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      (Authors Note: I apologize for the long delay in getting this chapter done. The frenzy of Christmas and my anal teachers' insane amount of homework all contributed to giving me no time to write. But now I am on Christmas break, so future parts will be appearing quickly. Enjoy.)


      0611 Hours
      September 29, 2552 (Military Calendar)
      Earth, Sol System

      Sergeant Peterson dived into the sand and clamped his finger down on the trigger. His assault rifle vibrated as it spat out half a clip at everything that moved ahead of him.
      The collection of alien races known as the Covenant have reached Earth. "Move!" he yelled. His squad sprayed bullets at the Covenant and ran forward. There was ten meters between them and the cover Peterson was lying behind. Blue fire screamed through the air and Marines started dropping. Our ships fight them in space, and now they have sent an invasion. Private Ravitz screamed under the combined fire of a dozen Covenant, as plasma melted his armor and burned his skin. He fell to the ground, in absolute agony. Peterson cocked his M6D and shot him in the face. Our countries, our homes, our way of life is being threatened.
      The rest of the squad dived behind the sandbank. Fireballs rammed the sand and sent molten glass flying over them. Fisher yelled, "Cover me!" He sprang to his feet as the ten other Marines filled the air with MA5B bullets, hefting a Jackhammer launcher. It belched twice and Fisher hit the deck. They attack us with superior technology and numbers, because we have been declared unclean by their gods. Twin contrails of smoke followed the rockets as they slammed into the two Shade stationary turrets.
      The first one was flung several meters upwards, spinning end over end, and landed on top of a Jackal. Its gunner screamed as shrapnel from the turret tore holes in its chest. Purple blood drenched the sand. But we will not go quietly into the night. The second snapped off the Shade's barrel, penetrated its metal shell, and tore it apart. "Hit it marines!" Peterson yelled. They rose from the sandbank screaming. Scorano heaved a frag grenade and five Grunts flew into the air. Another Jackal received a large piece of shrapnel in the neck and its head fell to the ground.
      We will not let them destroy us. They will not destroy our wives and our children. Red needles pierced Private Bank's chest, filling it up until he looked like a pincushion. With a roar the needles exploded and blood flew in all directions. All that was left of him was his legs. We will fight them with all that we have, with all that we are, and with all that we hope to become. "You sonsofbitches!!" Scorano screamed and tackled a Jackal. It fired at him from point blank range and melted his chest armor. He jammed his pistol in its mouth and pulled the trigger. Sergeant Peterson picked him up and threw him behind cover, following after him. A charged up plasma bolt hissed through where they had been standing. Most of us believe in a God. I will now say to you, pray to Him that through the fires of our hearts, we overcome our enemies.
      Peterson paused to slap a fresh clip in his assault rifle. He heard weapons fire and yells from the members of his squad. Heat from the plasma weapons had scorched the sand and made the air hard to breathe. The sergeant coughed and peered around the edge of the boulder he was behind. There were too many. More than a dozen red elites and jackals were empting plasma rifles and needlers. Another marine in his squad took a plasma charge to the head. Blood and brain tissue mushroomed onto the sand and his headless body collapsed in a lump. Peterson ran to the cluster of rocks his communications officer was hiding behind, spraying bullets at the Covenant as he did so. The sergeant shouted at him over the whine of bullets and plasma. "Backup! Get us some goddamned backup!"
      Before the Marine could answer the whine of a sniper rifle rang through the air. A red armored Elite collapsed, his lower jaw blown apart. Three more contrails decorated the air and the other Elites fell headless. The Jackals squawked in fear, turned around, and ran with their shields over their heads. But they couldn't escape another salvo of high-caliber rounds that ate through their bodies and snapped their spines. Peterson paused. In less than five seconds the battleground had gone from his men dying around him, explosions numbing his airs, and screams filling the air, to absolute quiet.
      "What the hell?" Fisher said. They looked around. The faint noise of an engine reached their ears. It came from behind them. It was accelerating at high speed towards the squad. A thick reinforced window, tinted green, titanium armor, and thirty-inch wheels. There were two seats in the front, and a large bed in the back with black metal bars forming a canopy for protection. A Troop Warthog.
      But the part of the jeep that caught his attention the most was its passengers. Two tall, armored figures sat in the front. They looked to be seven feet tall, and as alien as the Covenant with reflective visors on their helmets. The one riding shotgun was holding a long-barreled sniper rifle that Peterson had never seen before. "Spartans!?"
      Scorano shook his head. "I thought they went down on Reach. They're all supposed to be dead."
      Sergeant Peterson snorted. "Well those two ghosts just saved our asses, so why don't you be real nice to 'em."
      The warthog rolled to a stop in front of them. "Get in!" the driver yelled. "Firebase Zulu is under attack. We're going to go help them." It was a female voice. They gazed at her visor but could only see their own faces in her blast shield.
      "You heard her Marines," yelled Peterson. "Double-time it!" They piled in. Out of the twelve members that had been in their squad, only six were left. Fisher came in last, with six sets of bloody dog tags in his hand. Private Warner, closest to the back, threw up.

