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Stranded at Home Part 1
Date: 19 December 2002, 9:11 pm

       The air was crisp. I was sitting comfortably on a reclining chair staring up at the clouds. 

       “Hey, Jim man, what are you up to?” Mark came bolting up the stairs.  Something was wrong.

       I am Jim Kahn, A Marine of the 43rd airborne squadron.  I was a pilot of a patrol unit, and my job was to shoot at anything that wasn’t on our side.  I stood a little shorter than Mark, I was about 2 inches shorter overall, I stood however at 5 foot 8 inches, something that is nothing short of average.  I had golden hair which glimmered in the sun which was however a trait that I would drop with a seconds notice.  I slid a hand up the side of my head through my hair and stretched.

       “Whats wrong?” I said it slowly, tired I guess, or sarcastic. 

       “I think you’d better see this Jim.”  I sneezed in the sun as I stood up, “God bless you” he said automatically. 

       “Alright, what is it?” I stood up stretching some more before getting into a walking stance to follow Mark back into the building. 

       “Well, we don’t know.  Radar signatures are everywhere; we don’t know what they are.”

       “Could it really be that bad?  I mean it could be a meteor or something, right?”

       “Chances are slim, probably them.” He said, I straightened my collar and affixed my officer markings above my heart.  In the hallways red lights were blinking and an alarm buzzing, we were under assault. 

       “Any guesses on how many?”

       “Not yet, but some images are coming in right now.”

       “Ah damn it, well; I guess it couldn’t last forever.  So their here huh…  Well, ready the orbital guns.” We passed by a Marine pilot readying his flight gear.  He had on his helmet and was buttoning up his vest.

       “Already online, batteries on the west and north coast are operational.  The south coast isn’t responding, they probably have been hit with some jamming frequencies from the Covenant cruisers.” He said as we walked briskly down the hallway.  I pulled back my sleeve and spun my wristwatch around.  7:43 a.m. L4E (Lunar 4 Eastern) time, it was a little early now, but nothing too bad. 

       “ETA?” I said.

       “3 hours tops, we don’t have much time to prepare.” A speaker in the hallway cracked into usage claiming that all personnel were to report to their battle stations at one, and that this was not a drill. 

       “How are the other preparations?”

       “Legacy divisions are showing green across the border, ground troops are evacuating and all of the small airbases are at attention.” He said summing up what he had been paying attention to all morning.  “Unconfirmed reports that a small lander made it into New Missoula with a couple hundred Covenant.”

       “What?  Missoula?  That is where my family lives!”

       “We’re doing all we can, suppressive ground forces have been sent in to combat them.” A woman talking into a communications device stepped by us franticly receiving and relaying data from person to person. 

       “There are 13 and a half million people in that city alone.  Can’t you get a fighter battalion in there?”

       “No, we’re trying to get them all orbital ASAP.”

       “Damn it!  Why did they have to strike now!  We were going to get a new weapons shipment in an Earth month!”

       “You knew it was inevitable.  Look at us?  Lunar 4 is a frontier world, really close to Harvest.” I remembered the Harvest Massacres that began this war.  Harvest was attacked before they even knew that they had an extraterrestrial opponent.  We arrived in the control room where politicians and militral leaders all gathered in tight circles all stressed out, and all afraid. 

       “Ahem!  We have the leader of the 43rd airborne squadron here!” everyone looked at us, the room got very quiet suddenly. 

       “Um…  Jim, did you have to make such a big deal over it?” Eyes returned to their work, leaving us ignored compared to our attention garnered just a second ago by the show that Jim had put on upon our arrival.  I walked over to a huddle of analysts huddled around a tiny monitor that was showing fuzzy images of something.  It was very large, probably the Covenant lead ship, but the image was so fuzzy it was hard to tell.  A programmer, who was seated at the keyboard of the computer type in a series of commands as the image gradually sharpened eventually giving way to a clear image of a Covenant battleship with a full squadron of assault class carriers. 

       “Aw man!  They’re here!  Wasn’t the ASTS program supposed to spot these things a month before they were on courses towards us?” The ASTS was our new satellite networks that were supposed to spot a Covenant battle group a week before they got within range of our planet. 

       “Yeah, they were, but they obviously failed.” Some computer operator replied.  Curled up in the corner clutching his head was an unknown Marine who was muttering something about not wanting to die.  None of us did. 

       “43rd airborne squadron ready sir!” I said to the General who was also huddled around the monitor.  “What is our current task?”

       “Get your asses into orbit and blast whatever gets within range of our orbital guns. We want those things to destroy as many of em as they can, but they can’t do that if they are a smoldering crater!”

       “Sir!” I saluted and hurriedly ran away.  Jim caught my escape in the corner of his eye and followed. 

       “Hey, what’s going on?”

       “Well, we have been called into battle, our mission is to keep the orbital guns protected.” 

       “Ah great, of course.  We always get stuck with the hard missions.”

       “Heh, yeah, remember that patrol that we had to kill about a year back?”

       “How could I forget?  Most stressful moments of my life.” We were on the mission Trojan-1.  We made a small airbase in the center of an asteroid and jetted it in the right direction to attack a Covenant patrol.  Once we got within 500 clicks we all jettisoned from a crater on the dark side of it and ambushed the crafts.  We took out the whole battle group, or rather Jim did along with the other 5 guys on the mission.  I was gunned down almost immediately; flak like laser ripped two holes in my wings and engines.  I spun out of control, frantically hitting the eject button.  I floated in space for 12 hours, they couldn’t find me and my radio unit had broken down.  Luckily however I accidentally floated into the window of the asteroids control room.  That was the last Trojan type mission that worked. 

       “Well, we got out of that ok, right?  43rd to the rescue!” I placed a hand on my left shoulder where the patch bearing the insignia of the 43rd airborne.  It was a hawk, eyes intent staring upon the Earth.  Don’t really think that it is quite right, looking more as if the Earth was our enemy in that picture, but I was able to live with it. 

       “Well, get to the fighter bay, we have to get airborne as soon as possible.” I raised a hand gesturing down the long hallway and to the right, where our planes were docked.

       “Yeah, you flying the Unit A today?” In our squad we had 7 different custom modules.  I however was the one who placed all the orders, so I really got the decision on what went into most.  They all functioned about the same as a result of this.  The only major difference in any was that B was a bomber type aircraft while the others were all fighter support. 

       “Don’t know.  I might fill in on the B Unit.”

       “Come on, we need a good guy with quick reflexes for a fighter, let one of the slackers fill in on B.  We need you in A, it’s a little faster than all the others.”

       “Quick reflexes?  Nope, I haven’t got the implant yet.  My reaction is still natural, .2 seconds.”

       “Oh I see, so you think that the .1 second that you could save by getting the cybernetics will save your life someday?”

       “Well, actually I-”

       “Shut up, you have the quickest reaction on the team, you can beat all of em but one, but he has cybernetics in him.  You gotta pilot the A.”

       We arrived at the armory.  I took an assault rifle and a pistol and slid them both into my pockets, and for the assault rifle folded it up by collapsing the stock, minimizing its size into something that I could conveniently carry.  “Yeah, I guess.  Not to brag of course, but I do like the A’s handling a little better than the B’s.” I lifted up my chest protector and slipped it over my head as I finished my sentence.  “But do you really think that I have the quickest reaction speed?” I then grabbed two sets of upper arm protectors and set the first pad on my arm buckling it twice and beginning my next sentence.  Well, how long do you think it will be till they show up?” I put on the second arm piece. 

       “I’ll say 4 hours.” He was also putting on garments from the armory, the same flak jackets that I had. 

       “Well, they said that the ETA is 3 hours tops.  You wanna change your guess?”

       “Um, yeah, how’s two hours?” As he said that I removed two shin protectors from the rack on the wall. 

       “A fair bet.  I will say an hour and 15 minutes.” I slid on another piece of my armor.”

       “Why are we betting at all?  We’ll keep em beaten back!” I wondered if this was real confidence or not.” 

       “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I said as I finished donning my armor. 

       “Well, you decided upon what unit you’re gonna take?” I thought about it.  I had the fighter types, I liked the speed and agility as I had said before, but the Unit B had some awesome firepower.  I stood for a minute staring up at the ceiling while I pondered it.  I eventually came to the decision to use the Unit A. 

       “I am going to take the A.”

       “Great, can I be the gunner?”

       “Yeah, better you then on of the others.”  I fumbled with the airtight helmet that I had, should I have to eject into space, and I assured that it was connected to the chest pieces of the suit.  An ounce of prevention…

       A minute later I was within the dormant beast, its cannons awaiting the roar of our engines, knowing that minutes later blood would be shed, death would be born.  It was a slick beast, glazed with a semi-reflective black coating of paint which complimented its intentions, something dark, something cold.  Killing. 

       I hit on the HUD switch and slid my hand along another six switches while a display flickered up onto my view screen.  I initiated the active target locating systems and looked for the display that I had in the corner of the cockpit begin to spin a line around the center of its shape.  The green screen was easily ignorable however when the voice of the air traffic controller came on over the intercom in my spaceship. 

       “Unit Alpha, you are clear for launch in 3… 2… 1…  Initiate launch.”  The ships engines flared up rocketing us forward out of the cave like hangar and into the light.  The glass of the canopy dimmed to calibrate for the bright light.  I flipped a few minor flight control switches to my left and slid down the visor on my helmet that displayed all the nav points and targeting info.

       “You feel that?  The sun, it’s like it hell out here.  Course it is up there too.”

       “Yeah, it seems like it, especially when you figure where we are going.  Now le0ts stop this idle talking, we’re on a mission!”

