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Chapter 1
Space Ship Pillar of Autumn
Some where off of Halo
0500 hours



"Your men, commander have been assigned to go ahead of this vessel and try to infiltrate that ring before the Covenant can blink, it's a long stretch, and many others tare coming in different vessels going for different landing locations. I expect the best from you Commander; your squadron has had minimal loss over the years, and one of the highest mission accomplishment ratings. I want you and your men to land into the most encamped section of the Covenant and give them hell until they all die, or you can't fight any more and have to retreat. I'm sending the coordinates to you right now Commander. Oh, your new AI will navigate the way, since; of course you don't have a qualified pilot for this type of vessel, Captain Keyes out." Lucas, the commander of Special Forces squad E-213 was tired, he and his men have been used to their peak abilities over the past couple years, the Covenant were beating them up, so the UNSC needed anyone and everyone on spot and ready to fight. Lucas sighed and changed into his Military field uniform.

"Guys, up and front by me this instant, and grab your personal trinkets, I don't think this ship is going to last long once it goes into a fight with the Covenant." Lucas waited until everyone was standing around him and listening. "I'm going to be honest to you like always and tell you that this is most likely end up as a suicide mission," he waited for it to sink in before continuing, "we're going to land right into the middle of their forces, and they're not going to be happy to see us, the only ones of us that aren't going to be in the middle are the snipers; who will land about a quarter of a mile away from the rest of us about ten seconds after the main force.. Hopefully this 'new' method of transportation will take a few of them out while we're landing. Any ways, I want all of you ready five minutes ago and at Weapon Technology Research Center, so get your asses moving!" Lucas after finishing grabbed his military sack and headed for the WTRC.

"Ok, now pay attention, these weapons are the top of the line weapons on the Human side, here, you'll see the all new BR-55, it's still not in productive use, but I don't see why I can't give you guys out our prototypes. Here is the baby brother of the ME-5 grenade, all new ME-6CE grenade, the only new thing about it is that its damage radius is increased and can be set on a timer mode. Here is the new AS-9; it can shoot at a rate of 12 shots per 10 seconds. Here is the brand new magnetic powered sniper rifle, it shoots silently, and can go a quarter mile further then its predecessor. Here is a regular good old reliable assault rifle, except for the fact that there are two new additions. First it has explosive rounds with more rounds per clip and auto-reload of four clips, and second it has a grenade launcher under its barrel, it can hold four grenades by itself alone. Here is the new NH-45 pistol, it's still a pistol but it can beat the hell out of anything as if it's a close ranged sniper rifle. And finally, my personal favorite, the all new Marine helmet, does it include the old things, but now it can support AI and has a better resolution camera along with a motion sensor up to 500 feet. It also contains a small air tank that refills itself automatically once in fresh air, it can hold up to ten minutes of air at a time." Letting it all sink in to the Marines the old weapon specialist was gleaming with pride, "so what do you guys think?"

A low whistle went out amongst the marines, "We'll make sure these babies come to good use" yelled out a marine with the nick name of Sharp. After a minute of touching and feeling the weapons Sharp was getting antsy, he wanted to kick some serious Covenant ass.

"Ok, from the way I see it, I want ten snipers, twenty special weapons specialists meaning in the BR-55, and then I was six support gunners, and fourteen rocket launchers. I just figured out that everyone except for the snipers will land in somewhat of a circle and our pods will make some sort of a wall around us, inside this circular wall I want one shotgun every four feet around, in the middle are the crates, and I want us up and firing within ten seconds of landing. The last fifty I will have the AI make land on the opposite side of the snipers and make the covenant start to feel claustrophobic. If anyone feels like they're going to black out, you are to press the panic button, a wave of extremely cold air will rush out and put you into a momentary state of shock, but it'll keep you up for the battle." With his words everyone got ready and started to go off towards the departure room from which they'd be leaving in one hour.

Sharp though stayed behind a while and finally went up to the old man, "Hey, Jimmy, don't' tell me you don't have a customized Sniper rifle for me. Because I sure as hell will need one now." Sharp said to the Jimmy.

"Sharp, you're going to make me die one day from over working on your sniper rifles, but ok, here's your brand new sniper. This baby will keep you happy for a bit, it holds 10 rounds per clip, has auto load for 5 clips, and has the Magnetic acceleration method. And it has extra Armor penetrating bullets with a couple super explosive clips. Those clips will lodge themselves into a tank and disable it if you shoot them into the right spot. The armor piercing rounds though have a high chance of going up to five Elites." Sharp ran up snatched the rifle and quickly shook the old man's hand.

"Thank you Jimmy, I owe you one." Sharp then rushed out through the door with the ammo box and the "extra" new rifle.

"You owe me more then one Sharp" Jimmy mumbled and went back to work, and decided to start planning an escape path for when the Covenant would board.


Chapter 2

Pillar of Autumn
Some where off of Halo
0600 hours


"Get ready, Shuttles will initiate in one minute, before we go I want to explain that we have to get our defensive positions set in 20 seconds at most, and we are not to have a single man lost in this battle, or else everyone else is going to have something worse to fear then those lousy ass Covenant bastards! Sharp, you're in charge of Sniper cover; I don't want single elite in the color of yellow or above alive after the first two minutes of the battle." Just as Lucas finished telling everyone their commands he saw the countdown timer reach "1" and he heard a soft thud and felt his body pressed against the seat. His eyes started to close and he saw darkness creeping around the corner in his eyes and knew he was going to black out soon if he wouldn't reach the ground soon.

This "new" shuttle, instead of what the ODST's used, this shuttle wouldn't separate until it hit 1000 feet off the ground, and just enough for it spread out and have a circle shape. Instead of taking the new shuttle the snipers had taken a Pelican so they could arrive less noticeably in the rear. And take up positions around near the Covenant without them realizing what was going on. The only real problem with the Pelican providing transportation was that it was slow and bulky, so they had needed to depart much earlier then the "new" shuttles. And hope to god that they wouldn't be shot by the covenant while going for the Halo. Sharp looked over the picture of the area where he was to land. The covenant would be taking a severe beating, but he didn't think that a mere hundred men could possible take out over five thousand Covenant troops. This mission, just like Lucas said, was a definite suicide, but hell, he wasn't going to complain, he rather get killed while killing Covenant then getting killed while in a space ship from a explosion.

"I see a hill up ahead a place where you guys will have a nice vantage point and I'll be able to remain out of sight." Yelled the Pelican pilot from the cockpit. Just as the pilot had finished those very words was when Sharp heard a loud bang and a shockwave go by rocking the hulk of flying metal and Sharp looked over the edge of the pelican back and saw that it was a matter of seconds before he and his men got off.

"Grab your equipment and get ready to jump off this bird!" roared Sharp to the snipers and they quickly got up and were ready to get off and kick some major Covenant ass. The ship dropped down in altitude and finally hit the ground and bounced up once but then settled. The snipers followed out one after another quickly and efficiently, Sharp jumped the five foot jump first and ran up the hill looking over it he got a bit scared. There in the distance he saw thousands of Covenant troops in their wraiths and ghosts. There was an air force of banshees patrolling the air space over the Covenant troops, and in the back ground he saw a small "base" in the middle of all of it shooting at the totally shocked Covenant troops. Sharp also saw the assault force on the opposite side of the battle field was tearing into the Covenant hard, but it wouldn't last long.

"I want two snipers on the bottom of each hill, and I want the others split up by the trees, and I want it one minute ago!" Sharp ran up himself to the top of the hill and zoomed in. First thing he realized though was that the old man had forgotten to tell him that there were four zooms, 2x, 5x, 10x, 20x. Sharp stay on 2x and looked around the battle field, his eye caught sight of a gold armored elite standing by a Wraith and pointing and yelling, Sharp made sure that the elite wouldn't be thinking any more by sending a four inch bullet up into his brain. Sharp quickly went to work with many other elites along with his other snipers. When he didn't think there were any high ranked elites left he quickly glanced at the "base" things weren't going too well there and the Covenant were about to get in a matter of minutes. Sharp quickly went to work with the surrounding elites and then Jackals that were going for the "base".

Sharp was about to shoot a red armored elite when suddenly he felt an enormous amount of heat burn his right arm and sizzle his hair. Sharp rolled over to his left and look to his right. Down where two snipers just used to be was a black burned spot with glowing white plasma sizzling. "Shit! Move your asses; the wraith is shooting at us! Retreat behind the hill!" Sharp yelled over his shoulder while running to the pelican, once he jumped in he yelled to the pilot, "We need to lift off and find a new spot, we've been found!" Then suddenly he heard one of his men behind him scream in pain he look behind and saw a camouflaged elite with a sword starting to charge him. Sharp didn't waste any time, he ran backwards into the cockpit, along the way he saw the pilot dead with a gash in his chest. Turning his head around him, he saw another camouflaged elite with a sword in the cockpit.

Sharp seeing that he almost had no chance to get out of the situation did something unexpected. He shifted his balance to his right foot and charged the elite closest to the exit. He then just dropped to the ground like a rock, and aimed approximately to were the elite was with his sniper, he pulled the trigger five times until he heard a thud of a falling and then a roar of a elite. He quickly jumped up and started to run out. What he saw out side the pelican was not a welcoming sight. All of his men were dead and there were grunts, Jackals and a few elites all staring at him as he ran out. He jumped off the ramp, and just as the camouflaged elite jumped off jumped back on and quickly pulled the pin on two frags and dropped them off the ramp. Sharp now heart pounding as if his chest was about to burst ran to the cockpit; he heard two consecutive bangs and then a roar of an Elite. Sharp pushed the pilot out of the seat and pulled up on the controls of the pelican and thanked god that it was turned on already.

