Thanks so much for stopping by and reading this novel/novella I'm working on! I'd love to hear from you all! I will try to have new chapters up every 1-3 or so weeks if my schedule permits. I'm still actively working on this, so here's hoping that's even possible!

-Kobold

Chapter 1: Prologue Planetside

1350 Hours, June 19, 2545 (Military Calendar)/ Biller Pavonis System, Covenant Controlled Space

Annalee cycled through her rangefinder in quick succession. Each click of the triangulation widget pointed out the NAV points she had tacked onto the ever growing list of notable features: teams of Grunts and Jackals that littered the red, dirt trail leading to the Covenant relay; support structures, common paths and patrol locations; dead-zones and gathering areas. She studied and observed them all, as she had done dozens of times before. Any change she noted, any deviance was checked, and every alternative considered. After all, this was it. This was what she was to do. This is what she was made for.

After spending the last week crawling through conduits, stowing away in crates, clambering up rocks, and bounding over fissures, she had finally managed to ghost her way up the mountain trail to the Covenant Citadel—she hoped she was close enough. After carefully scouting the surrounding area, a rock overhang caught her eye, and that's where she went. It's vista of the area was subtle, but perfect: a prominent panoramic view of the trail, Citadel, and the staging camp which surrounded it all. It was perfect for what she needed. Now, days after finding the overhang, it had become her refuge from the hostile buzzing army surrounding her. And not just that, it had proven to be the perfect crows nest to plan her endgame.

Admittedly, her own situation was hardly as perfect.

Annalee slowly brought the rangefinder to her side. Softly, and quietly, a mag-mount secured it to her armor with a metallic click. She paused, staying still to make sure that she hadn't garnered any unwanted attention from her friends below her—there was no need to test the senses of the few dozen Jackals in such close proximity.

As she was, she knew she couldn't take on all of the Covenant forces in the region—STARS electronic intelligence had estimated its strength at upwards of ten-thousand strong. Since the initial UNSC attack on the Citadel's support structures, Covenant forces had been arriving for several days to reinforce the Citadel, obviously, fearing any more damage from stragglers such as herself. Maybe, even, they knew she was still alive? Unlikely, she considered. She had estimated at least a third of the regional battalions were now there: more than what was needed to defend themselves from a single person. It seemed their intelligence collection was as lacking as hers; they were genuinely surprised the Spartans had been here and feared they might attack again. Annalee considered another option, and then stowed it away. She had seen a lot of evidence to the contrary and now was hardly the time to bolster false hopes.

As far as she was aware, she was the last surviving unit on the ground. Being that she was deep in Covenant controlled space, contacting the Prowler ship, Boudica, ran a high risk of alerting Covenant vessels of their location without any real chance of getting extracted. One slip-up in communications and she wouldn't see the strike coming; she would be ash and glass before she knew she was in danger. Not to forget , either, that this scenario banked on the Boudica's crew holding onto the slim chance Spartans could even still contact them. The thought made her wince.

Assuming she was the last alive to complete the mission, she remained painfully silent—there wasn't any need for a pointless death now. Any sacrifice she would make, including her own life, would have meaning if she had any say in the matter. But, without the proper tools and manpower to complete the original mission parameters, she would improvise: sabotage what she could, and hope it silenced the monstrous communications relay that stood before her. It was the best she could manage.

Finally satiated with what she had observed, Annalee slowly eased her way back beneath the overhang. As she reached the narrow rear of the outcrop, obscured from outside vision, she sat upright and stretched her arms and neck. As the seal of her helmet hissed softly and she lifted it off, she took a deep breath and her vision steadied. She had been managing her breathing for hours to avoid moving as much as possible—to breathe normally was a welcome change. Regardless, the small respite was still a break from the anxiety of it all. She allowed her mind to wander for a moment as her muscles let the tension of the moment pour off.

It was curious to Annalee that the moon had a breathable oxygen content and she had begun to wonder if the Covenant had managed this through terraforming. Though, after a minute of breathing particularly sulfuric air, the novelty of the thought wore off and she returned to the properly saturated atmosphere of her helmet. Were this anywhere else, she admitted quietly to herself, her oxygen scrubbers would have been unable to keep her air from becoming toxic after only a few hours. But, graciously, the fates had been repeatedly on her side—the air system had been able to collect more than enough ambient, oxygenated atmosphere to keep her breathing. She had to count her blessings at this point.

