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1857 hours, October 21, 2552 (Military Calendar)
Installation 05, UNSC Charlie Base CP,

      We flew for a little less than our ETA. We arrived and began to debrief on everything. The CP was surprisingly very well built with instacrete but had nothing but the bare essentials. The Lieutenant came and greeted us as we arrived. He was about a foot shorter than I. He sounded much taller and buffer on the radio, oh well, he was higher in rank than I and I guess that meant he had a good head on his shoulders. Foster, Alverez, Stooker, and I went in to the debriefing room along with the Lieutenant and some of his head people.

"Good to see you here. We appreciate all the ammo, food, and equipment you brought us. Now we need to debrief ya. So, what happened from the time you landed in the QZ to now." said DeNardo
"Well, Sir. That is quite a long story." I said
"Tell it anyway." he said

      I told them all about everything that had happened. They listened on patiently and intently. They were a little surprised about how it was MY idea to leave the Clad behind and run for the hills so to speak. Though they understood why I did it. When I finished everyone in the room was silent.

"Well, Sergeant. I am sorry to hear about the loss of your men." said DeNardo
"Thanks you, Sir... Sergeant, but I'm just a Private!" I said in a confused manner.
"Oh no, you're a Sergeant now. you've just been promoted due to your skills as a leader, Alverez is now a Corporal, as is Foster." he said
"Well thank you, Sir." we all said
"We have been getting reports of Elites, Hunters, and Grunts being friendly towards our forces." DeNardo shifted. "Do you have any idea why this is?"
"Well, Sir. The Elite I talked to said he knew what the rings were for and didn't want the rings to be fired, same as us. I guess they now know what they have been following for centuries is wrong, and they're mad about it." I said
"Well, this is extremely great for us. We might just be able to beat the rest of the Covenant." he said excitedly. "Anyway, we must mount a rescue effort. A recon group was sent to check out the 'control room' a few hours ago. They saw Keyes, Johnson, and a few other Marines being escorted into an area around the control room. We do not know the strength of their presence yet. We MUST rescue those individuals."
"Sir, my squad volunteers to go in with the first Pelican." I blurted out before I could think.
"Good man. We need more men like you Sergeant. I will let you know when we have devised a rescue operation. Dismissed" he said

      We all saluted him and left the room. Alverez, and Stooker looked at me in as though I had just commited murder. Foster just looked at me as though she was expecting an order.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? WE JUST GOT OUTTA THE SHIT NO MORE THAN THREE HOURS AGO, AND NOW YOU WANNA GO BACK IN? WELL I'M NOT, I NEED SOME REST, FOOD, AND A SHOWER." said Alverez in a cocky, pissed-off way.
"So, I'm the bad guy for wanting to rescue someone in danger?" I said
"No, your not the bad guy. I just want some fucking sleep." he said in a lower, more respectful tone.
"Then sleep, eat, drink, be merry. We have at least twelve hours before they come up with a rescue plan." I said as I threw my hands in the air in disgust.
"By the way, we shouldn't be encountering the flood anymore. We are out of the Quarentined Zone, which they can't escape. So you can get your sniper rifle skills in order because we will need for the rescue. Stooker, go to the medical station and get that eye looked at, you had that patch on since we found you and I don't want it getting infected. Foster, come with me." I said
"Yes, Sir!" they all said in unison as they saluted.
"Don't salute, we're in a combat zone." I remarked.
"What did you want with me, Sir?" asked Foster
"I noticed you hadn't eaten in a while. Let's go to the mess hall." I said
"Ok." she said

      We left and went to mess hall. The chow was actually good for once. I asked the cook where he got this chicken, he said that it wasn't chicken, but a native bird that was here when we arrived. It was very good, I went back for seconds.

"I'm going to catch a shower. If you'd like, we can bunk together so none of these other guys try to put the moves on ya." I said to Foster
"Ok, I might just take you up on that." she said as she noticed a group of Marines looking at her with their tongues handing outta their head.
"Ok then, see ya later." I said as I left the mess hall and continued onto the shower.

      It felt so good to get a good, clean, cool, shower after being in battle off and on for about 20 hours straight. I felt about five pounds lighter when I came back to my room after the shower. It felt like I'd washed away all my sins and mistakes, not to mention the sweat and filth I'd gained from fighting. When I went back to my room and opened my door, where I found Foster cleaning her battle rifle and her SMG. They hadn't been cleaned in I don't know how long. I decided to clean my own weapons also.