...

      Gaines slowly lowered himself into his chair. "How many ships do we have left?" he asked.
      Lieutenant Miller paused. "Forty-nine ships, including the Desperation. Eight, however, are cruisers." Gaines smiled. Cruisers were the largest warships humanity had ever built. At least, they were, before the Desperation left the shipyards. These eight ships had been left in reserve for the day when the Covenant would find Earth. Somebody high up had some foresight. And now it would cost the Covenant dearly. They had been among the first ships to receive shields and new weapons, and sported five MAC cannons each.
      Far away from Earth, the silver-blue warships of the Covenant slowed to a crawl, then rotated until they faced Earth. "The Covenant fleet is turning around, sir! They're accelerating towards us." said Lieutenant Turner. She bit her lip anxiously.
      Gaines sprang to his feet. "Lieutenant Stronakoff." The muscular blond-haired man that manned the communications console looked at him. "Separate our ships into seven groups, A through G. I want at least one cruiser spearheading each group." He brought up a display of the battleground in front of him. Human ships were blue ovals, and Covenant were red. There was too much red. The computer tallied the remaining Covenant vessels at over two hundred and thirty strong. "Group A move to cover the Cerberus guns. B and C I want defending the orbital MAC platforms. The rest of us, split up and target different ships. We need maneuvering room so we're not sitting ducks for their plasma."
      "Aye aye, sir," answered the German.
      "Cruisers target Covenant destroyers and cruisers. For the rest of us, target the frigates and corvettes. We need to whittle their numbers down. Bring us about course zero zero one four."
      "Aye sir, course zero zero one four." Turner's fingers danced across her keyboard. The Desperation moved forward at a slight angle in relation to the Covenant forces.
      "Find me the biggest Covenant ship out there," he ordered.
      Falstaff paused for a second. "Covenant destroyer God's Judgment has the largest surface area and biggest array of weapons."
      "Engage it. Divert as much power as you need to get our MAC guns charged."
      "Aye sir," said Miller. "MAC guns hot. Capaccitators at 100%."
      "Give me a hundred and seventy percent on our engines. Divert the energy keeping our MACs fully charged and pump it to the reactor."
      Lieutenant Miller nodded and wiped his brow as he typed furiously. "Done. We can hold for five minutes until red line."
      The Desperation shot forward like a rocket. It had to have the speed to dodge any plasma torpedoes launched at it, Gaines knew. The God's Judgment turned slightly and seemed to regard the Desperation for a moment. Then it accelerated towards them, flanked on either side by two corvettes. Hundreds of Seraphim Interceptors poured out from its hangars. A hundred more Longswords moved to meet them.
      It was oddly beautiful, in a way, to watch. The two titans of each side were engaging in their own personal war. The swollen hull of the Covenant destroyer shone with white semi-circles along its side. It looked like an ancient dragon as it moved through space. The two corvettes along side it glowed blue as well. Pulse lasers lanced from the corvettes towards the Desperation, but instead incinerated the single-ship fighters in its path. The human warship rocked as thirty steaming white trails screamed towards the Covenant. Starlight reflected off hundreds of Archer missiles as they followed. The corvettes flashed silver twice and were gutted by the final heavy round, as secondary explosions widened the gaping holes from their prows to sterns. They crackled with flames.
      Plasma torpedoes crossed paths with MAC rounds. Twenty-four heavy rounds sailed towards the God's Judgment's engines but the destroyer shot sideways with a shudder and two-thirds missed. The remaining MACs hit its shields with glancing blows and the shields held. Laser turrets drilled fire at the Archer missiles. A hundred disintegrated into shrapnel, the rest impacted into the silver wall and merely made splashes of color. Gaines cursed. The emergency detour charges on the Desperation's port detonated, sending it spinning crazily to the side. A dozen red torpedoes sailed past. Chaff bullets ate away at their backsides and the plasma disintegrated.
      The rest of the Covenant fleet had crossed the distance to Earth with unbelievable speed. Laser destroyers appeared among the ranks of the Covenant warships. Captain Willis stood at the prow of his destroyer, the Liberty. He gave the order to fire and the Liberty's MAC cannons belched, followed by a hundred Archer missiles. But as they came within spitting distance of the destroyers, the warships vanished with green ripples. "What the hell?" said his navigations officer. Willis began to reply but was promptly silenced as a laser lanced into his engines, overloaded the reactor, and his ship blew apart. The orbital MAC platforms belched out a salvo but only a dozen rounds met their mark.
      The Covenant fleet had engaged the humans with a new ferocity they hadn't shown before. They had integrated themselves into their enemies' ranks and were carving them apart, concentrating all fire onto one ship, then another as their target was destroyed. Covenant ships burst apart too, but for every Covenant ship destroyed, two more human ships died out. "Where the hell are those Cerberus guns!?" screamed Gaines.
      In answer a brilliant explosion lit up the battle field. Blue-white fire tangled everything in its grasp. Fifty Covenant warships vaporized under its fury, and dozens more shattered from the shockwave and sonic boom. The laser destroyers spat in response, and two cruisers' engines were shattered. They sagged and then shuddered as hundreds of plasma missiles ate away at their shields and battle-plate. Explosions carved them apart, and two blackened skeletons drifted down to the Earth, to melt in the atmosphere.