       “Right, sorry sir.” He said, a little disappointed, but I think he understood that we were trying to live to see another day in this fight.  If we got shot down it’s the end.  No rescue ships nothing would come for us, the planet along with us would be dead.  If we get shot down we will die, and so will the planet.  The space combat is the last hope of the planet, and without it fighting would be futile, trying to fight back, we would have no weapons that are not big enough to be destroyed to fight back.  Our great cities, our star ports, our orbital guns, out satellite networks, all destroyed, almost with no meaning or purpose other than a religion that they possessed.  There is only one god, and we know him.  Whoever they worship as their god is false, and is leading them to destroy us for some reason other than what we think.  Well, at least that’s what the tabloids say.  “Covenant led by jealous?” was the last headline I ever read, some years ago actually.  I don’t have too mush interest in things like that anymore.  Knowing why they hate us won’t stop them, will it?  We were flying through the clouds as a flock of Amazon birds passed by us.  They flew in the hundreds towards the East, migrating for the upcoming Summer.  If only they knew that they could be within an artificial summer, created by our enemy.  That is if we fail.  We gained altitude at an increasing rate as we passed through a cloud.  A result of the Lunar 4 system being located in a nebula the clouds constantly electrocute each other.  It not a good thing for commercial flights, though military ones had nothing to worry about.  I watched a beam of electricity ark over the highest part of the clouds and fade, leaving a booming noise, though it was muffled by the planes insulation to protect us from radiation.  It had other purposes too though.  Unintentionally this radiation barrier became the padding in our jackets and the noise damper in engines because it possessed many remarkable capabilities.  “We are hitting the upper atmosphere in 3… 2… 1…” I flipped a few switches as I said that.  As I flipped the switches the airfoil began to reshape itself for space travel.  e hit a large barrier of clouds and found ourselves above the layer within a few seconds.  When we looked around all we saw was the glow of the horizon of Lunar 4 and the black starry place, where our next battle awaits.  “What!  Whats that!  Off at 2 o’clock.”  We could see a series of explosions off towards the equator of the planet about a thousand miles away.             “Let’s go, report the sighting to HQ and give the rest of the squad waypoints.”

      “Rodger.” Jim reported as he began to radio HQ with the coordinates of the anomaly.  “This is unit A, potential explosions sighted at bearings 132, 24, 96.”

      “This is Alpha base, we copy, tuning in a peeper as we speak.”

      “Command, this is Unit B, we’re stalled out on the launch pad, we need some maintenance now!”  Unit B was still stuck on the ground.  That wasn’t very good at all being a naturally small division we needed all the support we could get. 

      “What do you mean B, are you still not orbital!” command radioed back.

      “No, Unit B has some problems with the left thruster.”

      “What?  Can you ID the error?”

      “Looks like a misconnection in the fuel links, could take hours to find.”

      “We don’t have all day.  Leave the B, go to another craft!”

      “Roger.”

      “Unit A, we have your images up on the peeper network, appears as though the Southern orbital gun has opened fire on an unidentified craft, repeat, unidentifiable craft at bearings 132, 24, 96, losing altitude fast!”

      “What is it?  Is it the enemy!” Jim said.

      “Could be, targeting computers online Jim, we don’t wanna be caught off guard.”

      “Right, you just pave the way!” He flipped the targeting screen down. 

      “This is Unit C, engaging enemy patrols, need reinforcements!”

      “What, they aren’t supposed to be here for another hour and a half, confirm!”

      “This is C, we have visual of the enemy craft, 5 banshees in a V formation!”

      “Rodger, A unit moving in to back you up!”

      I turned towards the planet and the left to where I saw gunfire.  We flew strait at the V formation and were hit in the left wingtip.  Their formation, seeing that we were not turning as we got close began to scatter, a little too late for one.  Jim caught it in his sights and opened fire with the flak orbital on the top of our craft ripping it to pieces.  “Whoohoo!  Fragged one!”  We slid past the area where their formation was as Unit D passed close to us beneath our craft.  Tracer fire arced from the cannons of the D unit as it shot down two more banshees.  I sharply pulled back on the yolk now upside down relative to the planet.  I flew towards one that was in a wide turn trying to make a U-turn.  Tracer fire flashed behind it narrowly missing from the D Unit.  He also near to hit us, and I was glad to hear Jim say “Check fire!” as we flipped around to continue pursuit.  Jim let the Chain Guns on the nose fire 150 rounds in its direction cutting through a number of life support systems.  The craft spun out of control into the atmosphere where is began to burn up into a fireball.  I saluted it as it fell out of impulse, watching it turn from purple to red.    We looped around in time to see the E Unit close in on the last of the Banshees and shoot it in the balance unit it losing all control before Jim ripped it to pieces. 

      “Enemy patrol destroyed, no casualties, continuing movement towards object.”

      “Rodger, requesting that you take the Menace division on your wing.”

      “Command, this is the Vengeance division, we are moving towards the target, we can’t wait for the Menace.”

      “Six ships won’t stand a chance against any Covenant ship, wait for back up or…”

      “Or what, you’ll court martial me?  It’s a little late for that, wouldn’t you say?”

      “Please, wait, for the sake of your men.”  I looked off to the right where I saw a Sergeant sitting in the cabin of his craft, ready to die at my order.  I spun to look out the left window.  Again I saw a man, a living breathing man, ready to die to assist us in our attack even if it failed. 

      “Vengeance, set rally point at the alpha coordinates.”  I heard a sigh of relief from the command.  Was I really that defiant?  Oops…  We arrived at the rally point floating idly in space watching the explosions get closer to the planet.  Off in the distant west we saw the Menace unit moving in as a sparkle in the distant sky betrayed their position.  The Menace division was a prototype fighter battle group possessing new experimental craft that use neurological spinal taps to read your brainwaves and move the craft accordingly. 

      “Vengeance, this is Menace One, in position, if you begin accelerating now we will be able to group in space halfway from Alpha rally to the enemy USC (Unidentified spacecraft)

      “Copy, moving out.  One by one we rotated with the retro rockets firing until we were able to zip off into the distance.  Lunar 4’s rings were sparkling below us as a firefight occurred with it.  I hit some keys to my left as we came within 15 kilometers of the object, within visual range.  I slid the monitor out in front of me that was similar to a sniper scope in that it could see with very high magnification.  I scanned the purple spacecraft for any marking that might identify it as some familiar type, but there was no marking of a bomber or any type of attack vessel.  It was some creepy symbol that was almost as sharp as a sickle; or rather the front of the ship being that it was streamlined to near perfection.  The decks were however lined with hundreds of Banshee’s, a nightmare.  “Control, upwards of a hundred targets sighted, range 15 kilometers!”

      A movement at the other end of the communications system was heard, the worker must have had his feet up on the table, that is until he found out that there were hundreds of them.  “This is control, how many?”

      “Hundreds, Hal is still running up figures, but it seems like the USC (Unidentified Space Craft) is a carrier type, long range transport maybe?  We will move in and hold them off as long as we can, get all the orbital guns trained on it.”

      “Wait, fall back, we will divert some of our forces from the battles in the regions in the southern ring, just hold your fire for another few minutes!”

      “Negative control, we don’t have time, some enemy fighters are disengaging from the side of the ship, lit might be countermeasures, we have to preemptively strike.  Vengeance is moving in, Menace, you take the left flank.”

      “Menace division, our point unit is having some control mal-” The radio cut off as I swiveled my head around to see what the problem was.  Two of the ships had collided in a fireball. 

      “What the!?!  Could this mission be any more flawed?  We lost B before we launched and now two of the Menaces!” Jim shouted, following it with some expletives.

      “Enemy forces, 1 Kilometer and closing, they saw the flash of the Menaces deaths, prepare to scramble, engage enemy forces only after they fire upon us, we have to maintain a low profile for as long as possible!”

      “Enemy forces, probably five banshees two o’clock, we have some AMS readings from their area, they are launching preemptive countermeasures, we have to engage the enemy forces now!” One of the Menace pilots yelled. 

      “Enemy craft pinged at locations to near to ten o’clock, break formation!” Our V quickly snapped apart and scattered in the cloud of the upper rings. 

      Gunfire from a few Banshees fell down towards the planet nearly hitting us.  We took evasive actions spiraling off to the left.  Their formation passed by us and continued towards the planet before spreading a little wider apart and looping towards us.  We saw gunfire arc toward them exploding the left flank unit.  The C unit flew by behind the formation of Banshees.  Suddenly an alarm in the cabin was ringing, some AAM missiles were locked on.  Off in the distance we saw three white lines arc up from the cruiser that had launched the Banshees.  Gunfire flew up from the Banshees beneath us and narrowly missed our left wing.  Their formation passed around us as I frantically looked down at the controls.  “Chaff, chaff, chaff, chaff, chaff…” I said as I scanned the keyboard for the button to press.  I found it and hit it a few times frantically.  The missiles continued towards us for a second more before they all arced down towards random targets.  The beeping stopped.  Chaff is a counter measure used to confuse missile targeting computers.  The Banshee formation now arced back down at us, now only four being that the C had shot one down last run.  Suddenly a white line led up to one and it exploded accidentally struck down by a missile of its own.  Jim fired a couple hundred rounds up towards the lead Banshee clipping one of its wings sending it spiraling into a fireball.  The remaining two scattered though one was shot down by the D units as it whipped by our position.  The other flew back towards the ship, a true coward.  We were in pursuit swarming all over him.  We flipped up and down and fired rounds from our cannons in his direction.  Only a few rounds hit him, but we were tightly tailing him and his futile efforts to shake us were easily crushed.  We flew down and to the left from a path behind him and picked up speed as we descended into the atmosphere just a little more.  He was getting closer to us until he was directly to our upper left.  He spotted us and swerved left away from his carrier, now was our chance to break and head for the ship, maybe we could take out the shutters and slow the launching of fighters.  The ship realizing that we had lost interest in him began to pursue us, though a Menace unit quickly ripped him to shreds after his decision.  The fireball that was our enemy was now distant and leaving our field of vision quickly.  An explosion cracked upwards exploding along the side of the ship and the white trail left by the shell slowly faded away.  It was now within missile battery range.  We saw from the surface of the planet thousands of slowly arching trails that represented the missiles as the traveled from the surface up to the ship, explosions near to engulfing the whole ship in explosions for a few seconds.  What was even more amazing is that things couldn’t explode in space, so they were within the outer reaches of the atmosphere.  The rings were calming down a little, and the explosions were less frequent, either the battle was going well, or the battle was a complete loss for the UNSC, something that we were familiar with.  We were within firing range of the craft.  “Countermeasures detected, they’ve spotted us, aim for the shutters and bridge first but make sure to keep at range, we don’t want anyone to get blasted by the orbital cannon”  Again thousands of missiles ached up into the air towards the ship.  We were already engaged with the enemies though in vicious dogfights.  As the battle began we were outnumbered at least three to one, and ass the battle intensified we had somewhere around five of them for every one of us.  The menace squad was shot down pretty quickly as they had the lighter weapons, and were incapable of exploding some of the larger threats like anti aircraft guns on the sides of the ship.  “B Units, moving into orbit, targeting the aft of the craft.”

      “Rodger B, destroy the bridge first though, it is priority.”