      I felt around inside my combat vest and found a plasma pistol, which I had picked up while we were fighting the flood at the downed pelican. Just forgot about it and guess I didn't feel it until now. I took it out and began to clean it. It looked so futuristic, even at this day in age, when we have been fighting the Covenant for three decades.

"What do ya got there, Debo?" asked Foster
"Oh nothing, just a plasma pistol I picked up." I said
"Oh, well ya know you can take down any shielding with one big charged blast." she said
"You can?" I said, amazed
"Yes!" she said, amazed that I didn't know that
"So instead of pumping tons of bullets into shielding to take it down, I could've just charged this thing up and then shot the enemy in the head with a pistol?" I asked in astonishment.
"Yep." she said simply.

      Needless to say, I felt like a complete dumbass.

      We talked well into the night, mostly about the battles we had just survived. It got out all the bad feeling pretty well. We fell asleep around 1:15 A.M., although it was almost dawn on the ring, and we were whisk away to wonderful dreamland. It turns out dreamland wasn't so wonderful that night. I had dreams of the battles I had just fought in. Mostly horrible endings where I was turned in a flood combat form. I had a dream that I was making my way through the Clad, by myself, with only a clip of ammo in my magnum. I would run down the halls yelling for other Marines, and get no response, I would always become cornered, then hear the squirming sound of the flood approaching, then I would wake up. Oh well, tomorrow brings new opportunities.

      I woke up to the sound of gunfire and the screams of wounded and dying soldiers. Foster woke up the same time I did. We got dressed and combat ready in under two minutes each. We both went out the door simultaniously with our weapons drawn. The battle outside wasn't big, but is wasn't small. There were bodies everywhere, mostly Jackals.

"MEDIC" yelled a Marine about 30 feet away.

      Foster and I to ran over to the wounded Marine. He had been hit in the right part of his chest by a single ball of plasma from a Brutes plasma rifle. Foster worked on him for about 1 minute and 10 seconds, upon which she finished and the Marine got up and started firing his rifle again. We turned around to see a Brute running at full speed towards us, when the brute was about 10 feet from us we heard a crack and saw a big explosion of blood come from the Brute's head, which ripped away half of brute's skull and flesh. Foster and I looked up to Alverez's smoking barrel aming at the now dead Brute. We gave him the thumbs up and ran to his position where we found Stooker.

"How long has this battle been going on?" I asked Stooker
"Well, we were already awake when they attacked. They've killed about ten Marines, but we've killed about fifty of them though." said Stooker in an optimistic tone of voice.
"Ok, we are going to check on DeNardo." I said.

      We ran to the main CP building that we had met DeNardo in, we found him at the entrance manning a machinegun.

"Any word on the rescue op?" I said
"Yeah, we will brief you as soon as mop-up is completed." he said
"We need some support, I need you two to get into that Scoprion and take out some Brutes." he said
"Yes, sir" we said

      We ran to the Scorpion and jumped in. We turned the tank around and started running over dying Brutes and Jackals as we continued to shoot at the oncoming ones. It tooks us about 20 minutes to win that small battle. We performed mop-up and returned the tank to its place and got the blood wiped off our face, collected Alverez and Stooker, and headed to the CP to get briefed on the Rescue Op. We entered the CP and two hunters stood at twelve feet high, towering over two marines. Stooker nearly had a heart attack when he saw the Hunters. DeNardo was standing in front of them, not batting an eye, then six elites stepped out of a room along with ten grunts. He motioned everyone except the hunters into the briefing room. DeNardo let in about eight other Marines to brief them as well.