Sharp spun the Pelican around and he started firing with the 50 millimeter chain gun attached to the bottom of the Pelican at the ground forces. Sharp glanced at the battle field, the assault forces were supposed to be. He just managed to see the last man die, he quickly looked over to the "base" and saw it starting to be over run by the Covenant, but the humans weren't the only ones losing men, the covenant had lost just under 2000 Covenant, not nearly the amount Sharp had wished for, but right now that wasn't his biggest worry, he quickly started heading for the "base" and was planning to pick up and extract who ever was still alive in it.

"Get the hell into this Pelican I don't think I can take much more damage!" Yelled Sharp over the radio to the men who were down at the base, they quickly looked up and started to get ready to get on while still firing. Joe in command now, quickly rushed over to Lucas's dead body and took out the AI crystal and rushed over towards the middle of the "base".

"Everyone, get ready for a lift, cover fire, and grenades, grab anything you can hold and shoot with!" Joe saw the jade colored Pelican lowering its self with its 50 mill still firing at the covenant. Just as Joe jumped into the Pelican he felt a sudden dullness in his back and then he fell to the ground loosing all consciousness and eventually dying.
Sharp looked back and saw only seven men aboard the Pelican screaming at him, "Go! Go! Go! We need to get the hell out of here!" Sharp fired off the after burners and felt himself being pressed against his seat; even though he was alive he was upset about the loss of all the men as he sped away from the Covenant forces with plasma and needler shots following him for a little while before trailing away.

























Chapter 3
On Halo
On board Pelican
0900 hours


"Are any UNSC forces receiving this? Please acknowledge." Sharp tried for the hundredth time on the Pelican radio but received no response. He glanced at the fuel gauge by the dash board and saw that he had a little above half fuel left, it wasn't too good of a sign, he decided that he needed to land soon, but wasn't sure where, until he saw a building up ahead, it was on top of a hill and a great place to hide, and hold position at. Making the Pelican bank hard to the left he made some marine in the back yell out a curse. When he was over the building he slowed down and finally started to hover slowly. He switched to his camera below the craft and saw that he was a bit too far up and above a thing that seemed to be a pulsing generator. He tapped the controls to make the Pelican move back slightly and once he was finally over an empty spot he lowered the Pelican to the ground.

Sharp slowly unclipped his seat buckle and rubbed his now completely red shoulder and bicep area. It was in immense pain but it wasn't a serious injury. He walked to the holding area of the Pelican and saw a couple more marines jump out of the back of the Pelican. He was going to follow their suit when he saw Joe lying on the floor of the Pelican, obviously clutching something. He kneeled down, and started to force open Joe's clenched fist. When he finally opened up the fist what he saw brightened his mood up a bit. It was an AI crystal, meaning that he and his men wouldn't be completely alone. Once he had the crystal he checked if the dog tag had been taken, it had been so he jumped out the back of the Pelican and inspected it for damage while the rest of his group checked the surrounding area. He was now in charge since he was normally third in command.

What he saw at the hull of the Pelican wasn't too comforting, he had been lucky that he had left when he had left; the hull was thinned out by about four of the six inches that the hull was supposed to be made of. He checked the 50 mill gun and saw that it was in good working condition, only problem was that half of its ammo was already depleted, he'd have to be careful with using it. Finally walking over to the engines of the craft Sharp looked around them and saw that one was slightly melted, but nothing worse then a little bend or so. All in all given what the situation had been he thought he had come out pretty good.

Sharp ran off from the Pelican searching for his men, a Marine called Beast ran up to him, "Sir! We have found two entrances into this building, but there is an opening to an underground section of the compound. One of the six men is mildly injured; he sustained a burst of a needler round into his calf. We have patched him up with some biofoam." After his report Beast awaited what his superior officer would tell him.

Sharp responded promptly after Beast, "I want two men at each entrance at all times except for the one to the underground one, I want that one shut if possible, if not then barred up so no one can get in. I want reports from each group every fifteen minutes, if not to me then to Sergeant James, I'm establishing him as my second in command. I want both entrances wired too, a trap for anyone who isn't welcome entering. Oh, and we have to dig a grave for Commander Joe."

"Sir, yes sir!" Beast yelled out and ran off to attend to what he had been told. Sharp backed off and started to walk away to explore the facility when he heard a series of crackles, and then a voice.

"This is Cortana sending to all UNSC forces, anyone receiving please acknowledge." The radio from the Pelican spoke out, and Sharp quickly rushed to get inside of it and respond, but when he went up to respond no one answered back. Cursing Sharp waited a while and then decided to test out this AI, he inserted the Crystal into his helmet and waited until the AI was up and running.

"Hello, I'm an Artificial Intelligence program called Creton, I'm based on intrusion software, Military technology, and weapons, how can I be of service to you?"

Happy that it worked Sharp responded, "You can help by sending a constant message to all UNSC forces to see if anyone's out there, and second notify me when you do, send me a message to me over the radio if or when you do."

























Chapter 4
0200 Hours second day
Halo Ring
At forerunner facility

Staring out into the vastness of the plains surrounding the building Sharp felt himself starting to get drowsy, he'd been awake for more then twenty four hours and sustained a injury along with being in combat. He was in need of some sleep, just as he was about to turn around and go look for Sergeant James, Creton spoke up, "I've managed to get in touch with the AI Cortana and another AI Wesley, there's a base set up by a couple hundred ODST's and Marines. It's about fifteen kilometers away southwards, but from what I've gathered there are regular banshee patrols around the base and we would most likely be shot down. I've been advised to tell you to get your men to start using Guerilla war fare tactics against the Covenant rather then be useless."

Sharp took the information in for a moment, then exhaled, and finally replied, "Ok, first thing tomorrow morning I'm going with two other men on a little trip around the neighborhood to find some Covenant." With that, went up to Sergeant James, "I'm gonna go catch some z's, I'll see you in the morning, remember once every fifteen minutes." Sharp turned around on his heels and headed for the Pelican which was empty now since Joe had been properly buried outside the building. He sat down on a bench in the Pelican, took off his boots, unholstered his pistol, putting it on the ground nearby, he soon there after fell asleep.


Sharp opened his eyes suddenly to find himself staring at the barrel of his pistol. He had rolled off of the bench of the Pelican for some strange reason during the night and not awakened. This scared him, if he couldn't wake up from falling, he didn't think too many other things would be able to wake him up. He reached out holstered the pistol and slowly stood up. His right shoulder was aching, he felt the need to stretch so he tried but it only brought more pain, so he wandered about in the room until he thought he was fully awake. He put on his boots and jumped out the Pelican and saw Sergeant James starring groggily forwards into space, he obviously needed to sleep.

"Sergeant, go catch a nap while me, Beast, and Jake are gonna take the Pelican for a spin." Sharp said just before going back inside the Pelican and calling Beast and Jake up top for the mission. While he was waiting for the two of them to come up to the Pelican he checked his sniper rifle for damage and to see how many rounds and clips he had left. After words he clipped on an additional three grenades to the two he already had. He picked up a BR-55. Just as he was taking the BR-55 from the holding locker in the Pelican he saw Beast and Jake coming out of the building carrying their guns. He'd have to be the lone sniper; Jake was an explosives specialist while Beast was a close combat and assault specialist. "Hop in, we're going to look for some Covenant to take out, I don't want us getting fat asses from being lazy."

Sharp went to the front of the Pelican and started it up, "Creton, I want you monitoring our long ranged radar, I want you to find any small force of Covenant to take out, but try to make sure the force is above the number of twenty so it's actually worth going there." With that sharp pulled up and started flying south to where there were supposed covenant patrols and encampments. "God, I hate this shit, I would've stayed back and just waited for the Covenant instead of wasting fuel and Pelican ammo." Sharp went sat down on one of the benches and sat along for the ride as Creton pulled the Pelican off the ground and into the air.
Sergeant James had been asleep for only an hour when he decided to check on the men. He sat up straight, his back was in immense pain, he'd fallen asleep on the ground, but he shrugged it off and got to the radio, "This is Sergeant James, report in."

"This is group Alpha, everything is tip top shape over here."

"This is group Beta, things are good here," suddenly James heard a scream of agony, "I was mistaken, there's some kind of group of little insects hopping around," bursts of fire followed it, "Sam was hit, I think he's dead, shit, I'm going back, we need to regroup, Charles out." James cursed, grabbed his Assault rifle and was about to go into the Forerunner building when suddenly he was surrounded by little creatures and a few bigger ones. He realized he was screwed but shot until finally one of the big creatures jumped an impossible amount of distance and slammed him to the ground. He was pulling out a grenade to throw when he was swarmed by little creatures and bitten, he dropped the grenade and blew himself and the surrounding creatures up.

Charles was going to go up when he saw a wave of the little creatures going down the staircase; he decided to re-route to group Alpha. Charles started running as fast as he could so those little critters couldn't jump on top of him. He turned left and then right again and finally found group Alpha, "We're under attack, help me out, I'm being chased by little critter that will kill you if you get-" he noticed that the crew wasn't moving, and then he realized that they had been killed too. Cursing he decided to run out of the building, it'd be his only chance. But just as he jumped out he found himself with his back to a cliff and hundreds upon hundreds of hundreds of little creatures and a lot of big ones too. Having no choice but to shoot, he started to shoot. On his helmet the heads up display he saw the ammo counter it was running down fast. As one little critter would blow up the others around it would too, but to a limited extent, the explosive rounds helped out a lot too since even if he missed he'd get something.

