?" I asked
"Yes." 11 people said as they raised their hands.
"Good. Decide who will pilot these things. We need to get the hell outta here." I said

"Uniform Six-Eight to Pelican Six-One-Nine. We need you to come into pelican bay five and get ready for extraction. We are leaving the Clad behind." I said in the my helmet mic.
"Yes Sir. Do you want me to pick-up the scorpion on my way?" Cliff said
"YES, COME PICK US UP. NOW!" said Alverez before I could answer the pilot myself.

We got everything we could to fit into the pelican. Food, water, ammo, and electronics were the most essential, they were loaded first, then everyone sat where there was space. We got the scorpion reloaded and refueled and reattached to the pelican. We were about ready to go when we heard the flood knocking at our door.

"GET YOUR ASSES MOVING." I yelled to everyone.

I jumped on the back of my pelican and latched in.

"GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE!" I yelled to the pilot

I felt the pelican begin to lift-off and start to move forward. I looked back into the bay to see the flood bust through the door. A combat form lunged at our pelican, but fell and was sent sailing into a pit. I took a look out the back of the pelican and I was stunned. There were thousands of flood coming towards the ship. The sight made me think that this is a hopeless fight. I sat down in a seat and put my head down.

"Good luck, Sir." I said quietly into my comm.

I looked around and saw that there was no Pvt. Lane to be found. Then I tried all the channels but I never reached him. I guess he got killed, poor guy. He was probably the most afraid of all of us. We headed to a warmer, more hospitable part of the ring about a thousand kilometers away.

"Pelican One-Four-Six to anyone on this frequency. We have set up a CP near the 'Control Room'. We need some help. If anyone is out these then please respond." came a voice over the comms.
"This is Uniform Six-Eight. We copy you One-Four-Six. What is your situation and where is this 'control room'?" I said
"We are about 600 miles south of where the In Ambor Clad set down." said the voice
"Roger, we were heading that way anyway. We are about 590 miles out. What it your situation?" I said
"There is only about a hundred of us, all Marines. We have plenty of ammo and food but we need to mount a rescue operation." said the voice
"Roger. We will discuss it further when we arrive. ETA is about four hours and fifty five minutes. Hang tight. By the way, who am I talking to?" I said
"This is Lieutenant Micheal DeNardo. See ya when ya get here. Out!" said the LT.

Chronicles of Uniform Six-Eight. Part 3: CP and Rescue
Date: 21 August 2005, 2:18 am

1857 hours, October 21, 2552 (Military Calendar)
Installation 05, UNSC Charlie Base CP,

      We flew for a little less than our ETA. We arrived and began to debrief on everything. The CP was surprisingly very well built with instacrete but had nothing but the bare essentials. The Lieutenant came and greeted us as we arrived. He was about a foot shorter than I. He sounded much taller and buffer on the radio, oh well, he was higher in rank than I and I guess that meant he had a good head on his shoulders. Foster, Alverez, Stooker, and I went in to the debriefing room along with the Lieutenant and some of his head people.

"Good to see you here. We appreciate all the ammo, food, and equipment you brought us. Now we need to debrief ya. So, what happened from the time you landed in the QZ to now." said DeNardo
"Well, Sir. That is quite a long story." I said
"Tell it anyway." he said

      I told them all about everything that had happened. They listened on patiently and intently. They were a little surprised about how it was MY idea to leave the Clad behind and run for the hills so to speak. Though they understood why I did it. When I finished everyone in the room was silent.

"Well, Sergeant. I am sorry to hear about the loss of your men." said DeNardo
"Thanks you, Sir... Sergeant, but I'm just a Private!" I said in a confused manner.
"Oh no, you're a Sergeant now. you've just been promoted due to your skills as a leader, Alverez is now a Corporal, as is Foster." he said
"Well thank you, Sir." we all said
"We have been getting reports of Elites, Hunters, and Grunts being friendly towards our forces." DeNardo shifted. "Do you have any idea why this is?"
"Well, Sir. The Elite I talked to said he knew what the rings were for and didn't want the rings to be fired, same as us. I guess they now know what they have been following for centuries is wrong, and they're mad about it." I said
"Well, this is extremely great for us. We might just be able to beat the rest of the Covenant." he said excitedly. "Anyway, we must mount a rescue effort. A recon group was sent to check out the 'control room' a few hours ago. They saw Keyes, Johnson, and a few other Marines being escorted into an area around the control room. We do not know the strength of their presence yet. We MUST rescue those individuals."
"Sir, my squad volunteers to go in with the first Pelican." I blurted out before I could think.
"Good man. We need more men like you Sergeant. I will let you know when we have devised a rescue operation. Dismissed" he said

      We all saluted him and left the room. Alverez, and Stooker looked at me in as though I had just commited murder. Foster just looked at me as though she was expecting an order.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? WE JUST GOT OUTTA THE SHIT NO MORE THAN THREE HOURS AGO, AND NOW YOU WANNA GO BACK IN? WELL I'M NOT, I NEED SOME REST, FOOD, AND A SHOWER." said Alverez in a cocky, pissed-off way.
"So, I'm the bad guy for wanting to rescue someone in danger?" I said
"No, your not the bad guy. I just want some fucking sleep." he said in a lower, more respectful tone.
"Then sleep, eat, drink, be merry. We have at least twelve hours before they come up with a rescue plan." I said as I threw my hands in the air in disgust.
"By the way, we shouldn't be encountering the flood anymore. We are out of the Quarentined Zone, which they can't escape. So you can get your sniper rifle skills in order because we will need for the rescue. Stooker, go to the medical station and get that eye looked at, you had that patch on since we found you and I don't want it getting infected. Foster, come with me." I said
"Yes, Sir!" they all said in unison as they saluted.
"Don't salute, we're in a combat zone." I remarked.
"What did you want with me, Sir?" asked Foster
"I noticed you hadn't eaten in a while. Let's go to the mess hall." I said
"Ok." she said

      We left and went to mess hall. The chow was actually good for once. I asked the cook where he got this chicken, he said that it wasn't chicken, but a native bird that was here when we arrived. It was very good, I went back for seconds.

