Six looked back towards the dusty earth in front of him and let a small sigh escape from his mouth. Back to square one. A lone wolf again. The SPARTAN-III turned as the distinctive hums of Covenant dropships drifted through the air. Noble Six. Hyper-lethal. There's only one other SPARTAN with that rating. Halsey had said to him. He had always been somewhat unlucky. That was why he had earned that rating. Always having to fight his way out of delicate situations, leaving nobody in his wake. When he had joined Noble Team, he thought that his luck had finally changed. Now it was coming back for him. Well, if I'm going down, may as well use that 'Hyper-Lethal' rating, he thought, reaching for his DMR.

Pushing in a fresh magazine, he looked through the sights with calm indifference as Elite voices began to sound in the distance, the animalistic gabble that scraped against his nerves. The first Covenant began to appear through the brown dust, and the lone SPARTAN reluctantly shouldered his weapon and tapped his trigger finger lightly on the mechanism. The first aliens to appear were just Grunts and a single Elite Officer. Six centred the scope on the Elite's face, letting loose with five shots.

The DMR barked, and the Elite staggered backwards as at least one bullet penetrated his reptilian skull. The Grunts scattered, and Noble Six walked to the turret, slinging the DMR behind his back and placed both hands on the controls. The machinegun roared to life, cutting down the six frightened aliens. Six's sharp ears, honed from several years of sneaking around massive campsites unnoticed, picked up the metallic shriek of a plasma rifle firing. The SPARTAN spun round, letting his shields absorb the damage and returned fire with the DMR.

The Elite Minor who fired the shots went down in a spurt of blood, and a Major responded with an angry growl and several bursts from a plasma repeated. The SPARTAN ducked as the blue energy fizzled overhead, then kicked the charging Elite in the chest and sprung on top of him, dropping his weapon and pulling out his knife from his shoulder sheath. The Elite howled as the SPARTAN's blade entered its neck and dragged across, and Six dropped dead alien and snatched up his DMR.

More dropships appeared from the mist, and the SPARTAN pulled a MA37 from a dead SPARTAN brother's hands. Putting the gun across his back, he again looked through the scopes of the rifle as the Phantom dropped a squad of Elites and Grunts. The rifle barked again and again in his hands, dropping each and every alien that entered his line of sight.

The Grunts gurgled as their tiny bodies flew backwards with the impact, and the Elite staggered backwards as their shields disappeared in a wink. The rifle depleted, Six sighed and holstered it, reminding himself he would need to grab some magazines from that blue-armoured SPARTAN. Pulling back the spring-activated safety on the ICWS, Six quickly retreated to the raised platform with the turrets, dodging concussion blasts and plasma bolts.

From the safety of higher ground, Six manned one of the turret's taking advantage of its automatic loading system to deliver a storm of fire down at the advancing Covenant force. Soon after, however, the plasma bolts whizzing through the air began to grow in number and increase in accuracy, and Six tore the turret out of its tripod, grunting under the weight as he retreated and waited for his shields to recharge. Banshees swooped in firing their plasma cannons at him.

Six opened fire with the turret, downing two of the aircraft, then threw himself aside as a fuel rod hit the ground with a green explosion. The buzzer in his suit activated with a high-pitched whine, and the SPARTAN swore half-heartedly as he sprinted away towards an open pack, containing a UNSC shield over-booster. Sliding to a halt beside the pack, he quickly disabled the locks keeping the armour safety lock bypass unit and pressed the shield booster onto his back, clicking the magnetic seals over them.

He was now much closer to the Covenant than he would have liked, and Six opened fire with the assault rifle, gunning down two Elite Generals and again running away from the rest-only to meet another two Banshees swooping down on him from above. The SPARTAN increased his speed, hammering against the armour safety locks that stopped him from accelerating.

The fuel rod cannons fired with twin burps, and Six, activated the booster with a verbal command, punching into the ground like had had been trained to so many times. The over-booster worked like a charm, and Six's shields thrummed up as his generator accelerated to near invincible power. The twin green shots hit the SPARTAN, and as the mists dissipated, the SPARTAN, shaken but unharmed, disengaged his shield booster and again ran.

A Wraith shimmered into view, and Six swore again as the Banshees circled round for another go. He shied away from the Wraith's very accurate ranging shot and hurled himself into the air as the Banshees attacked with their plasma cannons. With blue bolts hissing over his shields and into the ground, Six glanced behind him, saw the green flash of the cannons, and activated the booster.

Again the generator spun up, and the bolts hit him to no avail. Six chuckled quietly as he disengaged with a blue explosion of excess energy. The SPARTAN looked up. "Aw, crap." The Wraith's plasma bomb landed a metre away from Six, sending the SPARTAN spinning across the ground. The soldier's HUD blinked- his health was at a hazardous level. He didn't need the warning. His chest was in pain- he had probably lost some ribs as he skidded across the rock.