Knowing that his ammunition was limited he decided to go for the big ones first who were jumping twenty foot leaps at a time. He pulled out his NH-45 hand gun and zoomed in, and he fired of rounds into the chest as seeing that the shots in the "head" seemed to be less efficient. After ten seconds of the "sniping" he took down three out of the fifteen big ones. He had to switch weapons though since the little creatures were getting close. He started to take aim with the Assault rifle and shot into the creatures and they'd blow up like usual. Too many of them were coming in though, so he shot one of the grenades from the launcher under the rifle. Suddenly from his right corner of his eye sight he saw a shape flying at him. He turned to shoot at it but it was too late. The creature hit him with its right arm and his chest was pushed in and was forced to exhale. He flew for twenty feet and landed on his butt and slid off the cliff edge falling off.

After flying for two hours and killing off Covenant troops with the Pelican or with snipers and rockets, Sharp decided it was time to go back to base. Sharp eased on the throttle and slowed down drastically just enough to land back into the open area of which he had before. He jumped out of the Pelican along with Beast and Jake to see something that they didn't expect, in front of them was a dead corpse of Private James along with green blood every where around him. There was a lot of weird sulky and wet skin around, but there was no clue to what had done what had been done. Quickly the three of them got into positions, Beast taking front along with Jake while Sharp hung back with his sniper rifle.
After exploring around, they saw tons and tons of green blood every where, along with bullet markings. Suddenly a little circular animal jumped out of no where at Beast, who immediately shot it out of the air. "What the hell was that!" yelled out Jake. Suddenly the room came to life, there was hundreds of those little animals flooding towards them, using the sniper was a complete waste and the BR-55 wouldn't do much. So Sharp threw a grenade into the midst of the oncoming wave of animals.

"Retreat, back to the Pelican, we got to get the hell out of here!" yelled Sharp as they were losing ground and they would soon be surrounded, they all quickly ran off towards the place of which the Pelican was stationed at. What they saw next made their insides feel wrong. They saw a fleshy looking version of Private James, along with a couple tentacles sticking out of where his left arm should've been. Sharp hesitated a moment, and then shot the once Private James many times in the head with his pistol, but it did nothing but infuriate "it" even more, it charged at the three of them, when Sharp had to reload Beast stepped up pulling his shotgun out and blew a hole straight through it. "That should stop him, so we getting out of here or are we going to become like him?" questioned Beast holstering his shotgun while walking towards the Pelican.
















Chapter 5
0500 hours second day
Halo ring
In a Pelican


"What the hell were those things?" Roared Sharp to the AI who was searching in Human databases for any clues to what those most peculiar things were. Sharp was pissed; he had lost four men in two hours because of the advice from the three AI's. But that wasn't all his problems he had. Now not being to sure of what those things had been Sharp wasn't too sure of where to land. Thinking over his possibilities he had he decided that the best place to head for was where ever this Cortana was based at. "Creton, where is Cortana stationed at?"

"Cortana isn't in a base she is with a Spartan 117, and for where they are I can find out but they're constantly moving." Replied the AI casually already trying to contact Cortana, after the first try he got her response and in a matter of two seconds they had established a plan. "Cortana and I have decided to send you to where the Master Chief was sent to and extract him and bring him back to Cortana."

"Wait, Cortana isn't with the Spartan? What if some Covenant just finds her and takes her and finds out everything about Earth." Sharp questioned worried about the problems the human race would have if she would be captured.

"Don't waste your time worrying about it; she is safely locked in the control room of Halo. Any ways, go to the north for about twenty two kilometers, you will see a swamp at which Spartan 117 went to find Captain Keyes and extract him."

Sharp changed the direction of the Pelican to head for the place where the Master Chief was supposed to be at. He gave command of the Pelican over to the AI and headed to the back of the Pelican to prep up the remaining two of his men. "Ok, we're going to extract the Master Chief, he left just recently find Captain Keyes who had left to get some weapons from the Covenant and went missing." Sharp looked into the eyes of his men, both of them were hardcore marines, but hell, not a lot of people can take losing 97 men that they knew personally. Sharp was taking it hard too, but he'd been a marine since the War with the Covenant had started, and he was used to this, the only thing was though, that one of the four men that he'd lost had been turned into some obscure being and tried to kill him. That was extremely weird, but he didn't know what this freak planet contained.



"We're going to be at the extraction point in a matter of minutes, we're not to go down and look for him, but to simply stay put and try to contact him the best we can." Creton told the men on board the ship. Creton had been made for field operations so there fore in case of capture he wasn't given any coordinates to Human colonies or Earth.

Once the Pelican had reached the destination Creton eased the speed and lowered his altitude slightly, but stayed fifty feet off the ground in case of an attack.

After waiting for about one hour Sharp was starting to get bored and was about to fall asleep when he heard a burst of fire and a couple grenades exploding and screams of pain off in the distance. He looked on his motion sensor and saw a mass of Marines fighting with the covenant from his guess. "Creton lower this ship I'm going out with my marines to help out, if we don't come back soon enough try to associate yourself with some one else... hell you probably know more of what to do then I do." Feeling the Pelican drop in altitude he and his men were ready to jump out. Sharp holstered his sniper and took out a standard Assault rifle and grabbed ten grenades the most he could possibly strap on. He also took ten clips and took a NH-45 pistol and jumped off from the Pelican followed by his men. "I want wedge position, Beast your front I got left, Jake has right, move towards fire fight with caution."

Walking slowly with his gun pointing straight ahead Sharp wished that this was more of an open area rather then this forest with a dense fog. Coming back to his senses he saw a Grunt fleeing with its arms in the air running away from the fire fight. As the grunt saw them it stopped and collapsed into unconsciousness. Sharp smiled for a moment, the grunts were a funny sight to see, being so small they were used as cannon fodder for they rarely had any skills in fighting they often ended up fleeing, but sometimes they would keep coming until you ran out of bullets to kill them with.

Going a bit further he had a huge blurry image on his motion sensor, he peeked over the hill and saw hundreds of little animals or what ever they were charging at the group of twenty or so Marines. "I want minimal exposure try to kill as many as possible without being seen!" With that Sharp let loose a volley of explosive bullets from his assault riffle, his bullets exploding on impact in the bigger animals the ones that resembled elites and humans. He saw an especially big group of small animals which he decided to call buggers heading for the group of marines. He shot a grenade out of the under barrel on the assault rifle. The buggers blew up consecutively, suddenly sharp heard thud behind him and turned Around to see one of the bigger buggers behind him. He pulled the trigger and held it at the creature while its chest blew up and it flew back quite a bit. He let go of the trigger and saw the ammo counter, "1" he had only one bullet left, how ironic. He turned around fired it into a bugger; it blew up and killed a couple surrounding buggers.

Sharp heard a zap and then someone humming metallically. He spun around and saw a metallic orb. Sharp starred at it, it seemed to hover in place with one big blue "eye" in the middle of it. The thing kept humming until, "Hello, I am 343 Guilty Spark, we have no time re-claimers, and we must be on our way." A ring of yellow appeared around him and his men and he felt himself falling being pulled apart atom by atom.





Chapter 6
Library
On Halo
0800 hours

Sharp felt like he was going to be sick as he became a whole again. But he quickly gathered his wits; he glanced around and saw that he was standing in one gigantic room in some kind of building. The ceiling seemed to be about 80 feet high, but he wasn't sure, but the thing he was sure of, this place wasn't a nice place to be at. He smelled a powerful stench but couldn't exactly place it. Then he remembered who/what had brought him and his men here, he turned around and pointed his assault rifle at the orb. "Where the hell are we, who are you, and why'd you take us here? Answer now or you're going to become a fire ball in a matter of seconds." Sharp said to the oracle in a threatening way.

"Now now, there's no need for violence, I'm the Artificial Intelligence program 343 Guilty Spark. And as for why you've been brought here I have no clue to as why you'd ask such a thing, after all you are the re-claimers, you must retrieve the index and activate the rings. Enough time has been spent, please follow me." Sharp had been given not much of a choice and decided to follow him, his men followed his example. While the orb moved it kept humming in the most annoying way and not only that it would disappear into the shafts constantly, and it seemed to talk to itself.

After five minutes of walking the oracle stopped and "turned" around, "We've now passed the decontamination zone, this area beyond this door is filled with Parasite, please be captious, but don't lag too much behind, there's more here then your bullets could possibly kill. With that the gigantic door creaked open and the first thing to welcome Sharp and his men inside was a jumping big bugger, which now he would call a parasite. Sharp quickly jumped back and the parasite form landed right where he'd been standing, he shot a burst from the assault rifle into the parasites body and it went down shaking.

Sharp and his men constantly encountered groups of parasites, but the number never got above thirty, until the Oracle once again had to go through the shafts. "Man I'm tired of this 'unknown' shit, we've been told what to do for this whole time, and we haven't been exactly getting too many choices, I think this is just a way for us to get killed." Jake complained, but was quickly silenced by the ice cold look from Sharp. Sharp was getting tired too, but as long his men and he were still alive he didn't have much to complain about. He was about to ask how they were on ammunition when suddenly he saw a big balloon type parasite stumble out into the open. He and his men backed away and shot it making itself blow up and send a multiple of little parasites into life.