"I'm going to catch a shower. If you'd like, we can bunk together so none of these other guys try to put the moves on ya." I said to Foster
"Ok, I might just take you up on that." she said as she noticed a group of Marines looking at her with their tongues handing outta their head.
"Ok then, see ya later." I said as I left the mess hall and continued onto the shower.

      It felt so good to get a good, clean, cool, shower after being in battle off and on for about 20 hours straight. I felt about five pounds lighter when I came back to my room after the shower. It felt like I'd washed away all my sins and mistakes, not to mention the sweat and filth I'd gained from fighting. When I went back to my room and opened my door, where I found Foster cleaning her battle rifle and her SMG. They hadn't been cleaned in I don't know how long. I decided to clean my own weapons also.

      I felt around inside my combat vest and found a plasma pistol, which I had picked up while we were fighting the flood at the downed pelican. Just forgot about it and guess I didn't feel it until now. I took it out and began to clean it. It looked so futuristic, even at this day in age, when we have been fighting the Covenant for three decades.

"What do ya got there, Debo?" asked Foster
"Oh nothing, just a plasma pistol I picked up." I said
"Oh, well ya know you can take down any shielding with one big charged blast." she said
"You can?" I said, amazed
"Yes!" she said, amazed that I didn't know that
"So instead of pumping tons of bullets into shielding to take it down, I could've just charged this thing up and then shot the enemy in the head with a pistol?" I asked in astonishment.
"Yep." she said simply.

      Needless to say, I felt like a complete dumbass.

      We talked well into the night, mostly about the battles we had just survived. It got out all the bad feeling pretty well. We fell asleep around 1:15 A.M., although it was almost dawn on the ring, and we were whisk away to wonderful dreamland. It turns out dreamland wasn't so wonderful that night. I had dreams of the battles I had just fought in. Mostly horrible endings where I was turned in a flood combat form. I had a dream that I was making my way through the Clad, by myself, with only a clip of ammo in my magnum. I would run down the halls yelling for other Marines, and get no response, I would always become cornered, then hear the squirming sound of the flood approaching, then I would wake up. Oh well, tomorrow brings new opportunities.

      I woke up to the sound of gunfire and the screams of wounded and dying soldiers. Foster woke up the same time I did. We got dressed and combat ready in under two minutes each. We both went out the door simultaniously with our weapons drawn. The battle outside wasn't big, but is wasn't small. There were bodies everywhere, mostly Jackals.

"MEDIC" yelled a Marine about 30 feet away.

      Foster and I to ran over to the wounded Marine. He had been hit in the right part of his chest by a single ball of plasma from a Brutes plasma rifle. Foster worked on him for about 1 minute and 10 seconds, upon which she finished and the Marine got up and started firing his rifle again. We turned around to see a Brute running at full speed towards us, when the brute was about 10 feet from us we heard a crack and saw a big explosion of blood come from the Brute's head, which ripped away half of brute's skull and flesh. Foster and I looked up to Alverez's smoking barrel aming at the now dead Brute. We gave him the thumbs up and ran to his position where we found Stooker.

"How long has this battle been going on?" I asked Stooker
"Well, we were already awake when they attacked. They've killed about ten Marines, but we've killed about fifty of them though." said Stooker in an optimistic tone of voice.
"Ok, we are going to check on DeNardo." I said.

      We ran to the main CP building that we had met DeNardo in, we found him at the entrance manning a machinegun.

"Any word on the rescue op?" I said
"Yeah, we will brief you as soon as mop-up is completed." he said
"We need some support, I need you two to get into that Scoprion and take out some Brutes." he said
"Yes, sir" we said

      We ran to the Scorpion and jumped in. We turned the tank around and started running over dying Brutes and Jackals as we continued to shoot at the oncoming ones. It tooks us about 20 minutes to win that small battle. We performed mop-up and returned the tank to its place and got the blood wiped off our face, collected Alverez and Stooker, and headed to the CP to get briefed on the Rescue Op. We entered the CP and two hunters stood at twelve feet high, towering over two marines. Stooker nearly had a heart attack when he saw the Hunters. DeNardo was standing in front of them, not batting an eye, then six elites stepped out of a room along with ten grunts. He motioned everyone except the hunters into the briefing room. DeNardo let in about eight other Marines to brief them as well.

"Ok men. This is codenamed Operation Demon Siege. If they think we're demons then we will show them we can be as fierce as the actual demons of hell." DeNardo said
"These Elites, Hunters, and Grunts have left the Covenant forever. They were sent here to negotiate a truce and to help fight for our side. They know the rings purpose, and they do not want to die the same we don't wanna die. They have agreed to help defend the Earth. That means that every Elite, Hunter, and Grunt is now our ally. They want to be our allies. They are now known as the separatists. They have a huge number of ships on standby, some are destroying what is left of the original Covenant, including Buggers, Brutes, and Jackals. These soldiers were also sent here to help us defeat the enemies in the control room and help stop a brute named Tatarus from firing the ring. They will not be under our direct command but have agreed to go along with the rescue plan." said DeNardo
"Sir, what exactly is the plan?" I asked
"Glad you asked, Son. You all be dropped via pelican at a large cliff area in front of the control room. You will then move around in the canyons and get to the entrance at the end of this long and sandy beach area. You will follow the Separatists through the facilities to until you are able to find our Rescue Package, which consists of Johnson, Keyes, and any other Marines, Grunts, Elites, or Hunters you can find. After you find the Rescue Package you will be airlifted back here and that will be the end of the mission." said DeNardo happily.
"I have a question." I said "When we find our rescue package, how long will we have to wait for extraction? Also, any word on the Master Chief?"
"You will be pulled out as soon as possible is all I can say. We only have one piece of intel on the MC, his last known transponder signal was on the Covenant holy city High Charity. Plus, we just got through debriefing a few Marines that fought alongside him up there. The Marines are in the room two doors down from you Staff Sergeant. Get maxed out on ammo and gear, you'll need it. Good Luck, Soldiers. Dismissed" he said as he saluted everyone.