      Fred let out a deep breath and watched as it changed into a cold mist and blew away. The headquarters of UNSC occupied a small valley in the mountains of Switzerland. Millennium-old spires of icy rock groaned up thousands of feet above the Earth. It was completely surrounded by impassable mountains, except for a canyon that was used to transport supplies to the base. Red Team had gotten here early and set up camp. Fred got on a COM channel to the base, requesting all military vehicles and marines from nearby bunkers and the base report to where they would hold the canyon. Now they had set up position two kilometers away from the camp. If the Covenant got through, they would gain access to the prototype weapons and designs for ships humankind was betting its hope on.
      Twenty Scorpion tanks glared down at the canyon from raised hills projecting from the canyon wall. A meter of titanium battleplate protected their bodies from fire. There were thirty anti-infantry Reaper turrets that could spit out fifty plasma-enhanced AP rounds a second, fed by chains from massive drums at their base. Twenty Warthogs sat uneasily behind the titanium sheets they had set up for cover for the Marines. They were all snow-warthogs, with white armor to blend into the snow, traction-heavy treads to grip the frozen ground, and M41 LAAG guns mounted on the back. Three of them would be used by Spartans, however. These had extra armor and a MAC gun in place of the LAAG. Squadrons of Skyhawk fighter jets patrolled the base. They would provide air cover against any Banshees that might show up.
      Fred shouldered his ARP-1 and walked down the canyon. Two hundred Marines stood behind titanium armor sheets. They were the best of the best, ODSTs and Alpine Rangers. They wore insulating jackets and pants under their armor that kept out the immense cold and stood at the ready, with determined eyes. Not one showed any sign of fear. "Corporal!" Fred said.
      "Yes sir?" the man saluted.
      "Make sure there are crates of ammo and grenades stacked behind each armor sheet. Pistol, AR, sniper, and shotgun clips should all be there."
      "Sir!" The Corporal motioned to his men, who unstacked wooden crates from the back of a truck and ran to the cover lines. Fred looked at the walls of the canyon. Pretty steep. They would have to be careful they didn't get boxed in. He couldn't see any snipers on the walls, but they were there, each covered with a snow-camo net that blurred the outline of their bodies. Keira had gone up to a high-vantage point on her ATV with the others half an hour ago. They were ready. Fred's enhanced eyes caught the glint of sunlight off armor far down the canyon. And not a moment too soon. He grabbed a pair of binoculars from a Private and studied the advancing lines.
      "All right Marines!" he shouted. "The Covenant are approaching. Jackals are in the front, Elites right behind. I'm guessing the Grunts and Hunters mass behind them, but I can't get any better a view. Our snipers will take down the Jackals, and you guys fill the holes in their cover with lead. Got it?"
      "Sir, yes sir!" they shouted. Everyone crouched down and inspected their weapons, slapping a clip in and flicking safeties off. Then they waited. Eventually the thump of marching feet could be heard and now the Marines could make out the shapes of the Covenant. There were easily thousands of armor-covered bodies advancing upon them. Contrails filled the air and the first Jackals dropped. The Marines opened fire. MA5B and ARP-1 rounds alike roared down the battlefield and ripped into Covenant flesh. Plasma bursts screamed back in answer and scorched the titanium cover walls.
      The Scorpion tanks boomed and plumes of fire sent bloody energy shields flying high into the air. The first Jackal line was demolished. The Elites roared and sprinted forward. They aimed plasma rifles with perfect precision and Marines starting dropping. The Reaper turrets roared and traced bullets across the field at the Covenant warriors. Shields shattered and armor and flesh tore apart. The last red-armored Elite made it to the wall and Fred jammed the bayonet on his assault rifle into its neck. It fell gurgling with blood that spurted in a purple spray onto his armor.
      Wraith tanks appeared and hovered at either side of the canyon, using rock outcroppings as cover. Silver-blue mortar shells roared high above them and slammed into the ground, blackening the ice. All the mortars missed, but once they found their mark they would keep finding the mark and tear them apart. Fred grabbed two tough-looking ODSTs and motioned towards a Warthog. The sniper got in the seat and the other one manned the MAC gun. The vehicle roared forward at the head of eight other Warthogs. Fred spun the wheel and rode up the slope of the canyon. The sniper fired continually and the Spartan distantly heard Elites moan in agony. They were about fifty feet up now and on the side of the Covenant army. They were far enough. As the slope turned to the left, Fred kept going straight. Two tons of Spartan, marine, and Warthog roared off into space. This would be one hell of a jump if they made it.
      "Aim for a Wraith!" Fred yelled.
      A sizzling mortar shell screamed a meter to port of the Warthog. The sniper plugged the army full of holes. And still it rode forward and down slowly, like an Angel of Death descending upon its victims. A roar from the back of the Warthog turned Fred's head in time to see a red streak slam into the alien tank. MAC rounds could kill starships, let alone tanks. It sliced through the armor like a sword through water and roared out the back. Shrapnel and blood hurled from the wreck as fire erupted from the wreck, engulfing all the Covenant nearby. The Warthog now was only a few meters from the ice, and Fred prayed the shocks would hold. It landed with a crunch on top of a Hunter, crushing its massive body into the ground.
      "Thanks for breaking our fall," the Spartan muttered. He sent the Warthog across the Covenant ranks towards the other Wraiths, throwing bodies of various sizes screaming over their heads. Purple mist drenched them like a rainstorm. "Forecast: expect heavy rain, with light chance of falling bodies," cracked the sniper ODST. Fred grinned underneath his visor.