      B fell into visual range “What is that thing!  It’s huge!  It must have hundreds of fighters on it!”

      “Well, if you would get into this fight it would have a ton less to fight!” 

      “Copy, targeting the bridge.” The B Unit whipped into the firefight spiraling to dodge laser fire, flying with incredible skill despite the rookie pilot who had only been on a few missions.  The tail gunner let loose a few streams of fire with no success, but still fired to cover himself.  The ship corrected itself relative to the carrier and fired off a few of its semi nuclear warheads, “Alright, everyone clear, 10 seconds to detonation!” he had an accent indicating that he was of west Earth-side decent.  He was a cowboy type, already showing rogue blood in him, something that the Marin Corps had no room for until this war.  Wars since about 2050 have been as simple as a series of assassinations or black ops attacks, sometimes requiring a surgical strike at most.  No drafts were needed to fill the ranks of Marines, but now everyone would fight in this war of attrition, because the last man standing wins, and not until then will they leave us alone.  The blast exploded near the bridge of the ship and I shielded my eyes as the blasts blinding light ensued.  A second later it was all over.  I looked back at the ship, most of the Banshees had been swept off of the deck of the craft and now spiraled into the atmosphere beginning to glow red hot much quicker than the others.  That wasn’t a good sign, it was within our atmosphere more than before.  I plunged into pursuit of the behemoth like craft.  The heat shields on the front of our crafts glowed with a red, scalding heat that was comparable only to our anger.  Our foes were atop a ship that was still glowing around the bridge from the semi nuke detonation, and our allies were another trail of missiles flying upwards from the ground.  The ship was picking up more speed, so I matched it adding some speed as to get ahead of it.  We passed by a high altitude cloud and for a brief second everything was blank and peaceful.  However as we emerged on the other side all I clouds see was a band of blue between the clouds that I had just come from and the clouds in front of us.  Exploding through the clouds behind me, the tremendous Covenant ship, which was losing speed in the atmosphere as well as glowing red as it drove onwards toward the planetside.    Again a gunshot from the orbital gun exploded the clouds before me, precisely impacting the ship and exploding a part of its hull, the first damage. 

      “Command, we’re pulling back, this one is mop up duty for the guns, I’m pursuing remaining aircraft near to our sector.” I said.  I love being a squad leader. 

      “Go for it.” Command said. 

      “Right, we’re moving to engage fighters over the Saar desert region”

      My ship curved off to the left as the others tilted their crafts and followed. 

      I rubbed my head.  Some smoldering wreckage lie near to me.  I stood up, my chair behind me.  It was warm, and I was sitting atop a sand dune, shrapnel like pieces of my plane lying everywhere.   I could see the cabin however was mainly intact, it’s nose embedded in the ground.  My hand had some blood on it from rubbing my head, it was clearly wounded and a few large cuts, but other than that I was fine. Some smoke pillared up from the crash site of the ship.  Off in the distance I saw some gunfire arching over the desert, and judging by the direction, it was someone firing up or down.  Another towering column of smoke ascended from hat distant place.  I then saw the contrail of the jet arch up.  Some random gunfire came from the surface though it was limited, only a few bolts.  I flipped out my field binoculars and observed the craft that was now turning to fire on the ground target again.  I examined the craft.  It wasn’t purple, and that was a good sign.  From the make of it, it was a newer UNSC gunboat, a Longsword maybe.  It fired to 50 mm cannons on the ground.  I moved the aim of my binoculars downwards towards the horizon and zoomed in to 25 times zoom.  I spotted a blue speck, and upon further magnification discovered it to be an elite.  A trail of gunfire raked the ground near to it, however it jumped behind another sand dune and dodged most of it.  All I could see in any direction otherwise was the blue of the sky, and the tan of the sand dunes. 

Stranded at Home Part 2
Date: 23 January 2003, 7:53 pm

      I thanked god for that, I didn’t want to be in the center of any hostile area. I stepped down the sand dune, my boots slipping, a result of the soft, loosely packed sand. I rolled the escape chair over and pulled on the compartment on the bottom. It was jammed, dented by something. Gathering a little strength I Pulled harder, and gained pleasing results. The drawer flew into the air, a result of the excess force I had applied, and landed on a nearby sand dune. Some of my things had scattered, though none were too far away. I scrambled for the pieces of my survival kit, quickly gathering all that I could. I found all my rations, one missing though, and everything else I needed. A map, a pistol, and a flare-gun. A standard issue combat knife was also in the kit, but I had removed it before the flight and put it in my boot. A bad habit, but it didn’t hurt anything. I found a reflective piece of my ships cannon nearby, and scrambled to pick it up. Attempting to see my wound on my head I wiped off the shrapnel and looked into it. A distorted reflection greeted me, though I was able to see the wound on my head. A large cut, it peeled the skin back, though it appeared to have clotted. I dropped the curved piece of metal, attempting to decide my next actions. Chances are that there would be no rescue team for me, they had more important things to worry about such as the invasion. I looked up in the sky and already saw the explosions diminishing. It was truly a sad spectacle, but one that I could have predicted. The Legacy ships didn’t fare too well in actual combat. That was probably why they were placed on Lunar 4, we were always at least a half decade behind in technology versus some of the other colonies, like Reach, and we were a pretty important shipyard.

      I walked up to the top of a dune and saw the silver lining of a parachute, Mark’s. I followed a series of marks, snaking through the sand, and at their end found Mark, crawling, struggling to get away from the crash site, he didn’t want a Covenant patrol to spot him. He heard my approach and rolled over, pistol readied, probably thinking that I was a scavenger Grunt or something. “Oh, you.” He set the gun down, “So, you made it too? I thought for sure you had been hit. All those plasma bolts, where did they all com from! One smashed right through the cabin, it was horrible.” I noticed his pants legs were bloody, had he been hit?

      “Your leg, it’s--” I responded.

      “I know, it got hit with some shrapnel, I can’t walk on the right one, and I can’t feel the left one.”

      “Look at what you got yourself into.” I said, “You probably thought that being a pilot would keep you away from this type of damage.” I continued as I took out some gauze wrap, “Myself, I can’t remember anything after we decided to fly into this desert.”

      He replied quickly “Oh, too bad! You should have seen the team we made! I was frying em and you were steering like you had all the skills of a god. You were an awesome pilot!”

      I chucked as I wrapped some gauze around his leg, causing him to wince in pain. “I was that good? Wow, but we still got shot down.”

      “Well obviously. The air was gunfire. That hill and the sky were sizzling with heat feedbacks from guns, I mean, we had enough plasma flying to knock us out of the sky as it will probably take to melt this whole planet.”

      I finished with the gauze on his right leg and moved to his left, “Ah, I think now I remember. Yeah, you said to me--”

      “Adios amigos!” we said in unison. I laughed and finished caring for his legs. “You wait here.” I said “I’m gonna do some recon of the immediate surroundings and see if I can find any water or Goxine nests.”

      “We’re already to the whole eating bugs stage! Damn it! Getting shot down I can deal with, getting your planet glassed, I can deal with, but getting to search for bugs to eat! That is unbearable!” I nodded a sympathetic nod of disagreement and spun to leave. I continued to walk forward towards the hill before me. It had a large crater in the center, and I was hoping that some water collected in it. I was soon at the base of the mountainous dune, before me, a laccolithic pillar of dirt. At least three hundred feet tall, it was unclimbable to most people. I jabbed a foot into the side and sunk in past the arch of my heel. It was also loosely packed, so climbing it would be hard. I heard noise on the other side though, it could be Mark! I reached up and grabbed onto the scalding sand and began to clamor up the hillside. I lost half the altitude I gained form every step, however I still managed to get to the top. I pulled myself up over the peak and looked down. What I saw, would be something that would later haunt me for a lifetime. I saw two Hunters standing in guard stances, as well as a pack of Elites. A few of the Covenant Sheaths, basically carriers, carefully lifted a gravity lift receiver. I ducked down and lie on my back, deciding what to do. I wanted to leave a flare, but the chances of anyone seeing it, or me living once the Covenant saw it were slim at best. I looked down off the side of the dune and saw the desert extend to the horizons. In the distance I saw the pillars of smoke from a few craters and the trails of wreckage leading up to them. I pulled out the rangefinding binoculars to calculate my location. I pointed them up to the moon, and aimed for a large crater, it’s name, also the name of a native bug in the desert, Goxinus. I pointed the binoculars at the moon’s crater and the, and the distance from rim to rim could calculate my exact position judging only by the angle that I saw. It was the most modern GPS system, and within seconds had calculated my position. I turned them over and looked at the top of the binoculars, a small monitor. It showed my position, and a blank screen, I wasn’t interested in this because it only showed the desert nearby, which was uncharted due to the shifting dunes. I marked this location on the map and folded the binoculars back into their compact position I looked off at the horizon to see an unusual occurrence, a plume of dust. I could hear the distant sound of engines roaring and people whooping and running towards where I was. They were beneath a sea of dunes and a veil of dust, so nothing was visible from long range, but I was happy to be picked up by anything. I charged down the hill pulling off my helmet and throwing it off to the side and quickly ran to Mark. He was ‘asleep’ as he had claimed though I believed that he had passed out, and I quickly woke him up, shaking him and asking him for the flare gun.

      “Oh, yeah, the flare gun.” He said, thinking as to where is might be, “I don’t really know,” I was already gone, looking for it, “You might want to…” he fell ‘asleep’ again, the blood loss eating away at his health. I couldn’t find the flare gun anywhere however, and instead grabbed one of the reflective pieces of our ships decorative bottom. I held it up in the air and reflected the sunlight from the blue sun at them, hoping someone would see it. I turned around and kicked Mark to wake him up.

      “Mark, we have a ride!”