      I had to go talk to the soldiers. I found them exactly where he had said they were.

"How'd you guys get down here from High Charity?" I asked
"We stole a Phantom from those Covie bastards." one Marine said
"Where'd the Master Chief go?" I said eagerly
"He told us to get the hell off High Charity by any means necessary before he disappeared down a lift. So we jumped the Brutes guarding a Phantom full of supplies and brought our happy little asses down on the CP's signal. By the way, did you know that In Amber Clad was at High Charity. The Flood had hijacked it apparently and they crashed into a tower, then they started flying our pelicans inside High Charity." A Marine said
"So you don't know what happened to Chief?" I said
"Nope, but he'll be just fine. We saw him in action and even the Elites we fought were amazed at the speed at which Chief killed them." another Marine said as he laughed aloud.
"Well, you do know that the Elites, Gruntes, and Hunters are now our allies. Don't ya?" I said
"Yeah, we heard about it from the lieutenant. We noticed that the Elites, Hunters, and Grunts were fighting Jackals and Brutes on High Charity. It is a good thing in my opinion. Having an Elite is almost as good as having the Master Chief for back-up." said a Marine, with the name Dedrich on his uniform.
"Ok, well thanks for keeping us posted down here. We appreciate it." I said as I left their room.

"ALL HANDS. PREPARE FOR OPERATION DEMON SIEGE!" said DeNardo over the CPs comm system.

      I found Foster and we got ready for the battle we were about to be thrown forth into. I loaded up on frag grenades and a took a Batte Rifle and two Magnums from the weapons locker, I also loaded up with as much ammo as I could. We didn't know how many enemies we might run into, so we wanted to be prepared. Foster got done before me,as did everyone else, they all went outside to mill around, I was still getting ready. As I was doing this, I noticed a skull on table. I examined closely, it was the skull of a brute, it had a small hole on the right temple.

"That was the Brute that nearly killed ya'll." said Alverez
"You startled me, I thought I was the only one in here." I said "Nice shot by the way. I couldn't have made that."
"Well, they don't call me John Wayne for nothing." he said as he laughed. I had never heard anyone call him 'John Wayne'.
"Well, are you ready?" I said
"You bet." he said simply.

      We walked outta the armory together and went to over to talk to the other Marines. I went to go to the bathromm and came to find Stooker at tthe wheel of the Scorpion, he was trying to learn how to drive it. Apparently, he had failed that part of basic training and was trying to make up for it.

"... and that's how you shoot the main gun." Said Alverez to Stooker.
"Thanks, the Drill Sarge never went into much detail on anything. He just expected us to know how to drive it immediately." said Stooker
"Are you ready, Stooker?" I asked him.
"Yes, Sir. I'm ready to get back the our brothers and sisters." He said.
"Good man." I said as I patted him on the shoulder

"ALL RESCUE PERSONELL, REPORT TO THE PELICAN PAD. GET READY FOR AIRLIFT TO YOUR DESTINATION." said DeNardo over the comm.

      I collected the eight new Marines that were assigned to my squad along with Foster, Stooker, and Alverez. We went to the landing pad to find to our surpirse, two Covenant Phantoms. One was from the escaped Marines from High Charity, and the other was from the Separatists. There were also Six pelicans on the pad. I thought that there only ten on the In Amber Clad anyway, we managed to get over half here in one piece I guess. We jumped into the pelican we were assigned. It was the same pelican that had brought us here.

"Well, Pvt. Johanson. We met again." Said the pilot.
"It's Staff Sergeant Johanson now. I guess you're our pilot today. I hope you take us on a smooth ride." I said
"Oh, a Staff Sergeant so soon. Good for you." the pilot said "I'll take you on a smooth ride right into the LZ. Don't worry about a thing."
"Ok then. Thanks. Did you hear that some of the Covenant joined our side? They are called Separatists." I said
"Yeah, and I think it's a good deal too. I always kinda admired the courage of the Elites. They would throw themselves at outnumbering odds just to save one of their own soldiers, sometimes a grunt." He said, kinda looking off into space as if he was looking for a new ship to come and take us home.
"Well, we should be ready to lift off in about ten minutes. Be ready." I said
"You can bet your arse I'll be ready." He said as he fired up the thrusters.

      I went and told my team to load up. About 7 minutes later we were fully loaded and organized. The Separatists were gonna sit down with us in a Phantom. Just before I told everyone to take a seat, DeNardo came walking over to our pelican. He was about to make a speech I felt like. He ushered the Separatists over to join in the speech. As soon as everyone got quiet he began.

"Marines, Elites, Grunts, and Hunters. Who would have thought that we would all be working together for a common cause until this morning. This is a truely historical event. Today, the tide of the war has turned in all our favors. We will not be defeated any longer. We came to this ring as enemies, but it has made us all brothers in the same cause. I hope all of you make it outta there alive. Good luck, Soldiers, and God Speed." he said

      Everyone saluted DeNardo, then cheered and shouted battle cries into the air. Even the Separatists saluted DeNardo and started to cheer. We all got loaded up into our aircraft. I gave the go signal and we were away in a flash, to victory, to salvation, and to the end of our war.

