"Any units from Dash Two-Two check in."

I keyed my internally mounted microphone and spoke, "This is Dash Two-Two-Five, checking in."

"Dash Two-Two-Eight checking in."

"Dash Two-Two Ten checking in."

"Anybody else? No? Does anybody know what happened to the others?"

"Covenant. They had Hunters. The captain's dead, the others probably are as well."

"Okay. Standby til we triangulate your position. Disco Eight-Eight-Four offline."

The Pelican pilot went off the air with a harsh squeal of static, and then all was silent expect for the wind playing eerily through the abandoned city. I pulled out my SRS99 sniper rifle and lined it down the wide road. Patrols were now exploring this city and attempting to root out any remaining UNSC forces still there in this area. I didn't know if the evacuations from other cities had made it, but at least Manassas had its citizens out in time.

In the distance, the sky flashed purple and red as the Covenant ships began to glass the surface once more. I was so distracted by the bright blue beams of light lancing across the earth that I almost missed the line of aliens prowling down the streets. They were led by a tall, hunch-backed reptilian in red armour- Elite. The huge alien turned around to the smaller, trembling creatures behind it and snarled a command. The methane-breathing Grunts silently went about the task of searching the bodies of the dead UNSC Marines scattered on the street while the Elite pulled a dead body out of a gutted Scorpion tank. Obviously they were looking for something.

Well, I wasn't going to let them have it. I snapped the customised tripod I had installed on the barrel of the rifle to a ready position and lay prone to get a steady shot. I pushed the safety lever up to the 'off' position and took aim. Through the scope, I saw the Elite make a neat incision in the driver's hand with a claw and insert two of its fingers into the dead man's arm. It fished around in there for a while and extracted a microchip- the information chip that all Marines had on their bodies to identify themselves.

I took the shot. The rifle barked dryly and a 14.5X114mm shell sped across the street, shedding its gel stabilisation coating in a visible white trail. The bullet hit the Covenant in the back of its head, shattering its spine and continuing out through its chest before hitting the asphalt and ricocheting off into the darkness. The grunts panicked and fled- probably leaving no one in the street but me. I took a sharp piece of concrete from the shattered roof of the building I sat in and made another scratch on the armour covering my left shoulder. That made it seven altogether.

I didn't notice the distortion in the air behind me until the Elite decloaked and grabbed my head. I was lifted into the air, the alien's claws closing easily around my helmet. The Elite spun me around and for the first time I could see its armour- blue. Obviously this was a rookie- going for a macho, more stylish kill. Fool. Should have taken me down with a slitting or the throat.

The reptilian animal roared in my face. I refocused my mind and remembered that Elite and human anatomy were relatively the same. I kicked the alien in the crotch, praying that the sergeant had been right. He had. The Elite howled in pain and dropped me. I rolled to my feet, dropping my rifle and pulling out my M6D from my thigh holster. The Elite looked up and lifted his armoured hand in defence as I fired shot after shot into his shields. No effect. The monster roared and slapped my sidearm aside. I winced in pain and clutched my wrist- then started in surprised as the alien charged at me.

Plasma melted into my chest plate as I rolled under, between his legs and stood up behind him. The Elite had to pause to turn around, and that bought me enough time to draw my combat knife and lunge forward. The Elite dropped its gun and drew a shining energy blade as I swung. Now this is the problem about the Covenant. They design all their weapons pretty, but in the end, it just lets them down.

I scrambled to my feet for the second time as the Elite clutched it's forehead in surprise. I had embedded my knife in his head through the gap of the twin bladed sword. Already mortally wounded, the Elite was prepared to kill me for sake of honour. Not going to happen. I head-butted him in the chest as he raised his sword and as he recoiled backwards a few steps, I kicked him again and sent in plummeting three storeys off the building.

The Covenant hit the street with a crunch and lay still. I picked up my weapons, made another scratch on my armour and went down to get my knife. "Disco Eight-Eight-Four to Dash Two-Two- Five, lucky, mate, real lucky."

A green UH-114 Falcon landed conveniently on the bodies of the dead Elites. "No, not lucky… Just skills." I answered, and boarded.

"Well, well, look who's the badass Elite-killing samurai ninja today?" rasped Dash Two-Two-Eight, more commonly referred to as Adam Morales. He was a fellow ODST in my squad, recently devastated by the appearance of Covenant Hunters and an Elite Squad. Hailing from Mars, he was of Central American origin and prided himself on his endless knowledge of demolition and formulae for maximum destruction with minimum explosives. I could see his ever present squeeze-bottle of Coke and a few scraps of paper and a grease pencil squashed in his pocket. If you could remove his helmet you would be looking into a fierce war-worn face with a rough unshaven jaw and steely grey-blue eyes, with naturally silvery hair that hung messily in tufts all over his forehead.

Dash Two-Ten was sitting against the wall of the chopper as we whizzed through the city fiddling with his M392 DMR. He was relatively new to the team- what was left of it anyway, and possessed a silent but commanding aura around him that could easily sway a commander to another decision. I wasn't really sure what he looked like- every time we landed, he would disappear into who-knows-where. At training, he'd always be in partial uniform.