When those were cleaned up Sharp was about to sit back down again when suddenly ten big parasites popped up and then a wave of little ones. And suddenly there were hundreds and hundreds of parasites running at the three men. Sharp quickly started firing into their midst along with his men. "I want us taking turns reloading! Me, Jake, then Beast, conserve your ammo, so we don't get out of order!" sharp yelled. Suddenly a running parasite popped out from the right of Sharp, the bastard had been hiding in the shadows. Sharp tried his best to dodge the blow but he didn't have enough time, he felt his feet lift off the ground and he went flying fifteen feet and slid until he hit the big door. His head was on fire, but that didn't stop him from "killing" the parasite that had attacked him. "Retreat to the door!" sharp yelled while giving Beast and Jake cover to run back under.

Sharp kept shooting and killing the parasite until he heard a constant click. He was out of ammo, and not only that, he was out of clips. "I need ammo!"

"I have none left, I'm on my last clip, so is Beast, we're going to end up having to use our pistols and shotguns at point blank range!" Jake yelled to Sharp. The parasite had been gaining inch by inch for every twenty bodies, but they like the orb had said, had more in number then Sharp and his men had in bullets, but not all of them were at the spot. After a couple more minutes of the firefight they had finally gotten rid of all of the parasites.

"Ok, from now on we take necessary shots only, and keep tight." Just as Sharp had finished saying so, the orb came out from what seemed to be a ventilation Shaft.
"So I see you are ok, how delightful, please follow me, the door opened, Jake and Sharp went through the door immediately but Beast was about twenty feet behind. Just as Sharp looked at Beast a Parasite pounced on him and had him pinned, but just as Beast was about to slip away another, and then another swarmed over him. The orb started to close the door; even though Beast was swarmed he gave the parasites hell. With his last breath Beast blew himself and the Parasite that was on him up with a grenade, his body was half gone but so was the parasite on him. Just as the door was about to finish shutting parasite tried to jump through to only get caught in it. The door jammed, but the Parasite got killed. There was a little opening with spark flying, but it was good enough.

"Why did you take so long you damned light bulb, you always come just as the flood dies, but you never come before or during the fight." Sharp yelled in anger at the bulb.

"Re-claimer, we have taken long enough to get this far, I would suggest we pick up the pace, unless you wish the same fate as your associate." With that the orb started off again to where ever he was taking Sharp and his last man. Sharp was about to take out his pistol and blow the orb up but thought he should conserve his ammo, and plus the orb might be his last chance to get out of the damned place.









Chapter 7
Near the Index
On Halo in Library
1200 hours

Sharp was starting to get dull from all the fighting and killing and the losses he'd sustained in the past two days. He rubbed his still in pain right hand from the scorch from the Wraith tank. He dropped the clip out of the pistol and pushed a new on in until he heard a satisfying click. He had gone through countless flood forms now and his muscles ached more then he'd thought possible. He scratched his chin and nearly tripped over a dead flood form. While he'd been fighting he found out that the things he'd been fighting this whole time were called the flood. He had to admit a pretty good name for such creatures. All he could get out of the bulb though who called himself The Oracle was that the little flood would infect you and make you one of the big ones. That is of course if your body was suitable. Sharp shuddered at the thought of himself being infected, he quickly pushed the thought out of his mind.

Sharp was pissed, he'd been fighting for nearly no reason at all except for a simple objective, to stay alive. Thing is, he'd been sent into a suicide mission, not exactly the best idea for a staying alive tactic. Finally the Oracle came back through the vents, "Please follow me, I must take you out of this facility for the other re-claimer has gotten to the Index before you have managed to, I must go with him to activate Halo soon. I shall teleport you back to where I found you last" Sharp stopped completely along with Jake. Sharp was mad beyond comprehension.

"Wait, you're telling me now that there had been no need for me and my once men, now man to come along with you since you had another re-claimer!" Sharp roared in outrage at the Oracle, he was going to lose it he knew it too, but at this point he had no control over himself, last time he had been this angry had been when he saw his wife cheating on him, he ended up beating the shit out of the guy and making him go into a comma, he had to stay in prison for ten years, he only serve half a year though since the UNSC went into war with the Covenant and they were willing to let criminals serve out their sentence in the Military.

"Why of course not, but what kind of idiot wouldn't of brought a back up plan? He was the second chance, he was behind you until you were slowed down by the loss of your associate. I routed him beside you so you wouldn't come into contact for I didn't know your allegiances and I wouldn't want anything disturbing the process of re-claiming the index. Now please my time is limited," Sharp aimed his pistol at the Oracle and pulled the trigger four times, when he stopped he holstered it, but when he looked back up the oracle was perfectly fine, "I'm quite indestructible to your weapons, don't waste your time and ammunition on me instead of the flood. Please now, no more time to waste, follow me." Sharp cursed silently, but had no choice but to follow, so he did.

After a three minute walk the Oracle said, "Your 'drop ship' is still where it was when I took you, it's been having some technical difficulties, I shall teleport you right next to the 'drop ship'." With that the golden rings started to appear around Sharp and Jake, he felt static electricity zap him, and felt once again him self being torn apart. This time though the experience more natural to him and he wasn't feeling to sick after the "ride". Suddenly he was outside again by the Pelican with his foot in a half of foot of mud. He cursed pulled his foot out, and headed to the Pelican. "So, how come you're still here?" Sharp questioned as he hopped onto the back of the Pelican, the place was just as he'd left it.

"Just after you left some kind of malfunction occurred with the right engine, but since I'm a AI I can't really go 'see' the situation, so I'd be grateful if you would go outside and take a peek." Creton replied sarcastically with the closest thing to a sigh the AI could produce. With that Sharp spun around and jumped out while Jake collapsed into a bench seat starring ahead at the wall. Sharp turned to his left to go to the right engine, when he reached it he wasn't too surprised at what he saw. There stuck in the air intake of the pelican was a flood form, half grated, and half whole. He nearly hurled from the site and the stench. He grabbed at the sulky flesh and pulled, after a minute of pulling and grunting, and finally it budged, and he pulled the rest out easily. He turned around quickly and stepped forward to only hit his head against the wing, his head rang, he put his hand on his forehead and kept walking back to the Pelican.

"Try starting us up now, I think I solved the problem." He heard a scratch, and then a cough and finally the roar of the Pelican engine coming to life. "What's the status on this Pelican Sharp said while looking through the lockers on board for a MRE. He only found one and decided to share it with Jake.

"I can't believe we've lost Beast and the rest of them…" Jake said in disbelief, Sharp didn't blame his behavior after all Jake had just gotten past his twenties and had recently enrolled into the UNSC. Sharp gave the young man his space for grieving he knew that he had different problems.

"What's the status on the Pelican? How much fuel, and are there any computer problems?" Sharp questioned the AI.

"No, there are no computer problems as you asked, but there is a fuel problem, we're running low on it, we have about 1/8 left, but as we were coming in I noticed a downed Pelican on a cliff, it might still have some amount of fuel we can use, but I don't really know. I'll set the Pelican to head over to the Pelican." Creton replied instantly, and soon there after the Pelican left the ground and headed for where ever the downed Pelican was.

After flying for a couple minutes Sharp heard the Pelican slowing down and finally lowering itself. "We're here now, get ready to jump out and attach our fuel tank opening to its. There's a hose in the third locker, you can use it to get the fuel out of the downed Pelican. Jumped walked over to the Jade colored locker and opened it taking out the thick hose and started to tug it out when the Pelican bounced up once and then stayed still on the ground. Sharp jumped out of the Pelican and found the fuel opening on the right side of both Pelicans, the Downed Pelican's fuel tank opening was a bit of a problem since it was nearly dug into the ground, he had to jam the hose down into the hole. Finally when it was done he wondered what the AI was going to do now to get the fuel going. Until he saw that there was a little box in the middle of the hose with a button with "on/off" written on top of it, Sharp went over and pressed the button; he heard a soft hum and a rush of fluid running along the hose. Finally after a while of waiting for a while the hum stopped and the rush of fluid wasn't to be heard. He unattached the hose from his Pelican only and left it on the ground.

He hoped into the Pelican and was about to tell Creton that it was done when the AI spoke up. "I've just managed to gain contact with Cortana and she's told me that she and the Master Chief had been deceived by the Oracle. The Oracle had claimed to be killing the Flood, but instead he's going to try to starve the flood by killing all intelligent beings in the galaxy. Now Cortana and the Master Chief are on their way to the Pillar of Autumn to blow up Halo, I suggest we get off this planet as soon as possible."































Chapter 8
Halo
1500 hours
On board Pelican

"Sharp, how are we supposed to get back to Earth or Reach if it's still there?" Questioned Jake, being the younger one by far of the two looked at Sharp for help and advise. Yet Sharp could give none at the moment because he was confused at what he'd seen in the past few days.

"Sorry Jake, but I'm going to be frank, we don't have much of a chance to get back to Earth or Reach or any other place." Sharp replied instantly crushing the unrealistic hopes of Jake.

"I've located a group of approximately twenty Marines pinned by a group of flood. Should I reroute and try to extract them or continue on route?" Creton asked even though he calculated a 87% chance that Sharp would go back for the Marines, he still felt the need to ask. The marines would bring down their ability to stay alive in Space by too much, but at least give them a better chance of just possibly taking over a Covenant ship.

