BOOK ONE
–Raw Steele–

RECOMMENDED SONG: Diary of Jane by Breaking Benjamin

Alex Steele opened his eyes to a doomed universe.

Somewhere, through the distant corridors of whatever ship or station he was on-

(the hiss of filtered oxygen)

(the incredibly subtle distinction between real and artificial gravity pulling on his bones)

(the telltale shuddering of an entire superstructure under attack)

-something exploded. Alex caught movement to his immediate right as his brain came back online, feeding him a sensory overload of information.

"Finally, you're up."

He twisted his head to the right and spied a grizzled face staring at a readout built into the table he was laying on. Infirmary. He was in an infirmary. Another explosion, and somewhere he heard the rattle of assault rifle fire, then the distinctive pulsing of a plasma rifle returning fire. His heart rate spiked. Wherever he'd been brought to, they'd obviously also brought the war with them. A bad situation to wake up to.

"Where am I?" Alex asked, then coughed, his throat dry.

"The Pillar of Autumn," the man, a Marine, grunted. He tapped something on the readout, his frown deepening.

Alex sat up, then groaned. Hot fire flooded his guts and a pulse of bright white pain ripped through his brittle skull. "Where's my armor? I need to get back to Reach," he managed, closing his eyes and willing the pain away.

The Marine offered a bark of disillusioned, bitter laughter. "Reach is gone, son."

Alex's eyes snapped open. "What?"

"Covenant glassed it to hell and back. We're long past Reach." He grunted suddenly and turned away. Alex heard rummaging.

"What day is it?" he asked.

"September nineteenth."

Alex felt true fear stab at him. Three weeks? He had been unconscious for damn near three weeks!? He knew the damage had been bad, he was almost positive he'd die from his wounds, but still…

"Here." The Marine returned, holding a syringe of cloudy liquid. He held it up to the light, squinted at it, flicked the glass cylinder a few times, then pressed in the plunger a few centimeters. A bit of the liquid squirted out the top. "No time to swab," he muttered, and stuck Alex in the arm. He watched the liquid disappear into his bloodstream.

"What's happening? Where are we?" he asked. It dawned on him that it was not a medic waking him up. In fact, he looked around the infirmary he was in: there was no one here but the two of them. He heard the chattering of an MA5B once more, much closer this time, then the pulsing whine of a plasma rifle, also much closer.

Someone screamed.

"Damn," the Marine growled. "No idea where we are, we've been on the run. Covenant finally caught up. I saw there was an ODST laid up here, we need you on your feet, Private Steele. You aren't exactly up to mil-spec, but we need every available body right now."

Alex almost corrected him, but on the heels of this thought came a memory: his demotion. And on the heels of that came the assertion of conviction: It was still worth it. He began to ask another question, but the door across the room chimed and slid open. Both men turned to stare at it, the Marine's hand falling to the butt of his M6D in its hip holster. That same cold stab of fear returned, much more powerfully this time, as he saw an Elite sheathed in shiny blue armor step into the room. It held a plasma rifle.

It raised the plasma rifle.

The Marine shoved Alex off the table and screamed as he pulled his pistol out, drew a bead on the big alien warrior, and opened fire. Alex's ears rang as the pistol started pounding out explosive rounds. Sounds came to him as he scrambled into a better position, crouching and putting his back to the examination table he'd been resting on. Sounds came to him as he cycled through a list of potential responses to this rapidly developing situation. His hands kept wanting to go for his hip or next to his ribs, where his weapons would normally be, but he was completely unarmed. Not even a goddamned combat knife to his name!

The Elite roared.

The Marine shouted.

The pistol barked.

The whine of a plasma rifle sounded, the Marine screamed, and then the thump of a body hitting the deckplates. Alex whirled and stood and scanned the area as two facts came to him: it was useless to go for the pistol because he'd heard every last shot fired out of it, the Elite was vulnerable because he could see the telltale sparkling of an overwhelmed shield and the white haze of an overheated plasma weapon.

He had precious little time to act on this.

Alex's gaze zeroed on a table halfway in between him and the Elite, which was eyeing him with intense malevolence. Steel glinted in the bright white lights of the medbay. His gaze flicked to the Elite, locked briefly with its eyes, and he saw nothing but hatred and merciless liquid black. Time to move. He sprinted forward, vaulted over the examination table, stuck the landing but damn near fell as his legs went wobbly underneath him, his muscles protesting. He stumbled forward, hurled himself up onto the next table with the glinting silver medical tools, and snatched up the scalpel he'd spied. The Elite was coming for him, roaring.