      Our ride to the LZ was pretty uneventful so far, but then again, we had just lifted off only about 10 minutes ago. Then view from the back of the pelican was beautiful, you never would've thought that this was artificial. The sky line looks very natural, as did the plants, mountains, and just the general geography. It was very breath-taking when I first saw a glimpse of the control room.

"Is THAT the control room?" I asked the pilot.
"Yep, we were gonna bomb it. Only we don't know what it is for just yet." said the pilot

      I returned to my seat, surprised to find Foster now in the seat beside mine. I sat down beside her and started to think of that horrible vision that had been in my mind since we had left Earth. Rotting human corpses in sun, roasting. No HQ to report the situation to, and no one TO report the situation. It always entered my mind in the most inopportune times. Oh well, Foster soon got my mind off it with here talking.

"Sir, do you think we'll make it outta here alive?" she said
"I think we will, but if you're religious, then say a little prayer for EVERYONE that is going to be involved on our side, if you don't mind." I said
"No Sir, I don't mind. I always get scared just before we go into battle. I nearly pissed myself when I saw all those flood yesterday." She said as she began to laugh.
"Don't tell anyone, but I nearly went number two myself."I said with a smile
"Well Sir, I think we will be just fine. With the Hunters and such on our side, we will win this war for sure." She said proudly
"I sure hope you're right. We've always needed a good ally or two, but just never got them. Now, we might actually win." I said, still smiling.

"ETA TO LZ . . . TWO MINUTES. GET PREPPED, AND GOOD LUCK, SOLDIERS!" said the pilot as he looked back into the troop bay
"YOU ALL HEARD THE MAN. WE ARE LANDING IN TWO MINUTES. I WANT AS MANY OF THOSE COVENANT BASTARDS DEAD AS YOU CAN KILL. I WANT TO PUT THE FEAR OF GOD INTO 'EM!" I said with enthusiasm. The whole pelican roared with "hoo-rahs".

      We landed at the LZ to find it filled with only air, no Covenant around.

"OK MEN, LET'S MOVE IT OUT. STAY BEHIND THE SEPARATISTS. WE WILL SUPPORT THEM." I yelled to everyone

      The separatists began to move out. We all ran at a grueling pace, about a half a mile through this canyon when we came to a large, sandy piece of ground. We crossed it without any resistance and made it into a large structure built into the wall of the canyon. We went through several rooms, full of dead Brutes, Jackels, and sometimes we would come across a fallen Elite, which we said a few words over and continued on. We came to a bridge and passed it, still no Covenant around. We found a detention block with some broken shield generators. Apparently who ever had been through her had been on our side. We made it to a large hallway with several doors.

"Stop! Do ya hear that?" I said, trying to strain my ears for sound.
"It sounds like someone is fighting right outside those doors." said one of the new Marines
"Let's go then." I said as I readied my battle rifle.

      We went through the door just in time to see a Scarab walk into the canyon we had left about fifteen minutes prior.

"Call for evac. We need to get after that Scarab, NOW" I said to a Marine, who started talking into his mic at a high speed.

      We did manage to find some Marines up there though. ONE OF THEM WAS SERGEANT KENNEDY!

"KENNEDY, IS THAT YOU?" I said in a low voice.
"You bet your ass it's me. I thought we'd lost ya after you left the column." he said in astonishment as he looked me over.
"No, we fought about three hundred flood combat forms, and won. We tried to save the In Amber Clad from the flood, but we couldn't, there was simply too many of them." I said
"Hey, where did your military courtesy go, Private." he asked, apparently he hadn't seen the SSGT on my uniform.
"Well, you have to salute me now." I said as I proudly pointed to my name/rank patch on my uniform.
"Well I'll be damned. You managed to move from a whiny little pip-squeak of a Private, into a big and brave, fighting man from head to toe Staff Sergeant?" he asked.
"Yes I did." I said proudly

      A Marine ran up to me, scared outta his wits.

"Sir, we have inbound Covenant Phantoms, Banshees, and ground troops. ALL BRUTES AND JACKELS!" he said
"Ok, I want you to get those pelicans here, NOW! We are gonna hold this position until they arrive. Hooah?" I said
"Hooah!" he replied as he started talking into his comm again.

      I ordered everyone back into the buildings and to start fortifying our position. If those Covenant craft were full of Brutes then we would have to set up a kill zone. We managed to knock over some of those crates to give us some cover and activate some of those blue shields to help defend our position. We got it pretty well defended in a time of only 15 minutes.

"SIR, THEY'RE COMING! THEY JUST LAN . . . ." was all a Marine got out before he was mowed down by a Brutes plasma rifle.
"DEFENSIVE POSITIONS PEOPLE! WE ARE NOT GONNA DIE HERE!" I yelled as slammed a clip into my rifle.

      I went over and fought by Foster, who was having a hard time controlling a plasma cannon we had setup. Just as I looked up I saw a plasma grenade stick to my glove, which I promptly pulled off in a frenzy and threw it back at the Brutes just before it detonated, killing a brute and two buggers. Then I fired wildly at the incoming covenant forces. Either I must've looked like a mad-man or an idiot, because I was running from one place to another and throwing grenades whenever I could. We held our position for over 30 minutes, waiting for the pelicans, but they never came.

"Uniform Six-Eight to CP.Where the hell is the pelicans?" I said into my comm.
"CP to Uniform Six-Eight. The LZ is too hot to land." came a reply
"To you it may be too hot, but we are being murdered over here." I replied
"We'll chalk a team of gunships to you." he replied
"Out." I said

"Sir, where's our ride?" Stooker said
"We got no fucking ride!" I yelled to him

      A few of the soldiers looked at me in astonishment.