      James blurred into the room. The two Hunters stood in the corner, the group of Jackals was directly in front of him, and four Elites, two red, stood behind crates. James soared through the air at the first red Elite. With a SKP pistol in each hand he fired two plasma bullets each targeted dead center on the beast's head. With a sizzle it melted and popped, dropping off the body. The Spartan kept going and ran up the wall. Pushing off with his legs he dropped the next Elite's shields with his pistols, tucked into a ball and rolled past his enemy. The Elite had time to roar in anger before the grenade James had dropped exploded, sending its nine foot frame flailing into the ceiling. Two streaks lit up the corner of his eye and the Hunters sprawled to the ground stunned. Several thumps echoed, and the body of a Jackal soared in front of James.
      He grabbed it and broke off the arm, holding up the shield in front of him as the remaining Elites sprayed plasma, slamming into the shield and turning it red. In a couple seconds it would collapse, but James didn't plan on keeping it that long. His combat knife soared into the foremost's Elites mouth. The six inch white-hot blade melted the roof of its mouth, causing its brains to fall into its throat. James sidestepped so that the body was between him and the last Elite. The Spartan depressed the trigger of his remaining pistol twice. The bullets screamed through the hole in the dead Elite's body, ripping a tear in the shields covering the Elite's neck.
      Then he spun again to the right of the falling body and hurled the Jackal's shield with all his might. It sliced through the Elite's neck. James turned and looked at his Marines as both the bodies hit the floor. The Jackals were nothing but a stain on the ground. James slowly walked over to where the Hunter's were struggling to rise. He aimed at the chinks of orange back between the armor plates. Hunter armor was made of the same material that covered Covenant starships. There was no way to get through it. You had to get around it, and UNSC pistols were the only weapons that could pierce the rock-hard sinew and muscle covering the back. They fired .50 caliber bullets, unmatched by any other gun. Even shotgun rounds spread out too much to be effective. His pistols spat once each. Hot orange blood streamed into the air and the Hunters' moaning stopped abruptly.
      James sighed and holstered his guns. He opened his mouth to congratulate the members of his squad but was interrupted by the crackling of the intercom on the wall. "All human and Spartan personnel," the voice said anxiously. "Retreat back to the main control room. Monitors show Covenant activity moving towards the reactor. Repeat, you must engage. This station will not survive if the reactor is destroyed."
      James opened a com link to Chiron, the station AI. "Acknowledged," he said.

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