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I was 14, living on Harvest. Myself and my family had decided to on a cruise on my father's yacht. It was that day that they arrived. We managed to get away but many others did not, vaporised by the unstoppable juggernaut that was sweeping across our little corner of the galaxy. We managed to get to Reach, a supposedly invulnerable world, after what I had seen, I couldn't believe anything safe. Immediately after landing we were taken away by what I would later come to know as ONI spooks. They questioned us on every minute detail of what we had witnessed. It was horrible, watching a beautiful and lush green world, being turned into a rough sphere of charred and pitted glass. I spent nearly a week locked in my room, mourning my lost grandparents, cousins and friends. I came out changed, no longer the caring and compassionate boy I had been. I was angry, seething at the injustice of the attack, I had to survive, yet my friends were now no more than clouds of Carbon gas in Harvest's burned atmosphere.
On Reach I was a normal boy, apart from the fact that I wished with my whole being to kill every one of them, not even caring if I lost my own life in the process. Hearing of other outer rim colonies being "glassed", as it was now known, merely made me more angry. On the day of my eighteenth birthday, I left the party my parents had thrown for me, quietly and out the back door. It was the height of Admiral Cole's campaign against them. Every residential street on Reach was bedecked with posters urging young men to join up. I fully intended to. The marine sergeant manning the desk at the recruitment office stood as I opened the door. "I want to join up" I said almost immediately.
"Well then son, Fill in this form and we can have you on your way! What's your name, by the way?"
"Adam."
About a month later, on the rifle range, the range master came out and took down the circular segmented targets that normally resided there. He stood in front of us all and shouted, "Recruits! It is time for you to get to know your enemy! This is what we Marines affectionately call Grunts, simply because all they do is grunt and squeal all the way to hell!" My heart rate peaked as he replaced the targets with cut outs of grunts. My grip on my MA5B rifle increased and my hand trembled. The range master stood back and shouted "Fire away!" While the rest of my squad mates used controlled bursts at the centre of mass, I opened up with a full auto spray at it's head. It was ripped apart in a hail of hot lead.
"CEASE FIRE!"
"Recruit! What in the name of sweet Jesus do you think you are doing?"
"Firing at the target, Sergeant!"
"You keep that temper of yours under control mister or I'll have my MPs take you away! You are here to practice shooting, NOT to take your anger out!"
"Yes Sergeant!"
"Although that was some fine gun control, the MA5B usually sprays all over the place, keep that up!"
"Yes Sergeant," I said with a grin.
It was our first duty mission; I was now 19 years old. We were now fully fledged marines. I was still with the squad I had trained with; although our squad leader had been replaced by a battle hardened old Corporal named Koslov. His Slavic ancestry was obvious, if not from his name and features, but from his innate ability to find a bottle of vodka wherever they were. With my British ancestry, we were the only two Europeans of the squad, the other eight, a mixture of Americans and Australians. We were to be assigned to Admiral Cole's flagship carrier. After the cryosleep of the journey towards the frontline, we were told to load up and head to our pelicans. I took my customary load of my custom MA5B (adapted with a scope and laser sight) a sidearm and two fragmentation grenades. Our new corporal, it appeared, was a sniper, obvious from his large S2AM Sniper Rifle slung over his shoulder. Around his neck, he wore a gold star on a piece of tattered red ribbon. When we asked what it was he replied
"My ancestor was a sniper in the ancient earth Soviet union, he took part in their Great Patriotic war, he won this. It is the highest decoration a soviet soldier could receive, "Hero of the soviet union". Now, I wear it for luck."
"Does it work?" an American squad mate asked
"I have survived two ground battles with the Covenant, so I assume so!" We passed the rest of the pelican flight in silence, preparing ourselves for the possible fight ahead. This was it, finally, my chance to get back at those bastards for murdering everyone on my planet. I just hoped that if I died, I could take some with me. I sank into a reverie, preparing for what was to come.
The voice of the pilot broke out "This is going to get rough! We're going into some AA fire. Get ready Marines! the LZ is hotter than your mother!" We all stood and readied our rifles. The pelican slowed and the lights above the cargo door blinked yellow, then green. We piled out onto a hillside, alongside at least 10 other squads arriving at the same time. The pelican took off as quickly as it had landed. We looked down the hill at our enemy, hundreds upon hundreds of grunts, seas of them. We hit the ground as the first volley of plasma fire flew over us, one of my squad mates was not fast enough, and had half of his side vaporised from a charged bolt of plasma. I loaded a shredder clip into my assault rifle, and forsaking the accuracy of my scope and laser sight, unloaded towards the grunts at the bottom of the hill. From the looks of things, I took at least 15 down from that first volley. The loud crack of the sniper rifle next to me brought me out of my personal celebration at killing some of them. I saw a small flicker of light towards the rear of the front wave of grunts. "What was that?" I asked Koslov. "That my boy, was an elite, the commanders of the covenant. The light was his shields burning out. They all wear energy shields that vaporise most bullets heading towards them, and absorb plasma, so don't go trying to use their weapons against them! The shields cant take a sniper bullet though, too much power, and I just put one right through his skull. That makes three I have killed!" As the fighting escalated, we realised we were massively outnumbered on this hillside. It was then we heard a massive rushing noise over our heads, a squadron on long sword Fighter/Bombers swept over our positions and laced the grunts with napalm and cannon. I threw a fragmentation grenade into a pack of grunts, it ripped that group apart and ignited the methane of one of the grunts from a nearby group. This caused a massive explosion, ripping another group to pieces. Even with their depleted numbers, the grunts still massively outnumbered the marines and had started to push the 100 or so marines back up the hillside, until they were in a tight circle, fighting back to back. The radiomen of several squads were, at this point, screaming for backup or evacuation. I was crouched beside an Australian squad mate of mine, named Liam. We both had our last shredder clips loaded into our rifles and sprayed at the grunts. They fell in their droves as grunt after grunt was pierced by shards of bullet from our guns. A wounded grunt picked up his weapon and fired off a single pink needle that tore into Liam's side, then exploded, nearly ripping him in half. I emptied my last shredder rounds into that grunt's head, I had lost another of my friends at the hands of the Covenant. Explosions ripped through the ranks of grunts, I looked up, and there were the pelicans, firing their rockets and chain guns at the massed grunts. Half of the pelicans landed and picked up some of the marines, we were not the lucky ones to get in this first wave, we had to wait for the second wave to land and pick us up. Suddenly, a sticky grenade landed next to me. Koslov leaped into me, pushing me from danger, but the explosion tore into him, wounding him. I dragged him to the landing zone and leapt into our pelican. "You'll be alright mate, hang in there." I told him.
"No, I will die from these wounds. Please, Adam," He stuttered through the blood in his mouth "I wish you to have this." With that, he pushed his gold star into my hand. Our squad medic pushed his eyes closed. "He's dead."
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