"What are we gonna do?" asked a marine
"We are going to hold this position and kill any and all of those fuckers out there. YOU GOT ME?" I yelled to everyone
"We get you, sir." they all replied

      As I put in my last BR55 clip, I put my knife on the end of my battle rifle. If I was going down, I was going down honorably. A brute came within ten feet of me and I charged at the Brute and drove my knife deep into his neck, completely through the other side. Its last breath escaped through the vents on his throat and he collapsed to the floor in purple blood.

"Yeah, take that you filthy fucking gorilla." I said as I put three rounds into his skull.

      As I turned to run back to my spot by Foster I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head and everything got blurry, then every thing went black . . .

Chronicles of Uniform Six-Eight. Part 4: Recovery & Escape.
Date: 12 September 2005, 12:30 am

1705 hours, October 22, 2552 (Military Calendar)
Unknown system, Covenant Holy City High Charity

      When I awoke I was in a cell. My body ached all over. There was very little light, so I couldn't see very well. My vision was just good enough that I saw another body on the other side of the cell, so I began to crawl towards it. As soon as I moved, a pain shot through my back that was just unbelieveable that I nearly passed out from. My sight got blurry again, but I didn't pass out. I just sat there for a long time, not even daring to breathe heavily. After awhile, I saw the body on the opposite wall start to move, it got up, and started walking closer, closer, closer. My spirt was willing to fight if it was hostile, but didn't have the strength.

      "Is that you, Johanson?" came the voice. It was Foster
      "Yes, it's me. What the hell happened?" I said
      "You got hit over the head with a Brute's rifle and I got knocked out by a Jackel's pistol." she said as she rubbed her head.
      "Why do you think they put us in the same cell? " I asked
      "Because all the others are broken." she said simply, pointing to the other cells.
      "I can't see very well, everything is fuzzy and distorted. How are we gonna get outta here?" I said.
      "To hell if I know. Maybe the Chief is still up here. Maybe he can help us." she said excitedly.
      "Here, where are we?" I asked.
      "I overheard the guards say earlier this is High Charity. We have been up here for over eighteen hours I'm guessing." She said
      "Do you know what happened to the rest of the squad?" I asked
      "No sir, I got knocked out about as soon as you did. I figure they made it ok. I was still a little conscious when they brought us out to the ship. There were only about fifty more Brutes remaining." she said
      "I hope they all got out OK. I may have led my men into a trap." I said in anger
      "I don't think you led them into a trap, but I do think you gave them fighting spirit. I am certain they all survived." she said, trying to console me.
      "Can you give me an examination?" I said "I feel like all the bones in my body are broken."
      "Sure." she said as she picked up her back-pack.
      "Hey, they even left all my medical stuff in my pack! Good thing too." she said happily.
      "I saw the In Ambor Clad in a tower a couple of miles away. It was smoldering and looking pretty unflyable." she said
      "Great. The flood brought it here." I replied

      She looked me over and found out that my back was injured and sore from the Brutes trampling me before they got me into their ship. I also had a broken rib and a cracked forearm. I felt relieved to know that. She gave me some painkillers from her bag and sat down beside me.

      "Why do you think the Covies are keeping us alive? They usually only take prisoners as a show of public killings." I said
      "I don't know. Maybe that's exactly what they want of us. Just not right now." she replied
      "Do you think we'll get outta here OK?" she asked
      "I don't know, I just don't know." I said as I began to curse.
      "Why are you cussing?" she asked
      "Because it's hopeless. The Brutes are gonna KILL US! They hunger for our blood. They want US ALL DEAD! We will never escape this wretched holy city and live to tell about." I said
      "Hey, cowboy up, Johanson. We've been through too much shit to just simply lay down and die in this alien shit-hole. You need to keep up your spirit." she said
      "This situation is hopeless. The Chief is gone, we are a Covenant Holy City along with the flood. If the Brutes don't kill us then the flood will infect us and we will become zombies. JUST LIKE THEM!" I said in desperation.

      She quit trying to reason with me for a while. It was silent, except for the sounds of very far away battles between Flood and Covenant. I thought I heard the sound of a battle rifle, but it was probably just the flood rolling up on us. As we sat in our 7x7 cell, I could hear voices, voices of fallen comrades. They were just a bother at first, but just kept getting louder and more distinct.

      "We are going to get you!" they were saying, just repeating that same phrase over and over and over again. I couldn't get the pictures out of my head, the faces of Dien, Lane, the CO on the Clad, and a face of another Marine whose name I couldn't place, but he was the gunner on the warthog that was destroyed by the fuel canister exploding. Their faces were now decaying at rapid rate as they talked to me. I tried so hard to make the voices go away, but they just kept hitting me in waves.

      "For Gods sake. What have I done to you?" I said, staring off into space.
      "Who... ME?" asked Foster.
      "You. . . KILLED US!" said the voices in unison with Foster.
      "The voices! Can't you hear them?" I said
      "No, all I hear is the distant battles." she said "Oh... that's the morphine. Must be where the voices are coming from. Just calm down, it's just the morphine making you freak out. Once it's through your system you will be back to normal, Sir."

      Morphine? A battle hardened Marine getting morphine. I kept having the hallucinations well into the next 6 hours. Although she didn't say much, I could tell Foster was getting pretty tired of just waiting around. The morphine had made me groggy and I fell into a dreary sleep.

      I awoke to the sound of Fosters voice over me.

      "Get up, we need to get the hell outta here, NOW!" she said
      "Outta here, where the hell we going?" I said

      I noticed a group of ODSTs, Marines, and Elites standing guard at our cell door.