"Ok men. This is codenamed Operation Demon Siege. If they think we're demons then we will show them we can be as fierce as the actual demons of hell." DeNardo said
"These Elites, Hunters, and Grunts have left the Covenant forever. They were sent here to negotiate a truce and to help fight for our side. They know the rings purpose, and they do not want to die the same we don't wanna die. They have agreed to help defend the Earth. That means that every Elite, Hunter, and Grunt is now our ally. They want to be our allies. They are now known as the separatists. They have a huge number of ships on standby, some are destroying what is left of the original Covenant, including Buggers, Brutes, and Jackals. These soldiers were also sent here to help us defeat the enemies in the control room and help stop a brute named Tatarus from firing the ring. They will not be under our direct command but have agreed to go along with the rescue plan." said DeNardo
"Sir, what exactly is the plan?" I asked
"Glad you asked, Son. You all be dropped via pelican at a large cliff area in front of the control room. You will then move around in the canyons and get to the entrance at the end of this long and sandy beach area. You will follow the Separatists through the facilities to until you are able to find our Rescue Package, which consists of Johnson, Keyes, and any other Marines, Grunts, Elites, or Hunters you can find. After you find the Rescue Package you will be airlifted back here and that will be the end of the mission." said DeNardo happily.
"I have a question." I said "When we find our rescue package, how long will we have to wait for extraction? Also, any word on the Master Chief?"
"You will be pulled out as soon as possible is all I can say. We only have one piece of intel on the MC, his last known transponder signal was on the Covenant holy city High Charity. Plus, we just got through debriefing a few Marines that fought alongside him up there. The Marines are in the room two doors down from you Staff Sergeant. Get maxed out on ammo and gear, you'll need it. Good Luck, Soldiers. Dismissed" he said as he saluted everyone.

      I had to go talk to the soldiers. I found them exactly where he had said they were.

"How'd you guys get down here from High Charity?" I asked
"We stole a Phantom from those Covie bastards." one Marine said
"Where'd the Master Chief go?" I said eagerly
"He told us to get the hell off High Charity by any means necessary before he disappeared down a lift. So we jumped the Brutes guarding a Phantom full of supplies and brought our happy little asses down on the CP's signal. By the way, did you know that In Amber Clad was at High Charity. The Flood had hijacked it apparently and they crashed into a tower, then they started flying our pelicans inside High Charity." A Marine said
"So you don't know what happened to Chief?" I said
"Nope, but he'll be just fine. We saw him in action and even the Elites we fought were amazed at the speed at which Chief killed them." another Marine said as he laughed aloud.
"Well, you do know that the Elites, Gruntes, and Hunters are now our allies. Don't ya?" I said
"Yeah, we heard about it from the lieutenant. We noticed that the Elites, Hunters, and Grunts were fighting Jackals and Brutes on High Charity. It is a good thing in my opinion. Having an Elite is almost as good as having the Master Chief for back-up." said a Marine, with the name Dedrich on his uniform.
"Ok, well thanks for keeping us posted down here. We appreciate it." I said as I left their room.

"ALL HANDS. PREPARE FOR OPERATION DEMON SIEGE!" said DeNardo over the CPs comm system.

      I found Foster and we got ready for the battle we were about to be thrown forth into. I loaded up on frag grenades and a took a Batte Rifle and two Magnums from the weapons locker, I also loaded up with as much ammo as I could. We didn't know how many enemies we might run into, so we wanted to be prepared. Foster got done before me,as did everyone else, they all went outside to mill around, I was still getting ready. As I was doing this, I noticed a skull on table. I examined closely, it was the skull of a brute, it had a small hole on the right temple.

"That was the Brute that nearly killed ya'll." said Alverez
"You startled me, I thought I was the only one in here." I said "Nice shot by the way. I couldn't have made that."
"Well, they don't call me John Wayne for nothing." he said as he laughed. I had never heard anyone call him 'John Wayne'.
"Well, are you ready?" I said
"You bet." he said simply.

      We walked outta the armory together and went to over to talk to the other Marines. I went to go to the bathromm and came to find Stooker at tthe wheel of the Scorpion, he was trying to learn how to drive it. Apparently, he had failed that part of basic training and was trying to make up for it.

"... and that's how you shoot the main gun." Said Alverez to Stooker.
"Thanks, the Drill Sarge never went into much detail on anything. He just expected us to know how to drive it immediately." said Stooker
"Are you ready, Stooker?" I asked him.
"Yes, Sir. I'm ready to get back the our brothers and sisters." He said.
"Good man." I said as I patted him on the shoulder

"ALL RESCUE PERSONELL, REPORT TO THE PELICAN PAD. GET READY FOR AIRLIFT TO YOUR DESTINATION." said DeNardo over the comm.

