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First To Die
Posted By: BlackValkyire<BlackValkyire@aol.com>
Date: 27 November 2003, 4:22 AM


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They told us that they had found earth, we knew they were coming. They told us that they would fight like animals, and if we wanted to survive, we would have to fight harder. They told us everything, and got us all excited. Except for me. I know what a full scale Covenant invasion means, no one else seems to understand. But now, everyone else seems to get it, because about two hours ago, the first covenant cruiser entered our system. Then it went from one to ten, ten to a hundred, and a hundred to three hundred and fifty ships. And now, they're coming...

"SNAP OUT OF IT SOLDIER!" the sergeant yelled at Jack, who shook his head, hefting his rifle, still crouched flat against the collapsed peice of wall that the orbital "shelling" had caused, leveling quite alot of what had once been Miami. Covenant troops were coming down in all kinds of dropships, and a few elites were coming down in individual missile like things, smashing into the ground and then clambering out. Three full batallions of marines were waiting to ambush the covenant, hiding in shelled out buildings. Jack Ryson, had always thought life as a soldier would be easy living on earth, because he thought the covenant would never find earth. But it seemed he was wrong, and now he was quite afraid. He could hear the sound of what he guessed was a "grunt", the lowest class of covenant infantry. Two men suddenly came back into the building, the forward observers it seemed. They spoke briefly to the lutienant, then joined the rest of the men as the CO made a flurry of hand signals.

Jack understood them all. They were going to all jump out and charge the line of grunts on his command, no one opened fire until he did. Slowly the lutienant leaned around the corner, took aim with his battle rifle, and fired a single shot. A loud, reverbarating BANG went through Jack's ears, even as he shot forward, yelling like a madman, firing his MA5B on full auto, watching as his high aim rewarded him, shots punching into the brains of the grunts, sending blood and bits of gray matter everywhere, and dropping bodies like mad. Some turned and fled, and they were mowed down by the rest of the team. The Lutienant waved them on, and they were on the run, heading for another position. Jack was feeling bold and immortal. He had killed three grunts, his first three kills, all with multiple headshots! His ego was on the bursting point, and he raced up to join some of the point men.

They moved down a few blocks, and Jack felt like he could take on a full unit of gold elites with his bear hands. Slowly, he built himself up in his own mind, feeling all the more powerful. When they came across a pair of hunters being acompanied by some jackals, it turned even worse. Jack opened fire, and half his clip got into a hunter's vulenarble armor break in it's back, spilling orange blood and dropping the beast. The Jackals turned to fire, but someone had tossed a grenade, and they didn't have time to fire as they were smeared across the inside of their shields. Jack volunteered to take point from there, and led the squad through the streets. He suddenly froze and held up a fist, and peeked around the corner. An elite donned in red armor weilding a needler was conversing with two elites in blue. Jack grinned, this would be no probolem. He primed a grenade, and chucked it. The elites turned to look, and it blew up in between them. The two blues went flying, but the red had turned and dove. Jack ran up to him, firing his rifle. The elite rolled sideways on the ground, and fired once. A searing plasma blast hit him right in the face, and he fell, headless, his last thoughts quite obvious on his face.

The rest of the team came around, guns blazing, and the elite was turned into "a leaky peice of meat" one of the "loose screw boys" as they had been dubbed put it. Two privates knelt by Jack Ryson's corpse, and picked it clean of ammunition. One of them grabbed his assult rifle, and slung it over their shoulder, then took off with the rest of the squad. "Could you believe that guy? Volunteering for point on THIS mission? He must have snapped..." one of the two said as they jogged to catch up. "Yeah...some people are like that the first time they make a kill...get all big headed and think they can take on the world...always the first to die, especially on a mission like this...but hey, as long as we stick with the squad, we'll be fine." the other one replied.

Their batallion moved quickly, and linked up with a scorpion that got seperated from its divison in the thick of things. The fighting was intensifying acording to the driver, and he lost traction while running down some grunts. A few men climbed onto the track pods, and they followed the tank. "See...we'll be fine." someone said, patting his friend on the shoulder. About five minutes later, a flight of Banshee's came out of nowhere, fuelrod blasts melting tank armor into slag, giving those unfortunate enough to be on the tank a very nasty death. The rest of the men opened fire with their weapons, hoping to hit one of the engine pods. The flight split into two, and came at them from either flank. The high powered plasma cannons opened up, and proceeded to mow the men down. It only took one pass and the whole squad was down, except for one man, lying flat on his stomach under the tank. He was white, shaking, images flashing before his eyes. Over and over, he saw himself talking to another private. "First to die" he muttered, putting the M6D pistol to his head. He pulled the trigger, and the world went black.





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