      "We came to rescue you, Sir. We will explain everything when we get back to the CP." a Marine said as he walked over to help me off the floor.
      "Thank you. We thought we were toast." I said
      "We'll getcha outta here. Just stay behind us and pick up any weapons you can find. Human ones that is." He said

      Foster helped me to my feet. I could feel the broken rib moving around inside my body. I checked my pocket, I still had my plasma pistol. They hadn't searched me for it, good thing too. I took it out and leveled it in case we meet any light resistance, very light resistance that slipped past the entire fire squad in front of me. I felt like a dumbass for even brandishing it. It was so puny and insignificant looking, so I put back into my pocket and went on.

      We ran down an endless number of empty halls, hoping to find our way back to the shuttle area. I had no idea where we were, but the ODST leader sure did. We turned a corner and I saw a battle between a lot of brutes, jackals, buggers, and flood.

      "SUPPRESSIVE FIRE!!!" yelled the ODST leader

      Everyone started firing down the hallway at the flood and covenant loyalists. I decided to join in the fray, I pulled out my plasma pistol and started firing rapid burst at a group of infection forms. I could barely hear anything because of the volume of gunfire and plasma discharge from our weapons. Finally, the last flood form hit the ground, missing its arms, head, and most of its internal organs.

      "Sorry, brother." A marine said as he crushed the head of human flood form, apparently that of a fellow marine.

      We ran down the very long hall, at the end of which there was two pelicans and a phantom dropship. We loaded up and headed back to the ring. I looked around the pelican and saw that we were missing a marine that was in front of my cell.

      "Hey. Are we missing a marine?" I asked the marine next to me.
      "Didn't you see him get taken down by an infection form? He was right next to you when it happened." the hispanic marine said
      "I didn't. I must've been looking at something else." I replied

      The rest of the ride back to the CP was uneventful. We returned to the CP, only took about 45 minutes.

      We landed with a gentle THUD!. I got out and was I helped by Foster and an Elite. I was taking to the aid station immediately for an examination. I was told my vision would be back to normal in a few hours, it would become clear then blurry from now 'til then. I also had a cracked femur, broken rib, and one of the disk in my back had to be pushed back into alignment. I faired pretty good compared to some. I left the medical tent and headed to the Command building when I was stopped by a silver elite that took part in the rescue.

      "Human, I fought many of your kind all of my life. I thought it for a divine purpose, but I now realize it was but sensless murder. I wish to give you a gift." the elite handed me an MA5B assault rifle, which was replaced by the BR55 over 2 months ago. Almost all were destroyed or taken out of service.
      "I took from one of the only two humans to ever fight for me. He kept me alive on the other ring when the flood attacked. His name was Mark Levy. I quickly began to respect him when he saved a group of grunts from flood. After that, he said he wasn't taking us prisoner, he was saving our lives so we might save his at a later time. I never got that chance. On the third day after our arrival on the ring, the human was leading us to his crashed vessel in search for help. He was killed by a lesser elite that thought he was saving our lives. I had a lot of repect for that human, I took his rifle and knife for keepsake, out of respect." he said
      "How'd you get off the ring?" I asked him as I examined the rifle
      "After I called for evacuation, I killed the elite for that marine's revenge. We got back my cruiser just before this Master Chief caused the vessel to explode and destroy the ring." he replied
      "Thank you. Maybe this will help our alliance." I replied
      "Yes. Good day." said the elite
      "Goodbye." I said

      I took the rifle back to my room and examined it. I was amazed to find the flashlight and ammo display was still functioning. Upon further examination I found it had been modified with an extended barrel for increased range and accuracy. Also, it had a small 4X scope and a silencer that was contained in the stock of the rifle along with a note.

      The note read

September 22, 2552 (0637hrs)

            Day three on this damned ring. I lost my whole squad to the flood. I saw a flood take Garcia's head off with a single slash of his clawed hand. I've taken a SILVER elite back to the cave to save him, along with three grunts and another marine. The covenant I saved think they're prisoners. The marine I saved is PFC. Gordon Yardel, a demolitionist from 4th platoon. He told me he just jumped on the Autumn to get away from Reach. I am going to lead the group to the Autumn, maybe there's help or supplies, possibly maybe even a tank or warthog. To help with the combat, I'll also give the "prisoners" weapons. I think the elite is beginning to trust me a little, though Yardel thinks I'm crazy to think that way. I'm am running low only on hope, I have enough weapons and supplies to fight probably the whole army of flood. I have food ammo, grenades, everything. If only we had a transport to get the hell outta here. Writing things down helps me to regain hope. I must go now.

                                                                              Pvt. Mark Levy, 3rd MEU, 1st Platoon, 5th squad

      Mark Levy must've really liked this thing to make a lot of these modifications. I began to put the rifle in my foot locker when a small chip fell out of the compartment from which the letter came. I examined it and recognized it was a digital video from a helmet cam. I quickly put into the small projector in the room and began viewing it.

      The entire video showed his journey from The beginning of Reach until just before he lead the group to the vessel. The video showed to be full, this must be why it was in his rifle, so he wouldn't record over his long and hard journey.

      I decided not to tell about the letter or video to DeNardo. I walked into DeNardo's office and began.