"Turn us around, we're going to save some Marines."


Private Jerome was taking a nap when he thought he heard the distinct roar of a Pelican. Beaming with hope he snapped up and started searching the Skies for one. "I swear I thought that I heard a Pelican, did you guys see one?" Jerome questioned.

"You idiot, stop with your false hopes, we're stranded out here, and this is your tenth time thinking you heard a Pelican in one day!" Yelled Lieutenant Bizaaro. Suddenly just as he finished saying those words, the roar of Pelican was to be heard, everyone jumped up to look around. The place where they were stationed at was a cliff, so there was only way in, and they couldn't get flanked or jumped on. That is unless the enemy could fly or jump about eighty feet. The area was hot and to make it worse they kept getting attacked by groups of flood constantly, even though they had tons of supplies, he didn't think they'd hold the line for too long.

The radio crackled and finally he heard a voice coming through, "This is Commander Sharp, who's the CO at your encampment, I'm going to be landing in a matter of minutes, and I want you aboard as soon as I land we don't have much time. Sharp out." The radio became silent as it had been earlier, and the Lieutenant started walking over to their sleeping Commander J.T.

"Commander, sir, we have a chance to get the hell out of here, and I would advise you to be awake so you can get off along with us." The commander stirred instantly.

"I'm listening."
"We've just received a transmission from a Commander Sharp, he says that he's going to fly in and pick us up, we have to be ready for when he does, since supposedly time is limited." Bizzaro finally finished and the Commander was totally awake now, even though he just managed to sleep for one hour after being awake for nearly his whole visit on Halo.

"Ok, well I don't see what you're waiting for, GET YOUR ASS MOVING SOLDIER! Or do you want those beasts picking at your flesh?" Bizzaro didn't respond, he just ran back and started to get everything organized. J.T. felt like his luck was finally changing for the better, but the problem was still the same, after the Autumn crashed, the Humans had no more Shaw-Fujiki engines to enter Slipspace. So obviously the other commander must have something in mind or he's just trying to post pone death as long as possible. But hell, anything was better then sitting down here getting picked at by those beasts. He quickly brushed off the red dirt from his trousers, he'd been sleeping on the ground, and then he started grabbing his gun and what ever he had including a canteen of Whiskey. While walking from the cliff edge where'd he went to sleep to the rest of his squad he not only heard the Pelican this time, but saw it. He felt happy that he could finally get off this damned ring called Halo.

Marching up and waiting for his soldiers to jump he saw two men, one much younger then the other. Assuming that the older man was the Commander he took in his features. He had a over grown beard along with gashes on his arms with rips in his Military suit and his HAVOK armor he had dents and chars. He had piercing blue eyes, hell, from his first glance that this man called Sharp, was defiantly some one he could trust. "Move your asses, we don't have all day, this ring is gonna blow in a matter of minutes if not seconds, move, move!" Yelled sharp while helping T.J.'s men on board, once everyone was on Sharp turned around and yelled to Creton, "Move this Ship or we're going to become cow meat in a barbecue!" suddenly the Pelican lurched upwards closing the back "door" so they could have a contained atmosphere the Pelican roared out into the vastness of space.

T.J. walked up to Sharp, saluted, receiving the same, he began to speak, "I'm Commander T.J. of the 31st ODST platoon, and you… I mean both of you are?" T.J. looked at the two men, they seemed like they'd been through a lot, both of them had blue bags under their eyes heavier then a bag of sand. They both had lots of dents on their HAVOK armor, but the man named Sharp, had more then a lot. He had loads of them, it seemed that he'd jumped into hell and came back out.

"I'm… now a Commander of what you see with your eyes, we used to be 101st Special Operations Squad joined with the 24th Marine Platoon. We were sent to neutralize 5,000 Covenant, and as you can see, we didn't make it out too well, as a matter of fact we lost. We had originally came out with seven, but five of them were killed by those slimy bastards called the flood. Oh, I almost forgot, we also have a pal named Creton, he's an AI he's been helping us along a little bit." Sharp was tired, and felt no need to this competition over Command, "look, if you want to go all day with this it's just you, if you really want command take it, I'm too tired to care." With that Sharp turned around went to the front of the Pelican where Jake followed him too, once Jake was through the door closed. Sharp sat down on the worn down fake leather seat.

Once Sharp was about to fall asleep or at least he taught he was, he heard Creton speak up. "The ring is detonating right now, I do not believe anyone else made it out, but maybe there's too much debris floating around." Sharp looked through the left glass panel and just managed to see a ring half slam right through the other side of the ring. He kept looking until the parts just stopped colliding as often and were just floating there, and his neck was starting to hurt.

Sitting once again normally Sharp closed his eyes and muttered, "If you receive any transmissions or new important data, wake me up and tell me, other wise, leave me alone, I'm in need of some Z's." Sharp almost instantly fell asleep right after, Jake sitting in the co-pilot seat had fallen asleep already and was snoring, just before he fell asleep Sharp remembered his home on Earth, instantly at peace, he managed to go into the tranquility that he needed.






























Chapter 9
Near Halo
2300 hours
On board Pelican

Sharp was awaken by Creton trying to tell him something, Sharps eyes were shut, he tried, but he just couldn't open them, it was as if some one had clued them together. He just laid there for a little while until he could finally open them. He felt like he had just closed his eyes, but he looked at the Pelican's clock and saw that he'd been asleep for eight hours. Amazed that he had gotten that much sleep in he finally started to listen to Creton, "Sharp, I've detected a number of Covenant ships, and they're going in weapons hot, if I'd have to make a plan to get out of here, it'd be to take over one of those ships."

Sharp took in the details and then decided what they'd do, "We're going to wait, this was their finding and most likely they're going to send in more ships later. How much Air do we have left any ways?" Sharp questioned, but he knew that there couldn't be much, his vision was blurry and his head was in pain.

"We have about one hour to two depending on how fast you breath and how deep. Even so, I may have located a way to get more oxygen, this ship has next to no air recycling but I've managed to locate a portion of the Halo that still has a stable atmosphere, now I'm not sure of how this can be, but I had no clue how there had been a atmosphere to begin with. It may be your only hope if you decide to wait for later ships." Creton felt bored, he'd long ago found out about this atmosphere area, he'd been trying to determine if it was completely safe, but with the Pelican's limited sensors, Creton was nearly as good at seeing as was a blind man.

"I want us going to this portion of the ring, but stay in the air, I don't want to be attacked by those dreadful things again." Sharp felt the shudder of the engines starting up and the constant vibration once they were going and they started to go for the isolated atmosphere portion of the destroyed Halo; suddenly the door burst open and the commander named T.J. came with a red face.

"What the hell is going on here? I'm in charge of this new squad and you're supposed to report to me first before deciding on things!" yelled T.J. in anger.

"Well see here's the thing, we can get our selves blown up, or we can go to this might be air filled Halo portion, refill on oxygen, and wait for lesser ships to arrive and try to take one of them and try to get back to Human territory." Sharp said almost as if T.J. wasn't there. This angered him even more, but he knew that he wouldn't have done anything different. So he kept his mouth shut and stormed out of the room and back into the Pelican bay.
"Wow, that one has some anger management issues, I mean it's not like this situation is going to change over rank status. I hate how all ODST's think they're better then others." Sharp mumbled almost to himself, no one in the cock pit responded and the Pelican kept going on course. Sharp was getting tired of seeing the same features of the cockpit so he decided to check out how the squad in the loading area was doing.

Sharp opened the recently slammed door to see the whole bay in movement and noise, many men were playing sorts of card games, some where checking their gear, and one of them, as if in Commander T.J. was chewing on the stub of a Cuban cigar. But at least they kept the middle open for people to walk through. He was going to go back into the cockpit when he saw some one with blood covered bandages around him lying unconscious in the corner. Sharp knew that the commander wouldn't have taken a dead man on board. He walked over to the commander and asked him, "Commander T.J. who's that man in the corner?"

"I didn't get to check yet, I was out in a patrol with nine of my men to look around the surrounding area when he came in. All I know is that he came in frightened and had many injuries. He passed out as soon as he came in. Knowing that I couldn't do anything to help, it was the job of the medics, I went to sleep, and then you came along with your gift from god." Sharp stayed for a little while and decided to check the mans dog tag before going back to the cock pit. He squeezed in between two men who were sharing a flask of most likely Whiskey. Once he got to the bandaged man, he kneeled down and grabbed the dog tag and lifted it up. He brought it up and it said in bold letters. Charles Leighton 24th Marine Platoon Date born:2532.

























Chapter 10
In Halo space
2400 hours
9h hour in space
On board Pelican



Sharp was shocked, the man was one of those he'd assumed had been killed by the flood, and he must've left the guy all by himself surrounded by those horrid creatures. Sharp was ashamed of himself, but hell, he didn't have much to blame himself for. Sharp decided that once the man would wake up he'd ask him all about what had happened, but from the looks of it, he didn't seem like he'd be getting up any time soon. Sharp stood back up and walked back to the cockpit room, but didn't show any signs of surprise, once he got into the room he shut the door, and it was quite once again. "We're coming into the atmosphere in five, four, three, two, one," the pelican rumbled and after a few minutes of shaking it finally stopped. "we're about one hundred fifty feet off the ground, I'm opening vents now."