Had to do this just right…

Alex threw himself forward at the big, eight-foot bastard and drove the tip of the razor-sharp blade directly into one of its eyes. The Elite roared and stumbled backwards, dropping its rifle. It began screaming in a deep, guttural voice, grabbing for him. Alex ducked, dodged, then stepped forward and palmed the scalpel hard, shoving it deeper into whatever served the alien monster as brains. That did it. The Elite froze up like a statue, spasmed twice, then toppled over with a resounding metal clack as its armored body smashed to the deckplates.

Alex stood there over his fresh kill, breathing heavily, trembling.

Bad sign. It wasn't just adrenaline that had him shaking. He'd been comatose for three weeks. Even with all the medical marvels they'd (hopefully) had him hooked up to to help with muscle atrophy, he'd still be off his game. As it was, he felt like he was walking around with his head floating three feet above his body. Like a cloud had taken up residence in his mind. He shook his head to try and clear it, but that just hurt.

Alex focused on the pain. Too much would overwhelm him, but just enough would give him an anchor. Which he needed badly right now, judging from the state of things. Whatever was happening, wherever he was, whoever might be around, he was clearly in danger.

"Okay, okay, get your crap together," he whispered to himself as he looked around the infirmary. His eyes fell briefly to the Marine who had saved his life. He'd never even learned the man's name. He strode over and knelt.

"Thank you," he said quietly as he began patting the dead man down for supplies.

Apparently, he'd been in pretty dire straits, because all he had on him was that M6D and one spare magazine of ammo. Alex grabbed it and reloaded it with an automated proficiency, an action he had performed probably over two thousand times so far. He unhooked the holster on the man's belt, then frowned, looking down at himself. All he had on was a basic hospital gown. First thing was first: he needed a proper uniform.

Alex began hunting quickly through the infirmary, which looked like it had been hastily abandoned. He absently found a rag and wiped his hand off, as some of the Elite's purplish blood had splattered on his palm during the skirmish. It stank. He vaguely recognized the name Pillar of Autumn. It had been among the comm chatter near the end there, he was almost positive, and he had the inclination it was a military vessel. Which meant this was a military infirmary. While pulling on some Marine fatigues wasn't exactly what he had in mind, he'd settle for them, because he was a pragmatic man at his core, and he very much doubted they had ODST standard-issue uniforms just laying around. Sure enough, he found some fatigues a moment later.

Stripping off the hospital gown, he hastily pulled on the uniform. He winced as he worked. His stomach wound was healed, (he had a new scar to go with that one, he could see), but the pain was still there. His head was in a bitch of a state, too.

Did he have brain damage?

He started rattling off facts about himself for peace of mind as he dressed. "Corp-" he sighed. "Private Alex Steele. Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. Born June seventeen twenty five twenty three on Lotus Prime," he muttered. "Joined twenty five thirty nine–yeah, okay, I'm all here." He finished getting the uniform on, then frowned, glancing at his feet. No boots. He looked around and once more his gaze fell on the unnamed Marine.

"Sorry," he muttered as he came over, dropped into a crouch, and relieved the man of his boots. "I need 'em more than you do right now."

He pulled them on and laced up, then attached the holster to his hip. Standing up, he felt somewhat better. Again, the Pillar shuddered around him. Overhead, he heard the shipwide intercom system click on. "All hands, this is the Captain. Prepare to abandon ship! Combat Teams, repel boarders until Ops personnel are away. Good luck. Keyes out."

Well, that was a pretty clear summation of the situation, at least.

Alex hesitated for a moment. He needed his armor. He was screwed without it. But where would they have put it? Surely they wouldn't have discarded it. His eyes fell to a terminal built into the wall and he hurried over to it. Working fast, he was glad to see that nothing was locked down right now. He hunted through the files and found his own. He scanned through the information: cranial trauma, brain bleed, perforated intestine, perforated kidney. Damn, ugly stuff. Well, that was what happened when you went one on one with an Elite and didn't get lucky. Although he knew he was lucky as to walk away intact (technically) from that encounter back on Reach.

There!

Personal effects. Storage Room 17-B.

Alex checked a map of the area, then frowned. Why had they stowed his gear so far away?! At least it was a relatively simple path: right, left, right, left. He left the terminal, moving over to the Elite's corpse. He kicked the split-jawed thing in its ugly face and picked up the discarded plasma rifle. Alex grunted as he checked the energy level readout: it was close to empty. Bastard had been busy. He searched the body for plasma grenades and found none.