      "Staff Sergeant Johanson reporting for duty, Sir." I said
      "Good to see you back, son. We thought we'd lost ya out there." he said with a smile
      "Sir, what happened to the rest of the group I was with when I was taken prisoner?" I asked
      "A lot of 'em made it out, only lost two Elites, four Grunts, and three Marines. It is tactically a success." he said coldly
      "Do you know the whereabouts of Sergeant Stooker or Sergeant Alverez?" I asked
      "Yes, Stooker is in his room. Alverez is in the infirmary. He got his leg nearly taken off by a brute on a rampage." he said
      "By the way. We got Miranda and Johnson back. They are in their room. Right beside the Marines that worked with MC on High Charity." he said
      "Well, that is GREAT!" I said
      "We managed to find Cortana when our forces were searching for you and other marines on High Charity. She had to be left behind while the Chief went ahead and jumped on an Earth-bound Forerunner ship, which has the Prophet of Truth on it. The Covenant are planning to fire ALL the rings by way of the ark." he said
      "Where's Cortana?" I asked
      "She had to be left at High Charity. We had no way to transport her here." He said.
      "Why did you come for me?" I asked
      "We didn't, we got report from those marines on High Charity that Cortana was still up there. So we sent a search party for her and she said that you were being held in a cell. That's the only reason we found you." he said
      "Well thank you anyway, sir." I replied
      "No problem, by the way. This is the Arbiter." he said with a smile
      "Arbiter? What are you talking about?" I said in confusion, just as I said this an Elite in wierd looking armor de-cloaked himself.
      "He is what saved Johnson and the other Marines from certain death, well, the other Marines anyway. Johnson has always been a survivor." he said
      "Ok, nice to meet you." I said as I saluted the Arbiter, which saluted back but didn't say a word.
      "Sir, can I go talk to the Captain and Johnson?" I asked
      "Sure. Dismissed." he said
      "Sir, an elite gave me an MA5B ... " I began and told him the rest, but not about the video or letter.
      "Well, that's a damn fine elite. This WILL strengthen our alliance." he said

      I went to the room DeNardo had said they would be in, and he was right, they were in there.

      "Permission to come in?" I said
      "Permission granted. What's your name and rank." said Johnson.
      "My name is Staff Sergeant Debo Johanson. I was taken prisoner on the operation we launched to save ya'll." I said
      "Yeah, I heard about you and the other Marine. Foster wasn't it?" He said
      "Yes, Sir. She should be around here somewhere. We got taken to High Charity and rescued, I don't know if you heard." I said
      "Yeah, we heard your pelican sit down. I was in the infirmary with you, I suppose you don't remember me because you had all those drugs in ya, they were trying to re-align your back." he said
      "Would you like me to go find Foster?" I asked
      "Sure." he said

      I went looking from tent to tent, I could find her nowhere. That is, until I checked our room, I'm such as dumbass sometimes. She was lying under the covers of the bed sleeping from what I could. I shoke her and started to talk to her.

      "Foster, Johnson and Miranda want to talk to us. Get your stuff ready." I said in a frenzy
      "They do? Why?" she asked as she rubbed her eyes
      "I guess because we got captured trying to save them and they want to show their gratitude." I said
      "Ok, let me get my fatigues on." she said

      2 minutes later after she finally got dressed...

      "Ok, let's go." she said as she picked up her combat helmet. "Just in case we get into a battle between our room and their's."

      We entered Johnson and Miranda's room together and the Sergeant told us to have a seat and act as if we were all the same rank.

      "So. Tell us how you two fared after leaving the column back in the Quarentine Zone." said Johnson
      "Well, we went to the pelican first of all..." Foster began

      She told them all about how we fought back some flood at the Clad and what we had just escaped.

      "Well, that's quite a story." said Johnson as Foster finished the tale.
      "Thank you, Sir." Foster and I said in unison.
      "Thanks for trying to defend my ship. I'm glad you at least made an effort." Said Miranda
      "Thank you." we again said in unison.
      "No problem." she said.
      "I'm gonna brief you on your new mission, so be ready when I call ya. Dismissed." Johnson said

      Foster and I went to see Stooker and Alverez. We went to the infirmary to see Alverez first because it was closer than Stooker. We walked in and asked a medic where we could find Alverez, he pointed at a cot about 10 cots down the row. We walked over to it, Alverez was about half asleep. His leg was bandaged heavily. We woke him up to talk to him.

      "uhhhmmm. . . who th . . . ell is it?" is all Alverez could get out.
      "It's Foster and Johanson. Remember?" I said
      "uhmm. . . OH. YOU GUYS MADE IT!" he said, coming out of unconsiousness
      "Yep, we were rescued from High Charity." Foster said "What the hell happened to you?"
      "I got hit by a charging Brute. He nearly took my leg off. The doc' says I'll keep my leg, but I can't fight. I can only fight if I get a prosthetic limb attached to me, and get my leg amputated." he said
      "What are you gonna do?" I asked
      "I think I am gonna get the fake limb. That way I could still fight. The doc says that I will be able to fight in about three days after surgery if I get the prosthetic." he said.
      "Well, whatever you do. Remember who did this to you. The Covenant. Don't ya want to get some payback?" said Foster
      "Yeah, I do want payback. I think I will get the prosthetic. Well, the drugs are starting to kick in again. I think I'll see ya'll later." he said
      "Bye." Foster and I said in unison.

      We walked back to our room. We both sat down and discussed some of the things we thought about being in Johnsons squad and whether we were gonna be happy in it or not. We sat in that room for hours, just talking and laughing. We went to bed, hoping never to see another day of combat.

      I awoke in the shimmering light of mid-day. Foster was still asleep. I went to the latrine, then I decided to get ready for another day in the military. . . so I got dressed in some new fatigues that I was issued from the CP. It was just the pair that I'd worn the day before. . . only washed, pressed, and starched for me. It felt good to get back into the clean pants and shirt. I put my plasma pistol back into the left pocket. After I got dressed I went to the mess hall.