Sharp was happy that he didn't have to do all the controlling and things like that of the Pelican, he hated flying, but hey, what did he have to say about it. Sharp was thinking about how'd he and the squad would get through the Covenant energy shields.
"Is there any possibility that you could hack into one of the Covenant ships and make it open itself for a brief moment so we can slip in?" Creton heard the human and was annoyed, he asked as if he was asking for something not difficult, but it was very difficult. But he thought he'd be able to pull it off.

"Yes I believe I can, but I don't know if I can keep us undetected once we get in. But I don't think I'll be able to keep the shields off for too long." Sharp satisfied at what he heard decided to go check on the weapons that he and his crew had. After rummaging through weapon lockers and asking people he finally got a list down on his Helmet, he went over it once more to make sure he was seeing the numbers right. 7upgraded assault rifles, 23 normal assault rifles, his sniper, 4 upgraded snipers, 6 normal snipers, numerous pistols, 12 shotguns, and for drastic measures two RL's ,12 BR-55's, 33 ME-6CE grenades along with fifty ME-5 grenades. There was enough ammo for each gun to have three clips at minimum, and more then enough spare clips for the assault rifle. He was pretty sure that they'd be able to take over a Covenant Space ship if they could do it relatively quietly.



After waiting for six hours they witnessed a invasion of the flag ship and then witnessed it taking a slips-space jump inside the Planet's atmosphere and the rest followed it out. Sharp was starting to be doubtful that there would be more coming. His doubts were wasted for merely half an hour later several slip space openings appeared and five ships that he'd never seen appeared, but they didn't seem like armed vessels, while one though appeared bigger then the rest, it was gigantic. It looked like a Capitol Ship except that it had one huge plasma cannon right under the front of it. It also had many plasma missile pods all over it. There were multiple larger then normal Plasma cannons all over it. In the back section there was a gigantic bay most likely containing Seraph fighters. Sharp was feeling un easy with what he was seeing, but he knew that the only way they'd be able to get out of the area without getting blown out of existence would be by taking over the mysterious armed space shuttle. Plus they'd be able to use it against the Covenant. "Creton what do you think about taking over the big one?"

"I've been trying to get into that ship for a while now but with little success, but I think I might be able to crack in, in a matter of minutes if not then maybe ten minutes give or take. From there we can find out exactly what'd be our biggest chance on getting in." Creton replied, Sharp decided to consult with the other commander and opened the door and pushed through , the gravity in the Pelican was a mixture of no gravity with some, since they were at where once the Halo was, there seemed to be areas that still for some reason gave the Pelican gravity even though it was motionless in space.

Sharp "walked" up to the Commander saluted, and began talking about the men. "Commander T.J. as second in command I wish to go over what I've been thinking of doing. First, there are six covenant Space ships near us, second, we plan to take over it, and third, we need to establish how. We'll have schematics of the space ship in a matter of minutes, the how part though will be a bit difficult since we're going to have to get to the control room and from there make the space ship lose its atmosphere and kill any Covenant on board." T.J. listened and thought that this plan would be reasonable opposed to other plans.

"I think that's the right idea, now with the men, I believe that we should split them up, I have twenty able bodied men including me, there's one injured being Charles over there. And then you and your buddy make twenty two, I would put eleven on regular weapons, five close quarters specialists, four special weapon holders, and the last two on sniping duty, I will consist as one of the five close quarter specialists. I'm sure you know which position you're going to be?"

"Yes, I do, I'm going to be one of the two snipers, and Jake will be close quarter specialist. Now, the only way we can possibly do this is if we can get to the control center with minimal losses. I would want to keep firefights as short as possible and keep engagements down to the necessary ones." After much more questions and solutions the two men came to an agreement and later they planned out a route to get into the control center. The AI now had control over certain areas and objects in the Space ship, but he didn't have total control.

"Creton, I have an idea, instead of us trying to sneak by all hidden and junk, we can just distract them, once you turn those shields off for ten seconds, and you make a false radar for them, you can make a fake 'hole' on the other side of the space ship so they send troops there making our entry point having minimal amounts of troops." Thinking that this crazy half assed scheme might work Sharp was getting anxious for battle. His trigger finger twitched, but he knew better. If he wanted to be in good shape for the hijacking of the Covenant Space ship he'd need to be rested, sure he had his share of sleep, but it wasn't nearly enough for the past three days. Sharp calmed himself down and fell asleep on the cockpit seat again, but this time with worries and anxieties. While the Human was asleep the AI was trying to figure out these seemingly energy spikes in the Covenant battle net seemed awkward, almost as if it was a radar… Realizing that it was radar he quickly exited the battle net servers hoping that he hadn't been noticed. The thing was, it looked like those plasma cannons looked a bit more unfriendly then they had been only moments before.





































Chapter 11
0100 hours
On board Pelican
10th hour on board Pelican


"Sharp, it's time, I have control over all exterior controls of the Space ship, I can deactivate the shields for a certain time unnoticed. But I'll deactivate the left aft portion of the energy shield so they think that we are coming in that way." T.J. was standing in the cockpit along with Sharp, everyone one was in the back getting ready for the battle coming up.

"Sharp, so you're ready for this? My men are ready to fight until they die or we have control, I hope you ca handle our standards." Sharp kept his mouth quiet since he knew that it was only a waste of time to reply. Sharp looked out the windshield of the Pelican and saw the other lesser covenant ships just seemingly randomly floating around the debris of Halo, he had no clue what they were searching for, but as long as they were here, he didn't care.

"We'll be on in the Hanger in a matter of four minutes and thirty two seconds. I'll open it up once we're inside the shields. I'll try to make sure no one finds out about it, I've already jammed their sensors." Sharp satisfied at what he'd heard, except for one thing.

"Creton, if you drain the atmosphere out of the covenant space ship, you're going to kill us too if we jump in."

"No, it won't work like that I'll fly us in, and close the bay after us. Once it's closed off from space, I'll let air back in, of course after waiting three minutes, shoot every elite in the head as you walk by, I believe they might have oxygen masks and or bigger lungs. So there might still be some alive once we get in." Sharp realizing the risk in this mission went back into the loading area of the Pelican and started making final preparations for landing. He made sure all his gear was strapped on tight and he also made sure all of his clips were un-jammed and full. Once he thought he was ready, he sat still on the benches along with the rest of the squad. He glanced at back right corner of the room and saw Charles lying there wrapped in white bandages, the man would stay back while they attempted to take over the Space ship, hopefully he would recover soon.

Sharp snapped out of his day dreaming state by the yell of Commander T.J. "You are the ODST's! I expect only the very best from you, you are the very best of the UNSC, and you shall not give yourself the luxury of death! I want all of you to make me proud." With that T.J. sat back down drowned in the cheers of the ODST's. Sharp felt a sudden halt and some major turbulence as they pushed themselves into the docking bay of the Covenant warship. The whole Pelican was dead silent as they waited for the signal of the back door opening to let them out. Sharp looked at every man's face in the room, most of them showed slight signs of fear and white knuckled grips around their Assault Rifles. He saw that one man other then T.J. stood especially sat tall with a fiery look in his eyes, he looked as if he was in his early twenties, and he was probably brand new and hadn't experienced too many horrible experiences of war.

Sharp only saw one good thing out of having the young man, it was spirit- suddenly the door opened and a light flashed green. "GO! GO! GO! GO!" yelled T.J. to his men as they jumped out of the Pelican and fell seven feet and hit the ground, while wearing their 50-80 pound armor and weapons. Sharp jumped out third to last, just as he landed he felt his breath driven out and looked around, he couldn't believe it, the place had its door open and filing from the door were Jackals, Grunts, Elites, he even saw a couple hunters managing to squeeze through. He took in the image in one second, deciding not to waste the next he whipped out his sniper rifle while falling back and hid behind a over turned purple barrel that for some reason hadn't been sucked out. Sharp cursed and immediately started to fire upon Elites and looking for the orange flesh of hunters if it was to be seen.

Sharp felt each shot from the Sniper rifle fly back and hit the support of his shoulder. He kept his aim true and didn't miss one shot. While his allies though weren't faring too well; some managed to jump behind objects and what-not and others were pretty much out in the open, he saw two dead/seriously injured bodies lying on the floor already. The AI wasn't slow to react though, as soon as the last man dropped out, Creton spun the Pelican around and used the turret to kill as much as possible with the amount of ammo he had been left with. Using the turret like a sniper rifle Creton tore apart most of the forces. Sharp was glad at this, until he heard the halt of the firing from the 50 mil machine gun. Swearing he continued firing.

Once T.J. had hit the ground he saw the Elites and other Covenant races all staring at him, swearing he quickly jumped to his left rolling behind a purple barrel that hadn't for some reason been over turned. He looked back at where he'd jumped away from and saw a big black scorch mark. He fired a grenade out of his new favorite gun, the improved assault rifle. Right into the middle of a group of Covenant, he was satisfied as he heard a surprised roar of an Elite along with whimpers of Grunts and finally a explosion with blood splattering around him, he peeked around the corner and fired a volley right into the Covenant lines downing many. In the back ground he heard the 50 Mil Pelican Machine gun firing and a Sniper Rifle He heard screams of several of his men as they got burned from the plasma and got blown up by needlers in their chests.

Sharp looked at the forehead of Elite, and pulled the trigger and saw the elite fly back and disappearing from the scope's view. Sharp saw in his upper left corner of his HUD, the ammo counter read empty, he quickly oped up the bottom of the sniper rifle and six clips fell out, he slammed in another six, and locked the gun. He looked back into the small world of the scope and continued looking for target worth shooting.