Stranded at Home Part 3
Date: 30 January 2003, 7:00 pm

      The man from the convoy stepped towards me. I couldn't see him, his face masked by the thick layers of clothes that coated him, all tan with only little glass covered holes for his eyes to see out of. He said through a mechanical filter, "State your name."
      "Jim Kahn, 43rd airborne, and--" he clubbed me in the back of the leg.
      "You're UNSC?"
      "Yeah, why, what are you?", he hit me in the face and the gut before I could even attempt to dodge his blows.
      He turned to one of the other garbed desert man and began to ramble something in another language, probably Farsi, the native tongue of this region of Lunar 4. I could pick out that he used UNSC one too many times for me to be comfortable with what he was saying.
      I spat some blood on the ground, the spit quickly evaporating on the hot desert sand-beds. His superior, from what I could tell replied, and walked away. The man turned around and clubbed me over the head with a staff he carried.
      ******************************************************************
      I woke up to a dark, rumbling room, inside one of the transports they had. A guard stood leaning against the door with a wooden staff, maybe an item of some clan significance and an assault rifle hanging from his neck. It wiggled loosely and he didn't look to be the best suited for the role, seeming young and inexperienced. The autumn colored sand slipped in through a crack that ran along two of the sides of the room and showed a tiny slit of the yellow desert sky. Mark lie over on the other side of the transport, one of his legs amputated, which was to be expected considering the damage that it took in our crash. The guard turned attentive to me as I began to sit up. He yelled something at me in a foreign dialect and still seemed amazed that I didn't understand. He kicked me in the side and watched as I rolled twice over to the side of the craft. He shouted something at me again.
      "I don't understand you, can you tell me what you are saying in English?"
      He turned his head, probably using basic English skills to decipher what I had said. I said something wrong, and he kicked my again. I fell to the ground, him having hit me in the diaphragm. I wheezed for a second, unable to breathe, but quickly shuffled to get back up, I couldn't let him see that he was wearing me down. He slid a leg back and prepared to kick me but stopped suddenly. Wrinkling his forehead he looked down to me, "Speak English?" he said slowly as if he were saying the words for the first time.
      "Yeah, yes, I speak English. Ca you get someone who speaks English?"
      He sounded out the word someone and stored it in his memory, probably to go ask for someone English speaking. He shouted at me again and left the room. I wiped some blood out of the corner of my mouth and crawled over to Mark. He lie unconscious on the ground and wore bloody gauze on both legs. He looked to be dead, and if he hadn't have been in such a lively position, sitting rather than lying, I would have assumed him to be dead. His face was pale the moon, and his joints all hung limp. I set a hand on his shoulder and wiggled him. He woke slowly and faced me.
      "It was all a bad dream, right, tell me it was--" he looked at his leg and saw that it was not.
      I calmed him quickly, trying to get him to stay calm and quiet. "Yeah, this is a nightmare come true. Who are these guys, and why do they hate the UNSC, do they realize that we are fighting to save this planet along with their asses!"
      "They are called the Neo something, maybe the Neo Covalent or Neo Covenant."
      "What? I thought you were passed out." I replied, wondering how he knew what they were called when I did not, and I had seen one while conscious.
      "Earlier one came in and beat me around, they asked me a lot of questions."
      "And what did you tell them?" I asked, it was instinct to do so.
      "Name rank and serial number." He replied. He had told them only the necessary, he probably withstood plenty of torture to keep everything secret from them though how much it mattered even I doubted.
      "Good work. So how did you figure out their name?" I asked.
      "One of them mentioned something, like this was the retribution of the Covenant, the loss of this planet, and something about Spartans, do you know if any were here?" he replied, in a usual sense asking more than he was answering.
      "No, the only Spartan-II's have never been to Lunar 4, it's too far away from the inner colonies." I replied, hoping to get a straight answer out of him.
      "Ah, well anyway, one mentioned that their Neo Covenant counsel would be electing a leader. They also mentioned the name Spartan-III many times, probably just a slip up, but still something to look into. Have you ever heard of any Neo Covenant terrorist organizations?" he replied, asking much more than he was answering again.
      "I think, but I thought we destroyed their last roots years ago. This is a pretty large group of them to be around after the fall of Matheus Marx, could they have been the Brotherhood, or maybe the ASA."
      "No, if they were from the brotherhood they would all have dyed their hair white, and if they were from the ASA their weapons would be red, there's no telling what they are really. Maybe just a community that has skipped out on their taxes, right?"
      "Well, it doesn't matter. We have to get out of here, have you noticed any guard rotation?"
      "Do I look like I'm in any condition to be running away? They took my leg last time they came in here!"
      "Wait, don't you mean amputated?"
      "No, I mean took-" There was an awkward silence following his reply. The silence filled the air, interrupted only by the violent roar of the engine. I heard the familiar hum of flapping wings, followed by the appearance of a nimble Goxine. It fluttered into the car and hummed around for a minute, taking our attention off of our current captivity and onto it. A Goxine bite can be a nasty medical condition, and one that a prisoner would never survive through. The door slid open to reveal a flexible hallway constructed of a ribbed rubber tube. A different, bulkier man set foot in the room, a rifle in hand and a toothpick extending from his mouth, probably the real interrogator. Mark wiggled away from him, an even paler appearance to his face, and brought on more terror.
      "Well, well, well, f it isn't a few of the UNSC damnations. So, did they stamp both of you out of the factory as well?" he asked, a natural sounding English accent flowing fluently from his lips. His voice actually sounded as if it had been speaking English longer than I. We paused for too long and he decided to punish one of us, Mark. He walked slowly to him and placed a hand gently on the stud of a leg he had. "Answer me Marine." He pressed harder. I saw Mark shudder and clench his teeth as the force and pain increase together. He screamed aloud as the man pressed even harder upon his wounded leg Mark screamed some more before passing out from the pain, flopping to the ground, again looking more dead than alive. The man stood, realizing that further torture was of no use and kicked Mark in the ribs before turning to me. "Do your friend's screams loosen your tongue?"
      "Nah, he was my worst enemy. He owed me at least a small fortune alone." I lied.
      "You try my patience! Tell me, where is the SP--" suddenly the transport rocked, accompanied with the roar of an explosion. An alarm light began to spin rapidly. I could hear more explosions and screams in the distance. Some gunfire, both in the distance and near, sounded as a small battle began. "Damn! Why did they choose now to attack?"
      The man quickly ran out of the room, and I moved at an equally brisk pace to Mark. The side of our car suddenly exploded inward, throwing me against the far wall as it rolled onto it's side. Some shrapnel hit me, and I was cut in a few places though none were very severe. Some more explosions hit nearby, more dust and rock flying overhead. I tried to pull free from my rope bindings, but to no avail. Another explosion roared behind the car and I could hear stones hitting the side of the APC we were in.
      A body thumped to the ground, or rather the wall of the APC near to me. His rifle, which was intact, would come in helpful, given of course that I could get free from my binds. I quickly discovered that struggling against the binds was futile and searched the enemy soldier for a bayonet or combat knife. I flipped him over and found one on his belt, and I slid it out quickly beginning to saw through the rope that bound me. I grabbed a canteen off his leg and unscrewed the cap, dumping it on Mark's face. He coughed and sat up, awoken by the water I had poured on his face. He looked around bewildered as another few artillery shells exploded nearby. Some gunfire barked in the distance continually after every one of these bombardments, and it seemed as if hundreds of rifles were being fired at once.
      "What's going on?" Mark shouted, having just woke up in the middle of an attack.
      "Sounds like an artillery regiment just opened fire on this column. Here, can you give me a boost, I need to roll this cart back over!" I yelled, grabbing pack of grenades from the terrorists dead body. He crawled over to the middle of the transport, where the hole in the side was directly above him, and rolled onto his back, holding both of his arms straight up. I stepped on them, and felt his weakness. The blood loss and missing leg was taking a larger toll on him than he probably knew. He lifted me to the top of the car, and I finally got a chance to see the battle outside. I held my body up and saw the battle. A few other cars in the convoy were on fire, and most were damaged in some way. An Arachnid tank near to me fired a Standard Tank Warhead at a nearby dune. Atop the other dune was a few dozen Marines and a standard BAP battalion of 6 Units. I hurled a grenade down the terrorist column and watched it explode, killing a nearby terrorist. I grabbed another grenade and dropped it at the base of the transport I was in. I dropped down to the ground as the grenade detonated, flipping the car upside-down. My ears rung after the explosion, but I was able to grab Marks hand and the terrorists gun to escape out of the hole in the side of the transport. I leaned out to check for any nearby terrorists, finding only one. I fired a burst of gunfire in his direction, hitting him with none, but encouraging him to run away. I gestured for Mark to follow and ran out of the transport, but in the opposite direction of my terrorist sighting. Leaned around the corner, checking for anyone and found another terrorist. I shot him in the back twice and watched as he fell to the ground. I grabbed his gun and tossed it to mark, who, if nothing else, would carry it for me. I took the rifle and sent it around the corner, firing along the nearby carts without aiming at all. I heard a scream, and leapt around the corner, firing in the opposite direction, seeing at least a dozen terrorists before an artillery shell hit their position. The only problem of my current situation: that the Marines atop the hill would think that I was a terrorist and would shoot me if I tried to get to them and shell me if I didn't. I shuffled back behind the car and ran along the column to the front end of it. I noticed the decreasing bombardment. One of the cars near to me exploded as I ran by, hitting my side with a few small pieces of shrapnel. Mark kept up with me only because he was leaning over my shoulder. Following another set of explosions, the gunfire ceased on my side, which was, actually, my enemy's side. Maybe if I yelled to them that I am on their side- But I'll bet there are plenty of terrorists who have tried that before. I dropped my rifle on the ground and continued to run, knowing that being disarmed would only help my chances of survival. I stepped in between two of the carts and saw a trio of Marines. They fired at me, but I ducked back until they ceased to fire.
      "Wait! I'm on your side! Jim Kahn of the 43rd airborne division. I was shot down in the Saar region!" I yelled.

Stranded at Home Part 4
Date: 17 August 2003, 4:13 AM

      "Jim? Jim Kahn? He's a friend guys." One of the Marines said with a familiar voice. He stepped around the corner, though I couldn't identify him with his air purifier mask on, a filter to keep the desert sand out of his lungs. "A very long time friend. I haven't seen you since the academy Jim, where the hell were you all this time?"

       I stared at him blankly for a second, unable to recognize him, "Oh come on! It's me, Zach Ambrosiac? You don't remember me?"

       "Zach! My god! How did you get in with the GIs? You graduated top of our class as a pilot?"

       "Ah, a long story, but to sum it all up, I got married."

       I laughed, "Married? What happened to your life plan, date, date, date, date, date, die?", I laughed some more. He was a regular ladies man in the academy and had more girlfriends than he can count.

       "Well, I got a keeper Jim. You?"

       "Ah, nothing much, I became a pilot, and, long story short, here I am."

       "How about long story long? What happened?"

       "Well, I was shot down in the desert and was then 'rescued' by these mean terrorists. They took his leg off, any medics with your battalion?"

       "We have a few technicians that can probably help him to some degree, but I doubt we can fix his leg now."