What I could remember from the pictures during his transfer was a ghostly pale face with jet black hair and almost luminous green eyes, and the words 'Harris' somewhere.

The Falcon swooped past the city boundary and into the open plains of Reach. Morales removed his helmet and leaned out the open body of the helicopter and let his messy hair stream out against the roaring wind. He withdrew it quickly when a huge light beam lanced down from a Covenant cruiser and impacted on the ground with a blinding flash of light and a giant ripple of pyroclastic energy. The pilot took the Falcon higher, and pushed the throttles forward to get away from the burning plasma. Morales flashed the finger at the cruiser, then settled back in his seat. I turned my back to the destruction and looked ahead as we ballooned over a ridge to reveal a huge base filled to the brink with citizens waiting patiently to board Pelicans that would take them to an UNSC Carrier leaving the planet and travelling to the moon of Earth.

I went forward to the pilot's cockpit and asked, "Where are we going?"

"Outpost 009-02. We're getting every last citizen off this planet, so you're going to be part of the UNSC's last stand on this planet along with the SPARTAN-IIIs. You'll be leaving on the last two hundred Pelicans out of here."

We flew into red sunset, leaving behind the impending nuclear winter brought on by the plasma beams throwing ash and soot into the air. In another twenty minutes, we reached the base.

"This is Disco Eight-Eight-Four to Tower, holding in position three above base, requesting permission to land."

"This is Tower to Disco, cleared in after Prowler Flight. Head bearing three-three four and move to pad 17."

After a squadron of Sparrowhawks had landed on a nearby pad, the pilot took the Falcon in and gently nudged it to a stop on the hard black asphalt. "Alright, this is our stop, I've got another squad to pick up. Yeesh. Disco Eight-Eight-Four, requesting takeoff clearance…"

I dismounted and looked around. Waiting for us was a M381 Warthog with a Marine Driver. "Where are we going?" asked Morales as we sped through the bustling base. "Briefing. Colonel wants you in right now."

The car screeched to a halt, knocking over a stack of crates. We quickly dismounted and walked into the large building. It was inevitably a mixture of green marine metal and pig-iron grey concrete. We stashed our weapons in a provided armoury and followed a nervous looking marine to a briefing hall filled with ODSTs, pilots and Marines.

"Gentlemen, I'm Colonel Hood." said a man. "Take a seat." he motioned towards a group of chairs that sat against a rectangular table. He was around sixty and had greyish hair that was just beginning to recede from his forehead, and had stress marks all over his face. "As you know, we're getting everyone of this city as soon as we can, then using any ships left to get you out. The SPARTAN-II and IIIs will be staying here to help."

A combined whisper and shudder ran through the entire collection of soldiers. SPARTANS were among the legends of the UNSC. I had heard rumours that one of them could take out an entire Elite and Hunter Patrol on their own, and could flip over tanks with their bare armoured hands. "The entire UNSC arsenal stationed on Reach will engage the Covenant landing force on the ground, while the flagship UNSC Trafalgar and its fleetwill begin offensive operations against the Covenant forces currently glassing Reach.

"They will attempt to disrupt the glassing process and buy us enough time to advance back to Manassas, and from there establish a perimeter and push the Covenant front backwards. It's not going to be an easy fight, men. We've got a huge technological disadvantage, but if we hold strong, we will get those people off this planet, without getting our butts glassed in the process. Now, to battle movements…"

The Colonel drew up a decent flanking move, which trapped the Covenant in between two armoured divisions and gave us decent air and low-orbit support. "Well then, any questions?'

Someone raised his hand. "What is it, corporal?"

"Shouldn't the SPARTANS get off Reach first?"

"No. They're staying with us. After everyone is evacuated, they're going Kilo Three to launch a surprise attack maybe a few months later."

Kilo Three meant undercover in military terms. "If I may ask sir," I began. "Where exactly are they hiding?"

"CASTLE." replied the man. This Hood guy was either being a complete jerk, making a joke out of me, or he had just let us in on the biggest secret of our lives. CASTLE was rumoured to have been an underground research and experimental weapons facility which was somewhere under a classified landmark. If there was one place the Covenant couldn't find, it was there. "No more questions? Good. We deploy in three days."

That explained the increased speed and rush of the base. The man dismissed us with a wave, then immediately began arguing with someone over the intercom about Scorpion fuel supplies. We shuffled back to our dorm and basically stodged around in memory of our squad until 0020 hours. It was a family thing- whenever someone died; we would sit in our dorm doing absolutely nothing for around three hours in honour. After that, Harris went and added their names to the KIA list, confirming their dead status on the base computer.

We slept late into the next day, and received our new squad information. Dash Team was to be absorbed into SMS Skull Four 'Rodeo' Team, a group which had lost five members the day before yesterday. We dumped our gear in our new dorms and met the five squad members, nobody important yet. The rest of that day was spent emptying clips on the shooting range, hauling plastic cartons of diesel fuel for the Scorps and 'Hogs, or loading weapons into drop pods.