The SPARTAN tried to stand up, but found that his arms were weak and wobbly. His chest still seared. The HUD blinked again. The medical system wasn't working-it had probably been damaged beyond repair. Six sighed, and through sheer willpower, pushed himself up and into a sitting position. He saw the MA37, over six metres away, mangled. Noble Six looked up at the Elite Major standing over him, energy sword in hand and ready to plunge.

The sword arced through the air-then stopped as Six grabbed the Elite's hand. The tips of the sword blazed a few millimetres above his shields, sucking out what little life they had managed to scrape together. Six twisted-hard, producing several cracks from the Elite's bones and making it drop the sword. He shoved the reptile away and snatched the sword, then staggered up and on his feet.

Gripping the weapon in his hand, he faced the seven full-sized Covenant squads charging at him. Six got through the first of the enemies with ease- the childishly foolish, overconfident Elite Minors. His sword cut smoothly through their bodies with bold slashes, and Six's heart-rate doubled as his senses were pushed up to a near inhuman level because of the amount of adrenaline rushing through his blood.

Six parried an energy sword with his own, driving his fist into the Elite's chest, then swiped a reptile's legs from under him with a well-aimed kick. The sword ran out of charge with a dull flash, and Six kicked another one out from an Elite Zealot's hands, killing the animal with elbow to the face.

More Elites closed in, plasma and energy firing everywhere. It was then Six realised what he had thrown himself into. He started the over-booster's command, but his breath was taken away from his as an immensely strong arm wrapped around his body. A concussion blast blew his shields away, but also the Elite General holding him. Six shook the fuzz from his head as he dropped to the floor. Plasma fire hit his body, worming into his armour with growing heat to eventually attack his weak body within.

A luck purple-pink needler round streaked through the air, and Noble Six barely registered it before his wounded hand snapped up to meet it, his fingers curling around the deadly crystal as its tip pierced his visor with a crack. Six tore it out, widening the broken glass splinters and stabbing it into an Elite Officer about to stab him from behind.

Six kicked the Elite's body away as the needle exploded, severely wounding the reptile's arm. The SPARTAN was surrounded on all sides by Covenant, and all he could do was stand in the middle of the net and absorb the damage. The soldier hissed with pain as the first plasma breached his brown-grey armour and burned his skin. The SPARTAN's visor fractured as a concussion rifle shot tossed him a metre into the air. Six cried out as a shard of plasta-glass imbedded itself in his forehead, sending a stream of blood into his left eye.

Blinking the red liquid from his vision, he threw the helmet onto the dirt and pulled out the bloody shard from his eye, wincing as fresh blood dribbled out of the wound. He spied a MA37 and M6D on the ground. Six picked them up, shielding his head with his armoured hand and opened fire with the rifle, killing an Ultra charging at him. The SPARTAN blinked in surprise as a General uncloaked from behind him and attacked with an energy sword. Six wrapped an arm around the reptile's neck like they were old buddies, then hurled it to the floor, drawing his pistol and firing a single shot into its head as its shields died.

A storm of plasma hit Six out of nowhere. He found it funny that he hadn't heard it coming, then he realised his vision was cloudy, sounds fading away. The SPARTAN fired off the rest of his magazine at another Ultra, killing it and emptied his assault rifle into the body of an Officer. An Ultra smashed the back of Six's head, and the SPARTAN's vision exploded out in stars. He fell to the ground and turned to face his attack, highlighted against the sickly orange mist.

Noble Six kicked the Ultra away, sending it sliding towards the helmet. He swiped at a Zealot approaching, dropping its energy sword. The Ultra retrieved its plasma repeater and came back at him. His mind swam with some many potential targets. Six's vision started to swim out again as an alien leaped on top of him, preparing to attack.

With the last of his failing strength, Six smashed his right elbow into the Elite's jaw, again stopping the inevitable. The Zealot appeared out of the edges of his greying line of sight, activating a small energy sword… what was it called again? Ah, that's right, an energy dagger thought Six, then shook himself back to reality, wondering why he thinking about something like that when the Zealot plunged the glowing energy into his chest.

SPARTAN-B312 felt the impact of the dagger as it broke through his damaged armour and into his chest, but he did not feel any pain. Blood dribbled out, and the last thing Noble Six saw was the Zealot lifting his hand up high in victory before his vision faded into darkness.

The world shimmered back into focus. Well, it was better than darkness. Six tried to look around, but his eyes would only swivel helplessly in their sockets. Blood still dripping into his left eye. Six concentrated. He was still alive. The Zealot stood above him, crowing and raising its fists in victory. It held a energy sword in its hands. Six realised that this Elite was going to finish him off.

His eyes rolled downwards. There was one last weapon he had, still strapped innocently to his belt. The SPARTAN dredged some strength out of his body and into his limbs, dragging his arm slowly across the dry and dusty soil and brushing his fingers against the fragmentation grenade.

The Elite snorted with surprise as SPARTAN-B312 lifted his arm unsteadily into the air like a show of defiance. In it was firmly grasped the unpinned grenade. And at last, Noble Six smiled.