       Mark let a look of sadness creep onto his face. Even if he lived through the glassing he would surely never walk again. His life was over as far as he was concerned. "Wait! So I'm stuck like this?"

       "Hardly matters, we're soon to be smoldering, transparent liquids anyway." Zach said.

       "Nah, we'd be red." I replied. "Anyway, Zach, we're gonna tag along with your battalion till the end, right?"

       "Well, I'll have to ask the leaders of the battalion. Oh wait, they don't care, yeah! Come on, we need all the people we can get!" he replied, still excited to meet an old friend.

       "Mark, you up for it?"

       "Patch me up, and I will fight. I can sit on one of those BAPs and fire a rifle or something, but I want to kick some Covenant ass either way." Replied Mark, more heroic than he had seemed before.

       "Well, Zach, I got some info that will change your offensive game plan quite a bit." I said.

       "What?" he asked, a result of my pausing in the middle of my statement.

       "I happen to know where a gravity lift is. A Covenant one."

       He chuckled, "No way." He paused for a few seconds, examining my face. He could tell what emotions a person by merely looking at their face. "You're telling the truth, aren't you?"

       "Yeah, I got the Goxinus statement too. Diameter 105.48, horizontal 48.105 at 3:17 and 23 seconds today." I replied. Using the crater on the Moon titles Goxinus due to it's size, and gathered the required fields regarding the diameter and width as well as the time we could calibrate our angle, and using a computer similar to a GPS system we could project that line from the moon to tell where it hit the surface of the planet, and in turn where the point of origin was.

       "Okay, keep that on your mind, I'm going to get the commanding officer. Write it in the sand or something!" he said as he turned and ran towards the BAP lines. I noted that one of the BAP's was pointing almost vertical, it's back sinking into the soft sand of the desert, which often was close to liquid. This was a hostile environment to the BAP's, and they would need a brace to shell out the gravity lift. We could probably salvage a piece of metal from the side of one of the crafts from this terrorist battlegroup. I lifted my foot and slid it along the sand forming the coordinates I was located at when I discovered the gravity lift.

      The dirt however was very loose, and the howling wind of a mid summer2 desert sandstorm easily erased my writings. On Lunar 4 we have Ten seasons due to the fact that Lunar 4 orbits two stars rather than one. The seasons however behave like Earth seasons, just out of order with three Summer times, Sumer1, summer2, and summer3, and 3 winter times, labeled like the prior.

      The Lunar 4 year would begin as we orbited the largest star at our furthest point from the sun, opposite of Earth, which begins it's year near to the closest part of it's orbit. This is Winter3, because it is the most extreme. Winter2 is a neutral wintertime and Winter1 is a mellow wintertime. Summer is labeled reverse, the warmest being Summer3 and the coldest being Summer1, though it is suiting when comparing the relative seasonal extremes. Summer two comes shortly after Winter3, the beginning of a new year, and is followed by Summer 3 and then summer one, which, all together, last nearly an Earth year. Lunar 4 uses it's own time zones naturally, but follows the Earth year, so in technicality, by definition of a year everyone on Lunar 4 is only a third the age they claim to be, one Lunar 4 year equaling near to 3 Earth years, falling just a few months short.

      I stopped halfway through the second number, realizing that I had the numbers memorized, and that the sand behind it was already erased completely as if I had never written it at all. The sand was behaving this way because the moon was passing overhead, and the gravity from the moon pulled water upwards, and made dirt much lighter. It blew easier, and formed this desert millions of year ago because its orbit crossed over this area more then any other, causing violent windstorms that destroyed any vegetation and destroyed any rocks. Zack came back with a pad of paper and a pencil in his hands, which were coated in oil from one of the BAPs and left trademarked fingerprints all over the pad. "Alright, Diameter 105.48," I paused and waited while he wrote, "horizontal 48.105" I waited again, "3:17 and 23 seconds today." Get some readings on where it is. Maybe we can rally some survivors to call in an air strike. Or maybe we could drop a nuke in there, make some Covenant into glass for a change." I replied. He continued to write for a few seconds before chuckling at my attempt at a joke.

      "Aright, thanks. I'll go tell the CO. Go to the armory and get yourself a rifle. Chances are that we will mobilize within a half an hour to attack this gravity lift."

      "Aright. Get to work man, talk to ya later." Zack left heading for his division's mobile HQ as I began to look for the armory. I walked through the battlefield, around the craters and bodies. I noticed that a group of Marines were digging three shallow graves for the comrades they had lost in the battle, and another group pushed the bodies of the terrorists into the craters, filling them sloppily with sand. As the remaining Marines performed a sweep of the armored column I noticed that an occasional survivor would leap out at them attempting to kill them, but none succeeded. The groups point-man would fire a single shot and the enemy would be felled before they could even get a bearing as to where the Marines were. Amazing we were losing the war...

      The dark room seemed to leap every few seconds, the flak fire from Coeant gun emplacements obscuring even the might of the two suns. The room danced with light entertaining the death which we knew awaited us. Our planet invaded we were the last line of defense, Justin had said so. (Jim will make frequent reference to Justin. He is a religious prophet which foretold the coming invasion of Lunar 4.) Lunar 4 was under attack, and we were it's saving grace. The ship rumbled again as we began to descend. I felt my stomach lift to my sternum and was overcome with a feeling of safety that came with flying. I was a pilot, not a soldier. I checked the rifle in my hands and slid a magazine of ammo into the gun. I knew how to use one, but was that enough?

      "Don't worry." I looked up to see a smiling woman toting the same make of rifle I had. She was beautiful in regards to the general Marine Corps GI. It was hard to tell too much about her face in the darkness of the cabin, but even as she spoke an aura seemed to follow her words, breathing confidence.

      "Who's worrying?" I asked, bravado filling my words. I straitened my posture and tried to look as calm as I could.

      "I can tell it's your first time on the frontlines. A little advice from soldier to soldier..." she sat down next to me, "Point and click." She lifted the rifle and showed me the trigger and gestured the aimer, "Get it so you can see their heads in there," she slid her hand down to the trigger "and click." I laughed.

      "Point and click? Real reassuring, I associate that word with operating system crashes and spam mail."

      "Sounds like you use Windows."

      "Would appear so. Jim Kahn, 43rd Airborne." I extended a hand and shook her waiting hand. Such a greeting was formal on Lunar 4.

      "Ah, would assume that you're a pilot, you don't look like a soldier."

      "Hey! What's that supposed to mean, Pilots are soldiers too!"

      The dropship suddenly hit the ground and lurched upwards. My gun clattered to the ground as the dropship lifted up about five feet and opened the back hatch. "Let's see flyboy." The woman jumped out of the dropship and immediately allowed her legs to crumble beneath her. She quickly regained her posture before disappearing under the dropships and continuing up the battlefield.

      I managed to say wait quietly before she ran away. The battle was upon us. I grabbed my rifle as I scrambled to the back of the dropship and dropped into the warm sand. I sunk to my ankles in the soft dunes and immediately noticed the warmth of the desert heat. I scrambled beneath the dropship though I couldn't see my hands in front of me, a small dust storm following the exhaust of the dropship. I stumbled to the other side and saw the battlefield.

      A hundred or so Marines were roughly lining one side of the battlefield and an arch of tracer fire emerged from the line quickly bolting to the other side. Behind them I could see the 101st Artillery moving into position. On the top of the hill a group of fifty or so Covenant were quickly scrambling to defend their gravity lift. A mismatched barrage of gunfire was returned, green and blue bolts randomly descending to the Marine ranks. A group of longswords ran overhead followed by a line of explosions across the hill. Sniper bolt arched across the desert and the sun glared down at us. It didn't like us fighting, I could tell, no one did. I saw a blue body roll down the hill, a trail of purple blood following it. This was real combat, not a simulator, real people would fight today, and real people would die. I could only pray that I would be one of the few who lived.

      I ran to the edge of the dune I was on and slid down it, my right foot leading and my left shin balancing me. The warm sand was somehow comforting, though the sounds of gunfire and screams in the distance were not. Our battlegroups mission was to get to the edge of the ridge as fast as we could and throw as many grenades as possible into the crater and hope to create a sea of blood where once was foe. I reached the bottom of the dune along with three other marines, one of which was Mark, prosthetic leg slowing him considerably. There were no spare uniforms so the crimson blood of his amputation stained his leg, the setting sun making efforts to tone the sky to its color. I quickly ran over the scalding sand to the side of the hill that was covered with a long shadow cast by the setting sun and was eased from my pain by the cooler sand. I continued to run up the side of the Covenant dune, firing randomly up it hoping to kill anything standing in our way. As I scrambled up the hill I pushed a few bodies out of my way, copping a plasma grenade from whichever I could. When I reached the peak of the hill an involuntary breath of awe escaped my stunned lips. Hundreds of Covenant sat in the crater as a series of artillery shells struck them. Explosions, both blue and red shot a rainbow of blood everywhere, and at least a dozen Marines lightly circled the edges of the crater. I quickly dropped to my knees for safety and hurled a grenade into the pit as the squadron of Longswords again dropped bombs on the Covenant. An Elite's body hit the sand above me and was tossed down the hill. I couldn't hear anything but knew better than to be afraid. I grabbed one of the tiny grenades, pulling it's pin and hurtling it into the crater behind me. I plugged my ears of habit though my hearing was amiss and watched as the explosion soon ensued. This was an incredible militral success. The explosion lifted a flaming Grunt a score feet into the air, dropping it's scalding remains on a troop of Elites. I quickly grabbed another grenade and pulled the pin from it as a set of Banshees descended from the clouds above us. Green bolts lanced down upon Marine positions and screams echoed through my returning hearing. Within seconds I could see a half dozen SAM missiles arch up into the sky, exploding into a fireball on contact with the Banshees. None broke free. I was distracted and almost forgot to throw the grenade, though I quickly realized my mistake and hurle it into the pit. Another artillery strike began, and by the time it subsided the enemy forces were all but defeated. I saw several Marines jumping into the crater and followed suite, jumping into the pit to finish the rest of the enemy. A grunt jumped from hiding and fired a series of plasma bolts at me. I quickly rolled behind a supply crate for cover before standing up to fire at it. Three shots caught it in the chest and it instantly toppled over, a trail of blue blood following it to the ground. I charged at it as it twitched and quickly fired a burst of shots into it's head to finish it. I ducked around a crate as an Elite shot at me, two of his plasma shots hitting the body of the Grunt. I jumped around the corner as his skull split open, a sniper bullet penetrating it. The fighting had stopped as suddenly a roar like none other filled the joyous ears of the Marines. A few weary eyes managed to look up to see that a ball of fire was becoming a second sun. The flames of a Covenant Cruiser descending to its gravity lift. The tables had turned.