      "How ya feelin'?" I heard a voice say over my shoulder
      "Just fine." I said as I turned to see the face of the inquirer, which was Sgt. Johnson "How are you?"
      "Just fine myself." Johnson said
      "Are we gonna go on mission that today or what?" I asked
      "Well, I don't know. Probably, if the Separatist Fleet arrives." he said
      "Well, we'll be ready when ya need us, Sir." I said
      "I know ya will, Son." he said

      I got my tray and went into line. For lunch there was some kind of meat, soy burgers, burritos, and lots of side orders. I took a burrito and a few side orders of nachos and peppers. It was great to get a good tasting meal in my belly, instead of that damned freeze-dried ration shit. I finished my meal and dumped my tray. I stepped outside and decided I would go back to my tent and check on Foster. I stepped in. I walked over and shook her.

      "Foster. Get up. We need to go see about Stooker." I said
      "Ok. Gimme a minute." she said as she got up outta bed

      2 minutes later. . .

      We walked outside and went to Stookers room. We entered the room.

      "Where can we find Sergeant Stooker?" I asked a marine as he was buttoning his shirt.
      "He is down there, on the end of this row of bunks." said the Marine
      "Thanks." I said

      We walked down the hall and found Stooker.

      "Stooker. Get your ass up." I said jokingly.
      "What did ya'll do to get back here?" he said "The last I saw of ya'll, ya'll were being taken to a Covenant Phantom."
      "Well, we got rescued about fifteen to twenty hours after we were taken captive." Foster said
      "I'm glad ya'll made it. I thought for sure that you would be tortured and killed." he said
      "Well, good to see your alive." I said

      "ALL PERSONNEL. REPORT TO THE AREA IN FRONT OF THE MESS HALL IMMEDIATELY. THERE IS GOING TO BE A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT." said a voice over the intercom.

      "Well, we gotta go." I said

      Foster and I went to the mess hall area and waited for the special announcement. It seemed like we waited there for hours, until finally, DeNardo and Miranda stepped out and Miranda began.

      "Marines. We are going to be returning to Earth via the Separatist Fleet. We are going to have to pack up the wounded and get our asses to the ship in two hours. I want everyone ready to leave by then. We will have to make a few shuttles between here and the ship, but that shouldn't hinder us. GET TO IT!" she said

      Everyone started to pack up the wounded and dead. We got all our supplies and vehicles loaded onto pelicans and we were ready. Foster and I stepped into the CP where DeNardo was.

      "Sir, what are we gonna do about the flood?" I said "We can't just leave, they will find a way to get off this ring."
      "I know. We have planned to blow up a covenant ship's fusion core. The explosion will be equivelent to about three nuclear warheads, which will destabilize the ring and blow it up, along with High Charity. This will take care of all the flood and a HUGE chunk of the remaining Covenant Fleet in this system." he said
      "That sounds very dangerous." I said "Why haven't you told the rest of the camp?"
      "Well, I just wanna keep this under wraps." he said " We start flights in five minutes."
      "What about Cortana?" I asked
      "We've sent a pelican to get here outta there. The pelican will then link up with us on the ship we'll be on. Get prepped to leave. Dismissed." he said
      "Yes, Sir. We'll be ready to leave when ya call." I said

      Foster and I returned to our room, I got the MA5B and Foster got her things.

      "What's THAT?" she asked
      "An elite gave me this, from a marine that fought on the other ring." I replied
      "How'd he get it?" she asked
      "Well, ... " I told her the story.
      "Wow. Well, let's get back to the pelican, we'll talk about this later." she replied

      Foster and I found the Pelican with Stooker, Kennedy, and Alverez. We rode in the pelican with them simply because they were what was left of our squad again. We began to liftoff, I took a look out the back of the pelican. It was beautiful. The topography and geography of halo was beautiful, the sun was setting in the far sky. I was admiring my view when I saw a bunch of scurrying creatures. I got my binoculars out, it was the flood. I felt the pelican lurch forward as we started to head towards the Separatist Fleet. How could the flood have gotten outta the Quarentine Zone?

      The flood were climbing trees, mountains, whatever they could to get to some fresh meat. The voices came back, the voices of Dien, Lane, CO on the Clad, and the nameless marine that was killed in the warthog explosion in the quarentine zone. I think his name was Marley... Yes, it was Marley. The voices wouldn't go away. I tried to drink some water, eat some food, and talk to Foster. The voices wouldn't go away.

      "Why'd you let us die?" the voices kept repeating.

      The faces of the soldiers in my mind started to decay and resemble the flood.

      "I'M SORRY! I DIDN'T WANT YOU TO DIE! LEAVE ME ALONE!" I yelled in the back of the pelican.
      "Is it the voices again, Johanson?" asked Foster as she sat beside me.
      "Yes. Please, make them go away." I said
      "Here, this will help." she said as she took something from her bag.

      She injected me with another drug. I was looking out the back of pelican again, the voices were fading, and everything got blurry... then went black . . .

      I was running through the halls of a building. A building that I'd never seen before. I could hear the flood right behind me, the squishing sound they made when they wanted to eat you. I kept running as fast as I could. I looked at my ammo count on my rifles display . . . only 21 rounds left. I turned around to see nothing but air, but I could hear the flood. I could hear them laughing at me.

      "You'll never get away from us. You're gonna die by our hand." said a flood voice
      "YOU'LL NEVER GET ME YOU FUCKING PIECES OF SATANIC SHIT!" I replied

      I turned around and began running again. I came upon the corpses of dead marines. They were all the marines that I'd witnessed die. There were dozens of 'em, hundreds of 'em. I was walking past the bodies when one of them twitched, then they all began to twitch. A marine got up and started charging me, it was Lane, he was smiling as he raced towards me. Then all of them got up and started to chase after me.

      "You never get away!" the voices kept repeating.

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