T.J. was onto his last clip of the Assault rifle, not only that, he had been shot in his right shoulder and it was severely burned. He rubbed it and looked around the corner again. There were literally hundreds of Covenant bodies littering the floor. He fired a couple bursts and launched his last Assault rifle grenade into the opening which the Covenant kept going through with. He jumped out from his cover, many other ODST's followed his lead and ran going full auto while running to the opening. Suddenly the door slammed shut and the hanger bay door started to open. Swearing T.J. ran as fast as he could at the door and dropped a satchel charge right next to it. Already feeling the air leaking out and his body being pulled out. He ran back, grabbed a covenant Jackal shield and covered himself and detonated the satchel destroying the door. Looked behind him, the gap stopped growing and started to close again, the Covenant hadn't built any more locks after the first one, what a fatal flaw, something to fix as soon as he took over the ship; cheering from the ODST's greeted him as he ran back and assessed the carnage report.

"We lost seven men, three are slightly wounded, and one man has his chest blown apart, he might not make it, I've already patched him up. We're running low on ammo too." T.J. was thinking over the best battle formation.

"I want all wounded to become support, I want the only one sniper now, most likely Sharp. I want five men with standard weapons, two with active Jackal shields up front with pistols covering the rest of us. And the last two can go on shot gun duty behind the shield carriers. I want all the Jackal shields scavenged and distributed along with multiple weapons and grenades. And I wanted it five minutes ago soldier!" T.J. was annoyed, they had fallen right into a trap, luckily they made it alive past round one.

"Sharp, I'm going to land this Pelican, take me out and insert me into your helmet, I'm little use back here." Creton informed Sharp of the obvious, the Pelican was on the ground in moments, Sharp rushed over to get inside. He hoped up the four foot height distance from the ground to the Pelican once inside he looked around and saw Charles lying there, he was awake, but bewildered. Sharp walked past him, into the cockpit, and took out the AI crystal. He yanked it, and inserted into his Helmet, now he walked back and told Charles, "Save your energy, I'm going to lock this Pelican, me and the rest of this team are going to try to take over this vessel, I don't want you trying to move or anything, just lie and wait." Charles simply nodded. Sharp turned around and jumped out of the Pelican. Creton closed the back doors remotely so it'd be harder to find Charles. The doors slammed shut with a thud, Sharp walked towards the rest of the squad, he was wondering now if they'd make to the control room or not.











Chapter 12
0150 hours
On board of Covenant Warship Resurrection
Inside Hanger bay


"Ok, I don't want any one slacking here, this is important that we get through these hall ways and to the control room as you all know, I don't want a single Covenant numbskull being alive within shotgun range of us. Thos Covenant bastards don't deserve to have a bullet in their skull, but hell, we're going to give each one the bullet that it doesn't deserve, and you know why?" paused T.J. "It's because we're the ODST's and we believe that everything is either with us or against us, and everything thing against us deserves to die. Everyone move you asses, I don't want to say it again!" Yelled T.J. to his squad, Sharp looked at Jake, he was one of the wounded he had fallen over when he had jumped out of the Pelican and got shot in the leg and the chest, luckily his chest was covered with his HAVOK armor, even so it had been burned slightly and his leg had a burn in it. Sharp looked ahead, everyone was assembled in a Greek Phalanx position. He went to the back about twenty feet behind the last person. He kept his sniper rifle at his side and walked along.

The "phalanx" didn't get too far before being engaged by a group of Covenant, there many elites and grunts, but only a couple Jackals, and luckily no Hunters were present in the engagement. Sharp flattened his body against the left side of the "tunnel" and took aim and fired. The engagement only lasted a few seconds and no one had been harmed thanks to the Jackal shields up front. "There's a jack around this corner, if you plug me in I can begin taking over this Ships interior and then we can proceed along faster." Sharp listed to Creton and turned away to the left in a intersection and inserted the AI into a "port" that was seemed to have weird symbols around it and was purple just like every other thing on the space ship. He plugged it in and he heard a sound and then, "Ok, I'm in, I'll keep in touch with you on your head com." Sharp was satisfied and ran to catch up with the group.

Private Nick turned around and asked sharp, "Where were you?"

"I went to put the AI into the ship so we can capture it faster." Sharp kept walking along with the rest of the group, they past many corridors unchallenged with the exception of a few grunts and one or two elites. This was a surprise to Sharp, he was thinking that this place would at least have a little more defense especially since it probably had a gigantic amount of Seraph fighters from the size of it. They finally came to an end of the corridors, the door in front of them opened up as soon as they came close to it. He looked past the squad and saw a gigantic room, it was stacked with planet vehicles, wraiths, banshees, ghosts, spectres, shades, Phantoms, and in the middle of it all was a Scarab. Suddenly the door closed behind them and then he heard roars of Elite from above and rains of fire came at them. Swearing he took out his Jackal Shield while running, he activated it and strapped it to his upper right side of his body. He quickly came to the left wall of the huge room and took out his sniper. Several men hadn't reacted fast enough and were all burned to a crisp. He looked up and looked for any Elites, first thing he saw though was a hunter, he quickly killed it and along with the other seven hunters in there making a total of eight. He heard a couple more screams along with the frustrated yelling of T.J.

"This is to all of left alive, proceed with swiftness to the door on the right of the chamber," Sharp was already running and jumping over ghosts and everything, "those damn Covenant Bastards jammed this rooms sensors so I couldn't detect them, I'm sorry." Sharp didn't care at what the AI was saying, he just wanted to get out. Suddenly he felt a numbness on his back, and then immense pain, he cursed loud, and stumbled. He pushed off of the ground and kept running as fast as he was able to. But with each stride the pain would become even less bearable. He unclipped his back plate of his HAVOK armor, heard it fall to the ground and now his back was in less pain but still hurting like hell. He looked back and saw a couple needles flying after him, he quickly dived through the door and into the corridor. He saw a total of eight men follow him in. The last one to jump inside was commander T.J. the doors closed behind them and didn't open. Sharp tried to stand up, but he felt immense pain. Suddenly he coughed up some blood.

"Fuck, I've been hit bad in the back, I think I have a serious injury here. Can some one check my back out?" Lieutenant Fracis Von Eisenhon walked over to him and looked at it, he knew it was bad, but he had no cue as of how bad it was. "So? How bad am I hit?"

"You weren't hit in one area alone, so you don't have a hole or anything, but nearly your whole back is burned." Cursing Sharp stood still, "I'll try to rub some bio-foam onto it, but I don't know if it'll help much if at all." Sharp felt a sudden cold on his back and shivered, then the spreading of it. Once the man was done he went back to the front and helped out T.J. who'd also been hit in right shoulder again. Sharp gasped from a sudden pain, and leaned against the purple wall.

"Sharp, I don't know how bad your injuries are, but I'm going to isolate the area that you're in now and flush out the atmosphere for everyone else. Rest now, it'll be a while before I'm positive about everyone being dead outside, of course I won't be able to wipe everyone out since the control room operatives will limit my control on areas that they can stop me in time on." Sharp felt a rumble pass the ground, and then he passed out from the pain landing on his stomach. Creton had messaged everyone else in the squadron telling them it'd be safe for the meanwhile.









Chapter 13
0545 hours
On board Covenant warship, Resurrection
Inside a corridor


Sharp suddenly woke up, he sat there just lying on his face for a second thinking where he was until a wave of immense pain flooded in and he remembered. He pushed himself up and looked around, everyone except for the scornful, but audacious Commander who sat in the corner with his Assault Rifle resting on his lap and a Cigar lighting the area up around him with a dim light. Sharp tried to stand up, but fell, his pain in his back area was immense, but gritting his teeth he tried again to stand up, he leaned on the wall for support and moved to the Commander. After avoiding a couple sleeping soldiers he got to the Commander. The man's face was solid, but he saw huge bags under the yes and the man's posture was slumped over. "T.J. You really need to get some sleep, especially since you were injured, I'll take watch while you sleep." Sharp said painfully as he clenched his teeth so he wouldn't show how much in pain he was.

T.J. shifted his footing and laughed, sitting more straight up now. "You are an idiot, I know you're only trying to help, but if you could see your back I don't think you'd want to sit up here, besides, I'll wake up one of the men who aren't injured to take my place. Go back to sleep, you really need it." Sharp resigned himself gladly, but he didn't want to show it, he stayed for a second or two staying quiet, then grunted and moved back to where he had been originally been sleeping.

"Creton, what's the status on this ship" Sharp muttered into his microphone on his helmet.

"Nothing new really, they managed to recover numerous sections of the space ship before any one would most likely suffocate, especially the grunts, the atmosphere change doesn't affect them. But they're many laces which I've managed to keep without oxygen for about five hours. I've looked out everyone from coming into a path that I've plotted on your HUD, now go back to sleep, bio-scans show that your body is still under post effects of Shock, and you have some serious burns on your back, I don't think they'll heal too well, but that's a story for another time." Sharp tired after sleeping for as long as he had dropped down to the ground landing on his butt, and slid off into sleep.