Draco Part 2
Date: 19 August 2003, 12:22 AM

To comprehend parts of this fanfics you might wnat to read Stowaway, another fanfic of mine. All will be explained, but it will be somewhat abbreviated, and in Spartan talk (e.g. what they think is going on), so it would be better to read Stowaway.

       "Sir?" the young man asked the large and dark chamber. A slender, sinister chair was the only decoration in the room. The open door cast a long shadow across the room, and only the man's silhouette was visible. He couldn't tell if the chair was empty or occupied.

       "What is it?" the room replied.

       "Sir, rumor has it that some of the Spartans escaped. Should we dispatch a squad of AEs to finish them?"

       "Excellent... I want you to tell the counsel that they need to step up AE production. If we can eliminate these Spartans it should make our cause seem all the more important."

       "Sir, what if there is trouble, the counsel will be furious, it could mean disaster for the AE project."

       "They are AEs. They don't make mistakes."

       I looked out the window of the old Ford truck as the distant sun of Lunar 4 slid over the horizon, melting the blue sky into a red color signature of times when the sun and horizon did battle. The noisy engine was the only noise in the truck despite that there were four of us. Jake rode in the back of the truck do to a lack of space, though. I looked down at the fuel indicator, still a half a tank left. The city of Awwek was just a brace miles away. I placed a hand on the primitive radio, probably over twenty years old. I twisted the radio knob and watched the display reflect my changes, 91.1.

       "Up." Jenna said. Instantly I was at 91.3, she repeated this till we reached 101.1. She was clearly a fan. The static cleared as we came from the shadow of a nearby mountain.

       "Now live on GUWE, we have a few new songs for ya comin up in three. Now we have a special broadcast alert, a car has been reported stolen by four escaped prisoners. It's traced going to Awwek via the Grand Ghandian Road thanks to the Peeper network, so, any police enforcers or vigilante civilians, try to take them. Careful, they are reportedly armed with machine guns." The radio continued to report about the car that was stolen. I couldn't help but notice that it was the same make, color and year as the one we were in, license plate number HPSG44F. It seemed to be an oddly familiar license plate number. I turned to Jenna, who was the most naturally observant of such details.

       "Jenna-14, I have a question for you. What was this car's license plate number?" I asked.

       "HPSG44F." she replied.

       "Oh... Great, just when we find a radio station we like. Draco, what's our next move?" Jake asked.

       "Awwek will be a good place to hide. We should be able to mask our body heat signatures in a building. The Creators taught us that we could hide from the satellites by hiding in buildings." I replied.

(Lunar 4 has an extensive Spy Satellite network after two centuries of civil warfare. This network was turned upon the planet to create the most efficient crime fighting network ever. The Satellites record a spy satellite image of every second of passing time on the planet. To solve a crime the recording is simply rewound. Heat signatures can also be detected to solve crimes in buildings. This system tracks Draco and his squad in this scene, but Spartan-IIIs have a much lower body temperature than humans (around 72.1 Degree F), so they can hide from detection in buildings.)

       "The City is pretty far away, do you think we can make it?" Jenna asked.

       "Do you think you can throw em off?" I asked Jenna.

       "Not without a computer."

       "Can you hold em off?"

       "Of course." Jake nodded, grabbing his rifle and smashing the back window of the truck out, sliding into the back of the truck. Jenna and Jimmy followed and I threw my ammo to them.

       I continued driving down the road only to soon realize that three police cars were trailing us. Jenna, Jake and Jimmy were smart enough to keep their rifles hidden, the longer the cops didn't fire the longer they didn't have to waste ammo.

       "Pull over with your hands up!" the police loudspeaker boomed, "You will not be harmed if you surrender now!" I turned my head back to the others and looked for any hesitation, seeing none. I slammed my foot down on the accelerator and felt the truck lurch forward as out speed suddenly near to doubled. I watched the speedometer hover around 120 miles per hour as a sign whirred overhead, alerting me that Awwek was only a mile away. Police cars accelerated behind me, but I was in the city by the time they managed to get to within a dozen meters. As we entered the city I couldn't help but notice the huge defensive wall, one hundred and twenty feet tall, fifty feet thick. As we passed through the gate our truck fell briefly in the shadow of its magnificence. I was in the castle of the enemy. I swerved between cars as I entered the city, and turned left immediately wrapping around the building, the truck near to rolling. The truck hit the sidewalk and leapt into the cement, bunker like wall of the building before bouncing back to the road. The tires howled as I rounded another corner to the right. I looked in my rear view mirror to notice that there was no one sitting in the back of the truck. Suddenly struck with panic I looked backwards, the others were braced against the sides of the truck. I breathed a sign of relief, and decided to give them the pleasure of doing so, dropping the speed of the truck significantly. I swerved right again, suddenly falling under another shadow, the shadow of the second deck of Awwek. The impressive sight fell short as three black cars slid around the corner before me, each of the three slowing to a stop in an attempt to form a blockade. I swerved to the left and skipped over a curb and down to another level of the roadway. As I hit the bottom level of the roadway I was facing sideways. I turned quickly in an attempt to face the correct direction, but the slow turning of the truck sent it flying into the median. It skilled over the median, but barely and joined traffic on the other side, which was going the opposite direction that I was heading, thanks to my attempted alignment in the other lane. Instead of trying to turn again I merely continued to drive, cars swerving as they realized that I was barreling the wrong way down the road. Suddenly the random gunfire of rifles began to disturb the peace of driving. Bullets raked a path across the windshield of the truck as more of the black ONI cars attacked out truck. Jake carefully aimed his rifles for the drivers of the cars, and killed them. It seemed that for every one he killed two more would join in the pursuit, and driving along the straight road in the trench was not the greatest way to lose anyone.

       "BRACE YOURSELVES!" I yelled, suddenly pulling the emergency brake and spinning. The rest of my team shot to the back of the truck, hitting against the tailgate. The black government cars suddenly whirred past me. I noticed that the roads were clear of all civilian traffic. For some reason ONI wanted to take us no matter what the costs... I spun the car to the right and turned into a small market, slamming the horn. The car flew up the staircase and landed near a small hot dog vendor. The man screamed as we slid into his small hot dog stand, the umbrella and food flying everywhere. I accelerated as the car stopped spinning, the screaming crowd parting for our passing. Suddenly the government cars began to jump over the staircase, smashing into buildings as they rounded the corner to follow us. Again gunfire raked the ground, plumes of dirt shooting from the ground to my side and raking a path across my vision. A shadow dawned on the truck and I looked up in awe as a Pelican lowered in front of us. Suddenly the others started to scream, and I heard a crane lowering in the back of the Pelican. They leaned away from the center of the truck as the large magnet hit in the center of the bed and immediately clipped. Everyone's rifles slid across the truck to the magnet. I felt my dog tags rip off and fly to the magnet. Suddenly the back of the truck began to ascend and Jenna crashed through the back window, hitting the windshield. She clambered to the dash and braced herself. I looked towards the back of the truck to see Jake and Jimmy hanging from the tailgate.

      I spun my back to the steering wheel and kicked out the remainder of the window and climbed out of the truck. I looked into the Pelican and saw a set of Marines controlling the lift. Each grinned with equal delight as we ascended further, past 100 feet. I looked down as the market became tiny. If it was the lift that was our problem I knew that it had to be stopped. I saw only one solution...

       I sprung from the back of the truck and grabbed onto the back of the Pelican. I heard nervous voices before feet began stepping on my fingers. I continued to pull myself up. As my forehead crept over the back of the Pelican a foot suddenly met my forehead. I fell backwards, dangling from one arm as the three Marines shouted. I dragged myself up again, this time expecting to be kicked in the face. As the boot swung at my head I grabbed the man's pant leg. The other passengers yelled in terror as I threw the man out of the Pelican. His body hit limp against the truck before sliding into the front windshield, dead or at least unconscious. I pulled myself into the Pelican as the other two Marines ran to the cabin, locking the door behind them. I ran to the door and kicked it, using fear to keep the Marines from coming out. The Pelican continued to ascend as I looked at the controls to the Pelican. In a horrible change of luck the writings were in Mathean. Only Jimmy knew Mathean well enough to read the instructions.

       "Jimmy, get up here and read this!" I shouted. Jimmy leapt from the truck's tailgate to the back of the Pelican. "I'm going to the back of the thing to grab the guns when the magnet gives out. Drop the truck!"

       "Alright, just a minute or two..." he replied. I leapt across the gap and hit the truck, sliding down to the Marine. I reached inside the holster on the side of his leg and grabbed his pistol. I pulled four grenades from his ammo belt too before kicking his body free from the truck. I continued to climb up the truck, carefully keeping my newfound weapons away from the magnet in the bed. I then reached down towards the magnet end of the crane to grab the butt of one of the rifles. I would grab it before it fell. Suddenly the Pelican rumbled as the cargo hold door began to close. Jimmy looked up from the controls, but it was already too late to stop it. I heard a sudden loud crash as the back door of the Pelican dented outward. It was struck again and again at a slowing pace until it suddenly stopped.

       "Damn... DAMN IT!" I shouted. Now our rifles were stuck, and all we had was a pistol to take the Pelican and force the pilot to lower the craft. Suddenly and idea struck me. I grabbed one of the grenades I had pulled from the body and tossed it loosely in my hand. "Jake, Jenna, to the top of the Pelican. Brace for impact, I'm taking this bitch down here and now! Climb fast and grab onto something solid!" I waited for Jake and Jenna to scale the outside of the Pelican before climbing to the top myself. I looked down at the dizzying heights, staring at the entirety of our car chase from five hundred feet upwards. I watched as Jake and Jenna braced themselves near the back of the Pelican, and I pulled the pin from my grenade. I threw the grenade into the engine. A sudden flare of sparks assured its entry into the blades. I dropped to the body of the Pelican and grabbed one of the fins atop it, hoping to the creator that I wouldn't die. I felt a new emotion... Was it fear?