      I collected the eight new Marines that were assigned to my squad along with Foster, Stooker, and Alverez. We went to the landing pad to find to our surpirse, two Covenant Phantoms. One was from the escaped Marines from High Charity, and the other was from the Separatists. There were also Six pelicans on the pad. I thought that there only ten on the In Amber Clad anyway, we managed to get over half here in one piece I guess. We jumped into the pelican we were assigned. It was the same pelican that had brought us here.

"Well, Pvt. Johanson. We met again." Said the pilot.
"It's Staff Sergeant Johanson now. I guess you're our pilot today. I hope you take us on a smooth ride." I said
"Oh, a Staff Sergeant so soon. Good for you." the pilot said "I'll take you on a smooth ride right into the LZ. Don't worry about a thing."
"Ok then. Thanks. Did you hear that some of the Covenant joined our side? They are called Separatists." I said
"Yeah, and I think it's a good deal too. I always kinda admired the courage of the Elites. They would throw themselves at outnumbering odds just to save one of their own soldiers, sometimes a grunt." He said, kinda looking off into space as if he was looking for a new ship to come and take us home.
"Well, we should be ready to lift off in about ten minutes. Be ready." I said
"You can bet your arse I'll be ready." He said as he fired up the thrusters.

      I went and told my team to load up. About 7 minutes later we were fully loaded and organized. The Separatists were gonna sit down with us in a Phantom. Just before I told everyone to take a seat, DeNardo came walking over to our pelican. He was about to make a speech I felt like. He ushered the Separatists over to join in the speech. As soon as everyone got quiet he began.

"Marines, Elites, Grunts, and Hunters. Who would have thought that we would all be working together for a common cause until this morning. This is a truely historical event. Today, the tide of the war has turned in all our favors. We will not be defeated any longer. We came to this ring as enemies, but it has made us all brothers in the same cause. I hope all of you make it outta there alive. Good luck, Soldiers, and God Speed." he said

      Everyone saluted DeNardo, then cheered and shouted battle cries into the air. Even the Separatists saluted DeNardo and started to cheer. We all got loaded up into our aircraft. I gave the go signal and we were away in a flash, to victory, to salvation, and to the end of our war.

      Our ride to the LZ was pretty uneventful so far, but then again, we had just lifted off only about 10 minutes ago. Then view from the back of the pelican was beautiful, you never would've thought that this was artificial. The sky line looks very natural, as did the plants, mountains, and just the general geography. It was very breath-taking when I first saw a glimpse of the control room.

"Is THAT the control room?" I asked the pilot.
"Yep, we were gonna bomb it. Only we don't know what it is for just yet." said the pilot

      I returned to my seat, surprised to find Foster now in the seat beside mine. I sat down beside her and started to think of that horrible vision that had been in my mind since we had left Earth. Rotting human corpses in sun, roasting. No HQ to report the situation to, and no one TO report the situation. It always entered my mind in the most inopportune times. Oh well, Foster soon got my mind off it with here talking.

"Sir, do you think we'll make it outta here alive?" she said
"I think we will, but if you're religious, then say a little prayer for EVERYONE that is going to be involved on our side, if you don't mind." I said
"No Sir, I don't mind. I always get scared just before we go into battle. I nearly pissed myself when I saw all those flood yesterday." She said as she began to laugh.
"Don't tell anyone, but I nearly went number two myself."I said with a smile
"Well Sir, I think we will be just fine. With the Hunters and such on our side, we will win this war for sure." She said proudly
"I sure hope you're right. We've always needed a good ally or two, but just never got them. Now, we might actually win." I said, still smiling.

"ETA TO LZ . . . TWO MINUTES. GET PREPPED, AND GOOD LUCK, SOLDIERS!" said the pilot as he looked back into the troop bay
"YOU ALL HEARD THE MAN. WE ARE LANDING IN TWO MINUTES. I WANT AS MANY OF THOSE COVENANT BASTARDS DEAD AS YOU CAN KILL. I WANT TO PUT THE FEAR OF GOD INTO 'EM!" I said with enthusiasm. The whole pelican roared with "hoo-rahs".

      We landed at the LZ to find it filled with only air, no Covenant around.