The bastard had been really busy.

He resisted the urge to kick the face again, or to stomp on it, to hear that snap as the mandibles broke beneath his scavenged boots, (it would be oddly appropriate, given the context), and instead moved over to the door through which the Elite had entered earlier. He paused, listening. There didn't seem to be any further conflict happening in the immediate area. Alex took a few deep breaths and let them out slowly.

He could do this.

He had to do this.

He passed through the door.

Outside was a broad, tall hallway, the normal kind that tunneled through the UNSC's starships. He looked left, but the metal tunnel terminated quickly in a battle-scarred bulkhead and a few doors that led to other infirmaries and storage rooms. He ignored that for now and headed right. Bodies were in the hallway with him: two Marines and a technician, broken in death, laying in random postmortem poses. Farther on, he could see a few oddly shaped lumps: Grunts. He paused by each of the corpses, hunting for supplies. The technician was unarmed, and the one MA5B he found among them had been damaged by what looked like brute force. Either by the Elite, or the Marine in question had used it as a bludgeon more than once against something really tough.

Either way, it was a lost cause.

There were a pair of plasma pistols among the Grunt corpses, though. He figured out which one was more charged and attached it to his other hip at the belt. Still no plasma grenades. Something hit the hull nearby and the entire area trembled. Was he screwed? It was possible. Alex had managed to survive for this long, but that still didn't mean he was any more capable of surviving an entire starship exploding than anyone else. He had to find his gear, and then locate the nearest escape pods and get the hell out of here.

At least his priorities were clear.

He made his way briskly down the corridor, checking his corners and any potential hiding places for more Covenant, but he seemed to be clear for now. Hitting his intersection, he hooked a left, keeping the map and his position on it firmly in his mind's eye. As he pressed on, thoughts drifted through his aching skull. He still hadn't fully processed the fact that the planet Reach was gone. Was it really that bad? Was it really gone? It seemed impossible. Ironically, that thought should be impossible, because something you learned when you lived the kind of life Alex Steele lived was that: impossible was nothing, and nothing was impossible.

He'd bore witness to so many bad things that he no longer even had a bar to lower. He pretty much felt like anything, no matter how crappy, was not only possible but, at this point, likely. It sounded pessimistic, but he still felt himself a realist. But Reach...that was kind of like a last bastion for humanity, besides Earth. The idea that it was just gone, that the Covenant had finally come and done the deed, it just felt…

Unreal.

But he had been there, trying to hold that planet together for over a month. It had been a long, nasty, brutal conflict that had ultimately ended with him in a coma, apparently. So where were they now? Some other planet? Dead space? He hoped not, given the fact that they were evacuating. Ideally there would be somewhere to evac to. As Alex came to the next turn in the maze of corridors, he paused. Plasma fire whined up ahead. He heard the high-pitched yapping of Grunts and the much deeper voice of an Elite calling out in its brutish language. He readjusted his grip on the plasma rifle and jogged carefully up to the turn.

More gunfire, and someone screamed.

Not in pain, but in fear. So, someone alive. Having someone to watch his back would help him a hell of a lot in this situation. He peered around the corner, then pulled back after scoping the situation out: one Elite, five grunts. They were firing at someone, who was hidden from sight. And he didn't hear any return fire. Definitely a bad sign. Alex looked down at the plasma rifle in his hand, frowning. He didn't like his odds.

Then a notion came to him, and he smiled a grim smile. He peered around again, confirmed that it could (probably) work, and then began sneaking forward. He was going to have to do this right and quickly, or he'd get real dead, real fast. Alex slipped right up to the rear-most Grunt, reached down to one of the plasma grenades on its belt, activated it, and then gave the Grunt a good, hard shove with the bottom of his boot.

The Grunt screamed in surprise, and all the other Grunts leaped in shock, and the Elite made a noise that was half angry, half inquisitive, and turned around. Alex was already falling back, staring at the Grunt with the smoldering ball of blue-white plasma attached to it, and right about the second he managed to fall back to cover, he saw the entire group of them go up in a great eruption of blue and white energy.

They all screamed for approximately one half of a second.

When the explosions stopped and the dust began to settle, Alex peered back around the corner. The entire contingent had been practically vaporized. There were pieces of armor and charred flesh scattered all over the corridor, and several ruined weapons, and that was all that remained of them. He made his way quickly through the hellishly redecorated section of the hallway and began tracking down whoever they'd been shooting at.