*
Suddenly about two hours later Sharp was brought back to consciousness from shots being fired, he heard Creton speaking through his helmet, "Sharp, get up, you guys are under attack, they've snuck past my sensors through the Maintenance shafts!" Sharp was suddenly was wide awake, pain was out of his mind and adrenaline was running through his veins. A plasma shot streaked past his face, he kept going up and took in the situation, one man was dead lying right next to him and the others were behind their Jackal shields, and a few were being protected by those who were awake already so they could get up. Sharp whipped out his Jackal shield and activated it, he took out his NH-45 and kneeled down and took aim. He took out a Elite first who had just jumped out of the vent, sharp then fired off many consecutive shots taking out grunts and Jackals. Suddenly he heard the wail of a grunt and he saw a silver streaking plasma grenade flying at him. He pulled back his Jackal shield and hit the grenade back at the covenant that were in the middle between the squad still filling out of the maintenance shaft. The grenade that Sharp hit back with his shield smacked a grunt head right in the face. He clawed at it and started running around in a circled and managed to run right into the group of the Covenant either killing all of those who weren't elites, and even then some elites were killed, the rest were left without a shield. They quickly went down clutching their chests and necks. Seeing a moment without any enemies in the area, sharp dropped out the near empty clip and slid another one in. He heard a whimper of a grunt and a "roar" of a elite, he took out a frag grenade and threw it so it'd go into the vent, for a second he thought he had missed but it hit the corner of the vent and barely rolled in.

A grunt yelped and then the grenade detonated and blood flew out and splattered the purple wall on the opposite side of the maintenance shaft with blue blood. He edged towards the opening slowly always keeping his shield in front of him and peeked inside. There was nothing there, "No one is left, we need to move on now before more come" Sharp noticed a glimmer and he realized that there were troops in camouflage sneaking through the vent, "never mind" he corrected himself casually, and threw in another grenade and ran forward and blocked the vent opening with his shield. A muffled explosion was heard and blood flew at the shield but slid immediately off. "Let's get moving!"

T.J. was frustrated, he had lost another man and he had been lucky that he had heard a muffled voice of a grunt before the group had attacked. He looked at his ammo counter on his pistol, he had half a clip left, and he went over to the fallen ODST comrade and took his dog tag along with his ammunition. He then ran up to take the front of the group and followed the way that the HUD showed him, sort of like that one classical move, Wizzard of Ozz even though it was more then 500 years old it had been edited, and re-edited to fit some kind of standards; he was following the yellow brick road, he laughed at himself and kept walking.














Chapter 14
Covenant Space Ship Resurrection
0200 hours
Near control room


"Great, we can get into that control room as much as that group of Covenant can get to us behind that door." Private McKaine complained and paced around, the squad was trapped in a corridor, on one side was the control room and the other was a group of waiting Covenant trying to get to them before they got to the Control room. What a ironic stale mate. Suddenly the magenta colored door started to creek open inch by inch.

"Warning, there are three elites trying to pry open the door, since they can't open it up other wise, motors are failing, and if you don't do something soon you're going to have a load of Covenant wanting to greet you." Sharp didn't waste time, he took out a plasma grenade limped over to the door. The crack was now getting to be about a inch wide, he waited for it to become two. After sitting there and hearing the grunts of elites he knew it was time to kill them. He primed the plasma grenade, he always wondered why they didn't stick to him when he primed them, sighing, he shoved it through the crack and onto the foot of an Elite. He heard the surprised deep growl of the Elite as it noticed the silver streaking plasma grenade. Sharp stumbled away from the pain when he tried to jump away from the door. There was a flash of white and there was a deep silence for a few moments. The groups of men by Sharp were all happy that they didn't have to engage for the moment.

Sighing Sharp went back to his little corner and propped himself against the purple wall. He heard the excited yell of a Grunt, and suddenly a couple plasma grenades flew through the crack in between the two sides of the door. A total of five plasma grenades were sitting in the middle of the room almost teasing the men inside the room. After three seconds one of the grenades blew up and the rest flew about the whole room. Many of the grenades landed in areas that had no men there, but one of them landed straight onto Private McKaine's helmet, Sharp had seen this many times before and regretted seeing it again every time it happened again. The young man screamed in shock, "Get it off me!" Commander T.J. who had been sitting near to the Private had already dived away, and watched at a safe distance.

"Take off your helmet!" yelled sharp at the young man who was too knew to war to remain calm had no idea what they were saying.

"Help me" were the last words the Private managed to say before being blown up and crimson red blood around the room some landing onto the faces and armor of the men around sharp, and some even landed on Sharp on himself. Sharp was angered, those stupid idiots who couldn't think on their feet were slowing the real men down, not only that, but since the war is a lost cause the UNSC is taking in 18 year olds who don't know how to fight almost at all. Sharp saw another couple grenades fall in, hoping none of them would attach themselves to the men around him they were low enough on men already. The first grenade blew up and sent the rest flying at the door, one of them miraculously went back through the door and blew up in the air while the rest blew up against the door. The door became slightly charred and the door tilted slightly. Obviously they had a new idea. Twenty grenades landed by the door next to the door, they all blew up within seconds of each other and damaged the door significantly. A couple Elites ran up and started to try to take it apart.


"Sharp I got it! The door is going to open up in a matter of minutes, hurry get ready to take over the Control room." Sharp heard this along with all the men in the squadron, everyone turned their backs to the door that was being forced open and saw the shocked faces of grunts, and elites as they opened fire on them. Most of the Covenant in the control room were dead in a matter of seconds, When all the Men Piled in the door closed behind them.

'Regarna was the Captain of the Resurrection and had been attacked by the human parasite hours ago. He'd already sent for help, but the scientific vessels had ignored him. Even with this extremely high tech ship the inside was extremely vulnerable. Since they had auto-pilot Seraph fighters that were updated in many ways, so they only needed one fourth the normal crew on board the ship; not only that, the parasite had proven elusive in many area and they'd been blocked by their filthy AI construct. But now, they'd crossed the line, they'd entered his control room, he wasn't going to let them defile the ship. He swung out his plasma sword and set his shields on over load, even though they'd most likely be broken after the battle, he didn't think he'd need them afterwards. He walked out into the open and let out his battle-cry. He felt many shots being fired at him, but he ignored them as much as he ignored the injured. One man he wanted to kill in particular, he ran for the man holding a brown stick in his mouth.

T.J. saw the Elite charging at him, and had fired a few shots at him before he realized that he wouldn't go down before reaching him. He dropped his Assault rifle and pulled out his Shotgun, he kneeled down and when the Elite was five feet away he squeezed the trigger.

'Regarna felt a enormous force punch at his abdominal area, he almost lost his balance but kept running and he'd lost all of his shields now, his alarm was ringing loud now. He only had one goal left before he would reunite with his brothers. The second shot tore into his abdomen and he felt weakness and pain go through him. Not giving in he made his last act. The human thinking it was over started to walk past him, he had made his final mistake. With his last bit of strength he pushed the sword into the humans abdomen. He saw the parasite's surprised face and then embraced death with pride.

T.J. had just finished off the elite Captain, the creature had a hole in him going in and out the back. Thinking he had been killed, he started to walk to where he dropped his Assault rifle when suddenly he felt immense pain in his stomach, gasped, and saw hundreds of images go through his mind at once, and then he finally fell down dead with a sword sticking through him as blood trickled out of the corner of the Commander's mouth. Sharp had seen the commander go down, and was frustrated, T.J. had been one of the most hard-core Marines he'd ever met. Now he was in command, but it didn't matter if they didn't take out the last couple elites.

After fighting for some time they finally were able to finish off the Elites, with the exception of one who was running back and forth weaving his way towards Sharp and his men going from cover to cover. When the Elite had made it to the middle of the room behind the Command Chair, Sharp's men were now circling the Elite from two directions, slowly and cautiously they approached, the Elite poked his head out to throw a Plasma grenade, had received many shots to the head and his plasma grenade had been dropped from the amount force that had made him to lose his grip. Knowing that if he tried to pick up the grenade it'd stick to him he dived away. He had barely any shields left and the Marines quickly made go down with a hail of bullets. The grenade shortly there after blew up and knocked the chair over and part of it was missing.

"Sharp, there's a door to your left, it leads to a secondary port, pull me out and plug me into the Command chair's port." Creton said to Sharp in a commanding tone.

"We may have a problem with that chair, it seems to be destroyed." Sharp replied.

"My sensors read that its port is still operational, even though most of it is unusable." Sharp took heed to the AI's words and went to the port, and pressed a button by the side of it. Suddenly a crystal appeared sticking out slightly, he pulled it out and brought it to the fallen Command chair; he looked through the junk surrounding the chair until he found a port, he put the crystal into it, and for the first time he saw Creton appear in hologram form at the hologram station. Sharp represented a man wearing an Admiral's outfit. He also had many badges and other things, but hey, it was just the image that the AI chose to take form of. "I'm draining the Atmosphere now in all areas of the ship, and I'm reactivating hidden plasma turrets throughout the warship that I early de-activated for your safety."

Sharp looked around the room and noticed that unlike human space ships, Covenant control rooms were located in the center of the space ship. He went towards the end of the room and sat down in a chair that was built for the spine of a Elite, he immediately sat back up at once when he felt himself getting uncomfortable. Lieutenant Francis Von Eisenhon came up to him, "Sir, I don't know about you, but I'd say we'd better get out of this system before any more Covenant space ships show up."

Sharp replied, "You're right, Creton, plot a course for Reach we're going to see what's been happening there while we've been gone."

"Right away, plotting now," Sharp felt a shudder, he looked at the hologram projector which showed a view of the front of the Space ship. He looked at the stars until they disappeared. "Hmmm, the Covenants way to go into slip space is amazing, it's quite truly remarkable." The Ship then immediatly disappeared into Slipspace.

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