"OK MEN, LET'S MOVE IT OUT. STAY BEHIND THE SEPARATISTS. WE WILL SUPPORT THEM." I yelled to everyone

      The separatists began to move out. We all ran at a grueling pace, about a half a mile through this canyon when we came to a large, sandy piece of ground. We crossed it without any resistance and made it into a large structure built into the wall of the canyon. We went through several rooms, full of dead Brutes, Jackels, and sometimes we would come across a fallen Elite, which we said a few words over and continued on. We came to a bridge and passed it, still no Covenant around. We found a detention block with some broken shield generators. Apparently who ever had been through her had been on our side. We made it to a large hallway with several doors.

"Stop! Do ya hear that?" I said, trying to strain my ears for sound.
"It sounds like someone is fighting right outside those doors." said one of the new Marines
"Let's go then." I said as I readied my battle rifle.

      We went through the door just in time to see a Scarab walk into the canyon we had left about fifteen minutes prior.

"Call for evac. We need to get after that Scarab, NOW" I said to a Marine, who started talking into his mic at a high speed.

      We did manage to find some Marines up there though. ONE OF THEM WAS SERGEANT KENNEDY!

"KENNEDY, IS THAT YOU?" I said in a low voice.
"You bet your ass it's me. I thought we'd lost ya after you left the column." he said in astonishment as he looked me over.
"No, we fought about three hundred flood combat forms, and won. We tried to save the In Amber Clad from the flood, but we couldn't, there was simply too many of them." I said
"Hey, where did your military courtesy go, Private." he asked, apparently he hadn't seen the SSGT on my uniform.
"Well, you have to salute me now." I said as I proudly pointed to my name/rank patch on my uniform.
"Well I'll be damned. You managed to move from a whiny little pip-squeak of a Private, into a big and brave, fighting man from head to toe Staff Sergeant?" he asked.
"Yes I did." I said proudly

      A Marine ran up to me, scared outta his wits.

"Sir, we have inbound Covenant Phantoms, Banshees, and ground troops. ALL BRUTES AND JACKELS!" he said
"Ok, I want you to get those pelicans here, NOW! We are gonna hold this position until they arrive. Hooah?" I said
"Hooah!" he replied as he started talking into his comm again.

      I ordered everyone back into the buildings and to start fortifying our position. If those Covenant craft were full of Brutes then we would have to set up a kill zone. We managed to knock over some of those crates to give us some cover and activate some of those blue shields to help defend our position. We got it pretty well defended in a time of only 15 minutes.

"SIR, THEY'RE COMING! THEY JUST LAN . . . ." was all a Marine got out before he was mowed down by a Brutes plasma rifle.
"DEFENSIVE POSITIONS PEOPLE! WE ARE NOT GONNA DIE HERE!" I yelled as slammed a clip into my rifle.

      I went over and fought by Foster, who was having a hard time controlling a plasma cannon we had setup. Just as I looked up I saw a plasma grenade stick to my glove, which I promptly pulled off in a frenzy and threw it back at the Brutes just before it detonated, killing a brute and two buggers. Then I fired wildly at the incoming covenant forces. Either I must've looked like a mad-man or an idiot, because I was running from one place to another and throwing grenades whenever I could. We held our position for over 30 minutes, waiting for the pelicans, but they never came.

"Uniform Six-Eight to CP.Where the hell is the pelicans?" I said into my comm.
"CP to Uniform Six-Eight. The LZ is too hot to land." came a reply
"To you it may be too hot, but we are being murdered over here." I replied
"We'll chalk a team of gunships to you." he replied
"Out." I said

"Sir, where's our ride?" Stooker said
"We got no fucking ride!" I yelled to him

      A few of the soldiers looked at me in astonishment.

"What are we gonna do?" asked a marine
"We are going to hold this position and kill any and all of those fuckers out there. YOU GOT ME?" I yelled to everyone
"We get you, sir." they all replied

      As I put in my last BR55 clip, I put my knife on the end of my battle rifle. If I was going down, I was going down honorably. A brute came within ten feet of me and I charged at the Brute and drove my knife deep into his neck, completely through the other side. Its last breath escaped through the vents on his throat and he collapsed to the floor in purple blood.

"Yeah, take that you filthy fucking gorilla." I said as I put three rounds into his skull.

      As I turned to run back to my spot by Foster I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head and everything got blurry, then every thing went black . . .

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