A moment later, he found a technician cowering in a small side alcove.

He let out a startled shout as Alex appeared in his field of view, then he let out a nervous laugh, the relief written plainly on his pale features. "Oh my God, you saved my ass," he said, his voice shaky. He laughed again, his eyes huge.

"What's your name?" Alex asked as he walked forward and offered a hand.

"Fleming," the man replied. He took Alex's hand and was pulled firmly to his feet. "You?"

"Steele."

"Hey, um...where's your armor?" Fleming asked.

"In a storage closet. I'm going to get it right now."

"Why would it be in a storage closet?"

"Fleming, we don't have time for this. Are you armed?"

"I-no. I lost my weapon," he muttered sheepishly. Alex sighed, considered his options, then passed the plasma rifle to the man.

"Can you handle this?"

"I...yeah, I can manage."

"Good. It's almost dead, so use it sparingly. Stay behind me, shut up, and do not engage unless it is absolutely necessary."

"Okay," the tech replied.

So, he had someone else with him...and it was a technician. He didn't dislike techs, but he really would have preferred someone whose training was more combat-oriented. Pushing out the acrid smell of burned flesh and flash-fried blood, Alex pulled the pistol from its sheath and moved on. Top priority right now was getting his damned armor. He felt painfully exposed without it. The way ahead looked clear, for now.

Alex moved past bulkheads scored by battle and time, cautious of every door, every support strut built into the center of the passageways. The Covenant were clearly here in force, infecting the vessel like an alien virus. He found himself wanting to find and murder every last one of them, but there was no time for that. Wasn't that always the case? When was the last time he had found himself with an abundance of time during combat? They reached the final turn and he held up his fist as he heard something.

Fleming froze. Alex approached the edge and peered slowly around it, pistol at ready. A trio of Grunts stood about five meters away down the corridor, congregating outside the very storage room he needed to get into. Time to rectify the situation. Alex leaned out further, aimed, and squeezed the trigger three times. He carefully picked off the Grunts, doling out a headshot for each. They hit the deckplates and Alex waited for reinforcements.

None came.

"Come on," he said, sliding smoothly into the corridor. Fleming followed wordlessly. He checked the Grunts' corpses in passing, securing plasma pistols for himself and Fleming, as well as a pair of plasma grenades. He really preferred frags, but these certainly had their own appeal. "Wait here," he said as he approach Storage Room 17-B. He tapped the open button and secured the room beyond, finding it empty of life.

Alex quickly began searching. He wanted off this ship. Every time it rumbled and rattled from an impact tremor, it was that much closer to breaking up or outright exploding, and you couldn't fight an explosion.

"Do you know where we are right now?" Alex asked as he searched.

Fleming stood in the doorway, keeping watch. Or at least Alex hoped that's what he was doing. "No, but they said there's some kind of huge...installation, or something, nearby?"

"Who's they?"

"I ran into some Marines who said they'd heard from a tech who was friends with a guy on the bridge that there's this big installation and that's where we're regrouping."

Alex considered that. Installation? Like a space station? Or...what? What did that even mean? Well, if it was solid ground, he supposed it'd have to do.

"There!" he whispered, finally popping open the correct crate and finding his armor packed away. He decoupled his holster from his hip and set it and the plasma pistol and grenades aside on a nearby table, then quickly began pulling on his sleek black armor.

"Whoa, you're an ODST?" Fleming asked.

"Yep," Alex replied.

"How long?"

"Three years."

"Wow."

That was an understatement. Alex felt like he'd done more in his three years as an ODST than the dozen years he'd served as a Marine. Which was saying something, given all he'd done there. He finished getting his armor on by securing the helmet. Once it was sealed into place, he booted up the internal systems and then ran a quick check of the suit. He'd just replaced the suit's power unit before the damage, and he was glad to see that whoever it was that had taken care of him had seen fit to replace his helmet and torso piece, considering they were broken pretty badly. And apparently the charge had held, the suit properly shut down and stored.

He was almost at full power, which meant he wouldn't have to go hunting for replacements. Perfect. Alex quickly reassembled his arsenal and rejoined Fleming at the door. "Where are the nearest escape pods?" he asked.

Fleming looked deeply relieved. "There's a hangar not far from here."

"Then let's go."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hello, readers! I hope you enjoyed the chapter. It's been pointed out to me that probably most people are now reading through a mobile app nowadays, which might make you less prone to leaving reviews. I just wanted to say that reviews genuinely help, even simple ones, and I would seriously appreciate it if you'd consider doing so for me.