Stranded at Home Part 5
Date: 22 August 2003, 5:39 AM

      The ship was damaged, almost split in half and didn't fire any plasma torpedoes to our great luck, it probably couldn't. The flaming mass began to decelerate and stopped at it's optimal gravity lift altitude. The ship hovered for a second as random BAP shell explosions coursed up its sides, the massive ship's shields howling as they activated in the air. Suddenly a purple glow began to flicker as the gravity lift came online. I stood next to the base of the gravity lift and looked upwards. Suddenly the bottom of the ship shimmered as a troop of infantry appeared and plummeted to the base of the gravity lift. I quickly jumped behind a crate and watched as a large group of infantry landed on the pad. I quickly hurled a grenade into the center of the area, but I only managed to wound a single grunt, the smarter and luckier of the Covenant fleeing before it detonated. I fired into the horde, but there were simply too many of them and too little of us. Suddenly the ships plasma torpedoes crackled to life, and a bolt arched from the front of the craft and broke the crest of the crater before I heard an explosion. Soon afterwards, though, I heard an explosion in the BAP column. Apparently it didn't like them shelling it. Another group of enemies dropped onto the gravity lift before a missile from one of the Longswords exploded on the gravity lift. I looked up to see my savior spiraling downwards, a Banshee following it, ripping the already doomed fighter into more pieces. Another great, but smaller barrage of artillery struck the ship at its base in an attempt to hit the gravity lift. The force field shimmered in defiance, however, and we knew the battle was lost. "Men. It is all over. This is our Alamo, this hill, and unfortunately it is our last stand." The radio cackled the voice of the commander over the sounds of explosions and gunfire, "Our Alamo is for Lunar 4 and all of its people. We fight for liberty, we fight for justice, we fight for Lunar 4. May god be with us and may we let our defiance breathe victory." Though his speech was convincing I knew that the battle was already lost. However, we were Marines, and it was our job to fight to the death to serve our planet. Another set of artillery shells shook the ground as a half dozen artillery explosions coursed the ship, again causing no damage. As the fires of the hellish explosions began to fade and the explosions rang for miles another attack team descended from the ship. This one was smaller showing a break in their lines. They most likely had expended their main attack team and were waiting for more to come from the barracks. I ducked behind a crate and stayed out of sight. Most of the Marines near me were dead and the Covenant were focused on the other side of the gravity lift where some still lived. I took my opportunity and ran for the gravity lift. A Grunt spun around as I landed on the gravity lift and jumped yelling for its commander. Before it could finish its shouts for help I disappeared above it flying upwards at incredible speeds. I flew by a descending attack column. As I flew to the clouds in the sky I looked downwards to see the falling Marine columns. Flaming wreaks occupied most of the former attack battalion, and what little BAPS were left fired randomly at the cruiser. I suddenly noticed that one artillery shell was hurtling at the Gravity lift at the bottom of the ship, where I was heading. I watched the white contrails of the shell trace a line upwards towards me. I closed my eyes in fear that it would hit me. Suddenly I was inside the ship. An explosion echoed throughout. I stumbled after realizing I was still alive and quickly ran for cover. Luckily my assumption was right and no troops were in the gravity lift room, but more were probably on the way. Suddenly a duo of Marines dropped into the bay behind me. I gestured for them to move towards me and began to walk towards a door, hiding behind one of the many purple crates. A light blinked above the door and a bell sounded as a door on the other side of the bay opened.

      A confident Elite stepped out as a fragmentation grenade bounced to a stop at his feet and was quickly surprised as his shield vaporized. Pieces of him landed around the landing area. His pair of Grunts following in troupe were wounded by the shrapnel and had time to turn to scream before a handful of rounds killed them both. The door behind us opened and two Grunts and two Jackals stepped into the room, again, expecting nothing, but reacting quicker than their allies. I rolled over the top of the crate and fired three rounds into the group, a Grunt dropping to the ground, its glowing blood staining the walls and its nearby allies. A few gunshots echoed from my allies and the rest of the group was cut down. A door on the far side of the room slid open suddenly and three Elites rolled into the room. I turned to my teammates to see that one was running for the first door that the Elite had come from and that the other was lying against a nearby wall with a hand over his chest. I noticed a trail of crimson blood dripping from his lip and that his hand was speckled with his blood. A barrage of plasma gunfire leapt across the room from the rifles of our foes and pelted the walls near us. The other Marine, whom had made it to safety, was calling for me to come. I turned to the other Marine, a dozen feet away, and I looked at the desperation in his eyes. He gestured towards the door for me to run. I couldn't.

      I charged across the open area between the crates as Elites began to fire shots of opportunity at me. The walls in front of me melted away, searing, glowing red metal dripping onto me at times. Behind me a flood of gunfire followed me closely. I ducked behind the crate next to the wounded Marine. I looked over my shoulder and saw that two grunt were charging over the gravity lift. I quickly grabbed my rifle and fired a few shots in their direction, killing one and leaving the other a twitching mass on the ground waiting for death to end its suffering. I grabbed the wounded Marine by the shoulders and dragged him, as quickly as I could, away from the area where he lie. Gunfire arched over our heads and the crackling superheated air in its contrail heated our escape. I held my rifle in one hand firing randomly across the room and the marines shoulder in the other dragging him. It seemed as if every step I took was an eternity, and though I hadn't run even 50 feet I felt like I had run for days on end. A plasma grenade arched towards the room in our direction and we were forced to flee again.

      I pressed a pair of fingers against the wounded man's neck, he was wounded and dying, though he would be doing worse no matter what had happened, he could be dead on the surface or dead in that cargo bay, at least now he had some chance of living. My bloodstained hand was the same crimson red as the flames in all of my thoughts, all of my family and friends were dead, everything that I had grown to know was in flames, below me my life was being destroyed. None of us knew what we were doing and no one wanted to be aboard this ship, we all just wanted to go home and live peaceful lives, but they had interfered. That was reason enough to destroy every Covenant soldier. I grabbed more painkillers from the small and inadequate first aide kit that was in my field backpack and dropped two tablets into his mouth while telling him to swallow them. The damp and small room that we were in was annoyingly small and hardly enough to fit one outstretched man. We figured that it was a storage closet of some kind though there was nothing in it, but it was too small to fit an Elite, so it couldn't be a deployment bay, only an unused room or a storage closet of some kind. The unscathed soldier stood in the corner of the room reloading his rifle and checking its parts, a release of nervous tension. I looked down at the wounded man who was breathing his last breaths. I couldn't help but be saddened by his death, it was the first that I was close to. A moment later the last dying breath of the man escaped his lips. Not a single final word was breathed, just death. I checked his pulse to confirm his death.

      "What now?" I asked, "Us two versus an entire Covenant ship?"

      He paused for a moment, "Yeah, something like that." I grinned, hoping he was just kidding. He looked back at me, "Get your rifle" I suddenly felt like dying...

      I leaned against the wall of the covenant ship and peered around the corner nervously. I felt the other man walk into my back, watching the hallway for any movements. Nothing happened for a few seconds so I charged around the corner, running for the next hallway, the final hallway... I slid my back against the wall and peered around the corner again, seeing a simple door. The door suddenly slid shut and signaled that something had walked into the room recently. Now was when it was time to question our plan, it could have been anything, and whatever it was, it was sure to cause plentiful pain..

      "So.... Do we have a plan for this room?", I asked.

Stranded at Home Part 6
Date: 23 August 2003, 5:53 PM

      "So.... Do we have a plan for this room?", I asked.

      "Yes. Kill them all. Leave no survivors. Rescue prisoners Jenna and 'Crazy'" He replied. I felt that it was a suicide mission but saw no alternative.

      "Well, let's go. Draw straws to see who goes first?" I asked.

      "No. I'll go." I watched as the man flipped the safety off his weapon and paced down the short purple hallway to the door. It spun open and he instantly threw a grenade down the cell block that landed directly below the feet of the Golden Elite. "Hi guys!" he shouted. "Who dies next?" the prisoners sat up, hearing a human voice and turned to face their savior. The bright flash of the grenade was nothing compared to the glory of the soldier. A Golden Elite's mangled body fell to the ground, dead as two more Elite converged on his position. He raised a duo of pistols from his pockets and fired three shots from each pistol. A second later there was an odd resounding silence as the two Elites fell to the ground, three bullets in their heads. I stared at the man in awe as he spun the pistols to his right and fired a shot from each, an invisible Elite falling a second later still half cloaked as it hit the ground. Before its body was able to hit the ground another invisible Elite was killed, purple blood spurting from large wounds in its skull and shoulder. Two Grunts turned and ran in fear as the man casually walked through the room. A needler bold lurched nervously at the man and just as it was about to strike he swept it from the air with a swift motion from his hands. The bullet spiraled to the side of the room where it exploded. The Grunts stared in awe as the man continued to walk forward at a constant speed, drawing his pistol again. The room was overcome by an eerie silence as the pistol released two bullets, both of which hit the Grunts squarely between their eyes. They tumbled to the ground, dead before impact, and the man continued steadily and confidently walking through the room. I walked to the Marine, uncertain of what to say as he activated the holopanel to release the prisoners. At first I looked on, uncertain of what had just happened when something caught my eye. The back of his palm had a large scar on it in the shape of a D. Draco. Draco was a legendary and rumored Spartan terrorist of a decade or so past, and supposedly resided in Awwek. I silently thanked god that he was on our side. He carefully reloaded each pistol and began to distribute guns to the prisoners as I stood, still in awe of his feats.

      "You. Marine." The voice echoed at me, Draco's voice oddly eerie.

      "Yes, sir." I replied, saluting Draco.

      "I need your rifle, you can use your sidearm. I have a friend that needs it." I looked up to see that Draco was standing next to a woman who seemed to be of equal power. Jenna. He handed his two pistols to another man, gangly hair dangling over his eyes, cuts and purple blood on his fists. Clearly he was a fighter.

      Complying instantly I handed my rifle to the Spartan. "Alright, Marines, we need to take control of this ship and ram it into the ground. We must make sure that we gain and keep control of the ship until then."

      The resounding agreement to Jenna's speech was amazing, "Yes Ma'am!" the Marines shouted in unison. It was our time for us to take our Alamo.