As we woke up aching from the exertion of yesterday, I realised this would be the first time I had participated in an operation with more than ten people. I asked Rodeo One-One, the Team captain who went by the name of John Cutter about it. Cutter was a scrawny but strong man who had a long heritage of large scale battles fought by the UNSC on Harvest and other outer colonies. He had piercing blue eyes and tousled blonde hair that refused to stay down. In the morning I would always see him frantically trying to keep it under control for parade.

"Well," he mused, "it's not that different from the operations you've been in. Strategic Military Services has lots of experience with these kind things. You basically follow me, and I follow an SMS commander. It's not that difficult." he looked around, then pointed to a young woman named Serena Grants with long blonde-brown hair that ran across her right eye polishing a handgun. "You specialise in sniper rifles, right? Stick with Skull Four-Three. She'll show you the SMS standard. In battle, you learn from this man." Cutter waved lazily at a guy sleeping on a bunk. "See that scar? He got it from single-handedly taking out two Hunters by himself." The man had a scar that started from his right cheek and snaked its way down into his shirt. "You should have seen him. Nimble as a squirrel. He ran straight up the monster's arm as it tried to swat him, then jumped around the back and killed it by empting his shotgun into its back. Naturally the other brute was pissed off, and as it tried to kill him he danced round the back, straight into the spikes. That didn't stop him, however. He picked up a plasma 'nade off the ground and stuck it right into the thing's chest. We call him Skull Four-Two. Name's Jasper Grafton."

I made metal notes of the two and spent the rest of the day rolling barrels of engine lube down a slope with Morales and Harris. The base's roads were filled to the brim with Scorpion tanks and Warthogs ready to go. Lines of weapons filled the hallways, and everyone was tense. As I went through to Cafeteria 4, I noticed that the people that were usually in the room loading machine guns weren't there. They had finished. I ate alone, and went out to the range.

Serena was there, emptying her S2 AM Rifle into a bullet riddled cut-out. "Hi." she said simply as I took aim. "Hey." I replied, firing my customized model. A neat hole appeared in the head of the figure. "Where did you get that tripod?" she asked as I manually ejected the spent casing. "And why the manual?"

"I modified a camera tripod," I replied, "and I like the manual because I can change barrels for different shells, like this." I pressed a button near the top the scope, and pulled the long barrel out. With my left hand while I was doing that, I extracted a smaller, stubby barrel and a clip of ammunition from my belt. I snapped the new barrel into place and the clip into the holder. "What's in this one?" she asked with genuine interest. "Machine gun rounds. I think I'll be using this for tomorrow." I pulled off the magnetic scope and left plain iron sights. "Don't need much aim for this one." I said, and emptied my clip, a hundred bullets, into the target. "Do you have any more?" she asked, firing a shot.

"This one. I pulled off the machine gun and pulled out a thick rod. I inserted it into the weapon and hit a button on the side. A barrel nearly a metre in length telescoped out of the rod. "This one is my favourite." I told her. I slapped a clip into place and my scope, then fired a shot. The cut-out disappeared in a puff of smoke. 30mm cannon shell, I explained. "Ah." she said, then thought for a moment. "But I don't think you can beat me."

"Pfft. A one hit kill every time and a six round magazine with a reloading rate of two seconds?" I asked.

"We shall see." she said, her one visible green eye sparkling, then got up and pressed for a competition shoot out on the computer. She hurried to her range while I pressed my eye into the scope. A countdown started, from ten, and I readied my finger on the trigger. The timer hit zero, and targets began to scroll, up down, left and right. I fired a 30mm shell straight into the ground next to a target. First point to me.

Skull Four-Three fired next as I pushed the shell out of the gun and pulled the handle as fast as I could. I fired again, hitting the target smack in the face. Add 1.5 multiplier. I pulled the handle again and fired. Multiplier now 2. Skull Four-Three fired her remaining three shots in rapid succession, and her score jumped. I managed to get another three shots off while she reloaded. My score took the lead. Then I fired my last shot and watched in horror as my shell went too high, deleting my multiplier and allowing my opponent to take the lead. I pulled the magazine from its holder and slammed a new one home. Four targets scrolled across the range. I fired one shot in the middle of them, and killed two, damaged two. The multiplier jumped to five for a double kill. Four-Three fired again, and suddenly the round ended. We reached out one minute schedule. I slung my rifle and went to look at the score. She had managed to get off all four shots while I reloaded, and thus took a running lead, only for me to make a last second clutch with my five times multiplier.

She had beaten me by a single shot. "Nice try," she said, punching me in the shoulder and strolling off. I look around at the applauding crowd, and secretly thanked that I had my helmet on and it was set to combat stance, with the visor shaded over. I ate dinner at the cafeteria with the rest of the Skull Four unit, and we all shook hands and wished each other luck. I couldn't sleep with all the machinery whining around the base.