Counting. She sat cross-legged and began her ritual.

The back of the overhang had become her "armory". She had propped her remaining weapons up against the rock face, and her ammo and pouches laid flat across the ground. First, she studied her reconnoitered Covenant Carbine. As she turned over the alien-purple rifle to check for dust and gashes, the strange yet familiar design stirred now what seemed to Annalee like a long, distant memory. It could have been months at most, tough, since it had happened.

Her squad commander, Joel, had snatched a Carbine off a Jackal during a recon mission and it had proven to be quite handy over the duration— distractions, misdirections, direct-fire: a "friendly" weapon could cause quite the show in the wrong hands. Afterwards, when their team had a moment to reflect, Joel and Annalee took turns drilling the rest of Team Golf the ins and outs of the weapon. But Joel, ever the marksman, had flourished with it like any sharpshooter would—Annalee was really there to make sure he didn't forget the small details. She knew, were he here, he would have been the perfect soldier to wield it. Annalee fought off a shudder and kept on with her inventory—she would have to make due on her own.

To say the least, her ammo situation for that weapon was solid: she had taken more than enough of it's cylindrical power packs for a squad of trigger-happy Jackals. For what skill Joel would have had on her, she would make up for it with more ammo; she was good enough. The issue, ultimately, was that the Carbine was far from a suppressed weapon. One shot would alert every Covenant unit along the trail and hillside as it's hissing thump echoed off each stone for a kilometer. She decided she would take it with her, but swore to use it only if things went haywire.

The remainder of her weapons were much more underwhelming: an assault rifle which had had it's ammo counter blown off by a plasma bolt, a combat knife, and her standard suppressed sidearm. She had only one extra magazine for her pistol, and the assault rifle was now down to twenty rounds. Worse, though, the firing mechanism on the rifle had deteriorated and often required that every few rounds be racked by the bolt due to the plasma damage—she decided it was no longer useful, much to her chagrin. She would have to make do with her pistol and combat knife.

Last, she checked the belted ammo pouch. From the first pouch, she fished out her two remaining snack cakes. If miracles existed, Annalee considered that it was a miracle she had any food at all. Seeing as the mission hadn't been designed to last longer than a day, virtually none of the squads had prepped any. She happened upon the cakes accidentally and had been rationing them ever since. They had helped, at least a little bit, over the last few days when hunger had really started to set in. Augmentations or not: Spartans needed food, and she felt indebted to Ahmed for having brought enough for her entire squad. When she had grabbed the ammo belt off his corpse, she hadn't known, or cared they were there. Now, though, the cakes were immeasurably important to her survival. She imagined he had envisioned doling them out when they were no longer planetside. At that moment, she wished he were still there. His outlook had always been positive, and she knew she was in need of a bit more of that. She had found herself in a dark place more than once in the last few days.

The last of his pouches were empty. She set the belt back down.

Sparse loadouts were not foreign to her, but often in those situations she had her squadmates to rely on. Now she was alone, hungry, and outgunned. She had trouble imagining what she could really hope to accomplish on her own. She wasn't convinced of much at all, really. But, considering the amount of Spartans—her friends—who had died to get her this far, she felt it her duty to see things through. Their faces danced along as playback in her thoughts and their final moments cut into her memory like a hot razor. This could have never been what she imagined the revenge promised to her would be like. The Covenant had already taken so much, and now it seemed they had taken even more. It wasn't fair.

She sat at the back of the overhang, and rested against the stone. She set a timer for an hour, then set her motion tracker to wake her if it detected anything that wandered too close to her position. Sleep was almost unheard of considering her surroundings, but, again, she was still human. Maybe too human, she derided herself. A Spartan might have been able to stick this out, but she couldn't. She would force herself to sleep, if need be—she needed the rest. She closed her eyes, and let her helmet slowly drown the cacophony of alien tongues, clattering of equipment, and ever present hum of pulsing plasma energy from her ears.

She gripped her pistol tight, and nodded off. For a short while, she was at ease.