      The door to the control room slid open, the familiar chime of its release echoing through the room. Inside the room a half dozen Golden Elites and at least 3 dozen grunts turned to face the Marine pocket. They seemed to instantly recognize the two Spartans in their midst, every one of them running for cover in the small control room. Suddenly the air sizzled as a series of blue bolt lurched from the Marine lines to the Covenant, a Grunt clipped by two shots in the face. Its singed skin splattered to a wall as the faceless Grunt fell to the ground. Within a second vollies of gunfire passed between us and the enemy. Draco and Jenna were already over enemy lines, bodies flying as they began to rip the enemy apart, almost literally piece by peace. I would see one of them jump to kill a grunt and as they split its skull the other hand would fire a few rounds into an enemy Elite, felling both within a second. I fired into the horde and clipped a Grunt in the shoulder, nitrogen spewing from his shattered shoulder plate. I fired another pistol shot at him only to see him become a fireball along with a few of the other nearby Grunts. The fire roared in the center of the room and the Marines stopped firing, a smokescreen blinding their view of the enemy. All we could hear was horrible screams of Elites and Grunts. A grunt body tumbled out of the fire and there was a moment of silence. Suddenly from the billowing fire stepped the silhouette of two tall figures. Spartans. The Marines cheered as Jenna walked up to the control platform.

      "All of you this is not the end of the road, we have to destroy the cruiser. Guard the control room while I crash it!" Jenna yelled. Marines loosely assembled near the doors into the control room and raised their mixed arsenal at the doors. "I'm going to try to lock the ship, every door on it, make sure you're all in here in three seconds or you'll be stuck."

      I watched the indicators over the doors turn red. Draco looked at Jenna, "How long does that lock buy us?"

      "Ten minutes, at best. The attack on the bottom of the ship didn't go unnoticed, and there are probably teams of Covenant in every hallway. No doubt they are all waiting to help unlock or destroy these doors." Jenna replied quietly to Draco. Her voice spoke of great danger but remained calm and almost drone-like. "Marines, I want one person against each door. Put the back of your hand against the door. Tell me if any start getting warm."

      I stepped up to Jenna. She was eight feet tall, and seemed scarily lethal. "Jenna, I have a question."

      "What is it?" she replied, oddly friendly.

      "Well, you are gonna crash this ship, right?" I asked.

      "That's the plan."

      "Well, I think I've got a better one. Awwek is in big trouble. As we left the base three cruisers were dropping near it. Well, I think it would be better to take this ship and run in there using the element of surprise to fire on them, maybe damage them, and ram this ship into another. We can take down at least one other and this one that way. Also, jettison all of the Elites in the launch pods. They won't do much good in the desert."

      "Draco?" Jenna asked. Draco nodded in acceptance. "Looks like you've proved your worth. Grab a plasma rifle and start melting a hole in the door on the left, use it as a fire port to hold the Covenant off on that side once they get to the door."

      "Got it." I tossed my pistol to a nearby Marine and pulled the Plasma Rifle from his hands. I aimed it at the emblem on the door and started firing, testing out my new toy on the Covenant ship. The door was tougher than I had expected, and it took a long time for the door to begin to glow and melt, but it singed through the thin door very quickly once it started. I fired for around a minute before there was a hole large enough to fit an assault rifle or grenade through, and waited another two minutes before it was cool enough to peer through. I leaned towards the hole and looked into the other room. It was a small corner, basically, and led to another door immediately.

      The door dented outward suddenly, and I heard some low pitch grunting on the other side of the door. I wasn't sure what creature could do such a thing. The other Marines seemed to have heard the noise as well and were trying to peer through the hole. I pushed against them, curious of the monster. Suddenly the door exploded inward, and from the fire and smoke of the destroyed door a large blue figure paced into the room. At first I believed it to be a small tank, but it was like nothing the covenant had used before. My instant reaction was to pull the pin from my grenade and force it through the hole in the door. It dropped into the room and I shielded the hole in the wall with the plasma rifle, lest any shrapnel fly towards it. Following the roar of the grenade I slid the rifle from the hole and looked into the room. It was peppered with shrapnel embedded in the walls, and orange blood lightly speckled the room. The blue creature stood, undeterred. Suddenly one of its arms began to glow green, and I threw my gun against the hole again, to defend the marines against whatever happened. I pressed against the gun with my chest, praying that the green light meant it was dying. Suddenly I was lifted across the room by the rifle, a trail of sparks and flames following my arc. I could hear a hail of gunfire and screams, and through my blurred vision saw what I thought was Draco rushing to the door. I could think of only one thing. I must live to see another day, and I must fight to live.

      I sat up and hurled the destroyed rifle to the side. It had been one hell of a day, but nothing was gonna get away with throwing me across a room. I straightened one of my horribly mangled fingers and watched as Draco suppressed the creature and relaxed for a brief moment, before beginning to fire again. Soon he threw the spent plasma weapon aside and grabbed the next weapon in the line, needler. He fired it through the hole and pulled the needler away after a dozen shots. A blinding flash ensued. Draco walked away after looking at the enemy through the hole, who was ripped in half by the explosion. An alien alarm suddenly sounded and Jenna began yelling orders, apparently the Covenant were attempting to disable the ship's reactors manually. Doors near the reactor had been breached. She unlocked a line of doors to the reactor for us and sent everyone bar Draco and herself to the reactors. The other Marines, terrified, ran forward towards the reactors nonetheless, and I wasn't one to be the coward of the group, and I followed along, pretending to be zealous of the mission as the others were. I wished we had Draco with us...

Stranded at Home Final Part
Date: 18 September 2003, 8:05 PM

      We ran down the hallway, the locked doors on either side of the hallway glowing red. The Covenant on the other side were trying to melt their way through. It seemed as if the whole hallway was empty, bar one unlucky Grunt who was banging on a door trying to get into the locked hallways. He was quickly nullified. As we ran along the lines of unlocked doors most of the Marines noticed that the doors on every side were being shot from the other side. The Covenant were trying to melt their way into the control room. Soon the hallway forked, and the Marines ran down the open door to the right, the door opening to reveal the Covenant menace. The small patrol was lost or had determined that we had already taken control of the ship, but in either case they were armed and interfering with our plans. I hurled my last remaining frag grenade into the center of the group, and it bounced to a stop in the squad of Covenant. I stepped back and the door closed, concealing the explosion in the small entrance hallway. The deafening roar of the grenade was concealed, but still easily audible. I ran around the corner, the rest of the squad behind me and began firing. I couldn't hear the screams of the Covenant or Marines courtesy of the ring in my ears, but I knew to fire my rifle at the enemy. Red blood splashed on my clothes as the Marine next to me dropped dead, but the survivors continued to rush forward into the Covenant. Within a few eternal moments we were upon their lines, literally fighting tooth and claw with the enemy. I swung a plasma rifle down on the skull of one Grunt while firing at another during the downstroke. Suddenly there was a sharp pain in the back of my skull and I fell to the ground. I rolled onto my back and fired at the Elite who had hit me. His shields shimmered as a half dozen orbs of plasma hit him in the face. I puller the trigger in one deliberate motion, and the energy ball lurched forward from my rifle to his face, killing him. My head throbbing, and vision blurred I stumbled to my feet, an overcharged plasma pistol shot whirring past my face and down the hallway. A Grunt, running in the direction we had come from passed me before a quick burst of plasma gunfire from the remaining Marine destroyed what was remaining of his life. The lone surviving Grunt threw down his rifle and began running, screaming horribly. His life mirrored his terror in its final motions, and he dropped to the ground, dying a shameful death. One of the Marines radioed to Draco that the area immediately surrounding the reactor doors that had been breached was clear of Covenant soldiers. Draco replied and stationed three of the Marines with Human weaponry in the reactor, setting up similar defenses ass we had in the control room. I rubbed the wound on the back of my head, which was bleeding and matted my hair with blood. Oddly enough, I had more purple blood on me than red.

      In the control room six Marines paced nervously around the room. We had many more armaments as a result of our last battle, but were drawing closer to Awwek. Draco had briefed us on what to expect once we made it there, but it seemed as if there wasn't much of a plan. Apparently we were to expect that upon hearing a battle most of the Covenant on the ship would try to escape with extra valor, and the control room would be a hard place to defend. Luckily, moving through the ship would be very hard for them, and the battle might be over before they had a chance to get to us. Also, the bridge being in the center of the ship we were defended fairly well from boarders as well. One of the greater problems was the one that none of us wanted to acknowledge, that this was a suicide mission.

      "One minute until we come into Awwek's gunfire range. The Covenant may start firing as well. If you have any apologies to make to anyone, now would be the time. If you have a god to pray to and enough faith to believe that he still exists in this time of trial, pray. We will need your prayers." One of the humans, a Naval officer said.

      I silently prayed for luck as we entered Awwek airspace. Several viewscreens of the defensive lines appeared. I noticed that Awwek's walls were crumbled, and what appeared to be a large mushroom cloud was clearing outside the area. The defenses were weak, and only light AA batteries focused on the cruiser. Suddenly the lights on the ship flickered for a brief moment, and I watched on one of the viewscreens as a plasma bolt hurtled itself into one of the Covenant ships. The explosion flashed, but the Covenant ship's shields held up through the attack. Suddenly our ship trembled violently as a plasma bolt from a second craft roared into the port of the ship. Suddenly I was thrown off my feet as the ship accelerated. I grabbed onto the nearest column as the ship hurtled directly into the second ship's lower bow. The front of the ship was thrown up in the air as the second plasma shot it was charging lurched into the distance. It dissipated in the distance. The ides of our ship glowed once again as another bolt lanced into the first ship, penetrating the shields and ripping the ship in half. Blue explosions coursed along the craft as it fell from the sky into the ocean, a plume of water nearly the size of Awwek itself exploding upward as the ship exploded again, this time underwater. Our ship sat in the air stuck in the side of the other ship making a vague T shape. We had nearly penetrated the other ship and had clearly hit the bridge, it wasn't responding. Jenna spun our ship placing the cruiser's corpse between us and the third Covenant cruiser. Again she accelerated, ramming the enemy ship as a bolt of plasma intended for our ship was absorbed by the remains of the other. Its shield took all of the damage of the attack and spun our ship out of control. Our cruiser, accompanied by the destroyed cruiser fell to the ocean. As the ship hit I was thrown across the control room, only to land on the fore wall and stick. The ship was on its nose. Suddenly the damaged hull began to groan as we slipped off the continental shelf and deeper into the ocean. A ceiling in the room cracked and water began to seep in. I was stranded in the room, the doors on the ceiling and I watched as water spilled into the room. A large blue alien's corpse was thrown from its resting place and into the room. It hovered in the air for a moment before settling its rotation, spike side down. The huge monster's body descended towards me. I smiled as I prepared to die.

       Just a little afternote...
This is the longest running fanfic I have ever written, and exactly one year ago yesterday the file Stranded at home was created on my computer.

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