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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Guess not." Kennedy said as he laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then, a miracle happened...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

30 seconds later...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"GET DOWN!!!" yelled Kennedy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CLICK!!!

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

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

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

20 minutes pass...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1 1/2 minutes later...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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