The battle of Harvest

Chapter 1

"All personnel report to life-pods, this is not a drill. Repeat, all personnel report to life-pods, this is not a drill."

The robotic voice was heard all over the UNSC frigate, over the noise of soldiers and other personnel running towards the life-pods. Jack Miller was running for his life as the ship rocked from plasma blasts. He was a marine, a sergeant. He shouted at a crewman who tripped, running back to help him up. He pushed the crewman forward and threw him into the life-pod and turned around to look for anyone else. Once he had confirmed that there was no one left he too stepped inside the pod and pressed a button to close the hatch. A few seconds after the hatch closed, the pod was launched out into space, quickly turning towards the planet of Harvest's surface.

The Sangheili fleet master Neerg Repivee stood upon his Assault Carrier flagship, the Divine Justice, coolly watching the Human Frigate blow up under constant fire from his ship. He was clad in golden armor, with a bent metal piece hanging from his belt, also golden. The bridge walls glowed with a purple light, which made it darker than most human ships, but as the Frigate was destroyed the bridge was fully lit up, showing every shine on Neerg's golden armor.

"How many escaped?" he asked a grunt in green armor.

"All of their life-pods," the Grunt answered. Neerg nodded. They had escaped faster this time. He turned around and sat down in a hovering metal armchair. The Covenant had launched the attack surprisingly just a few hours after the humans had retaken their planet, with the Arbiter as their commander. There was a Forerunner artifact on the planet, that the Prophets intended to capture, at any cost. He saw a squadron of human Longsword fighters fly over the observation window.

"Send out a squadron of Seraphs," Neerg said and watched as Elites issued his command. The humans would not win.

The life-pod crashed into a destroyed skyscrape on the surface of Harvest. Almost half the building had toppled over, but it was still very high. Jack unbuckled his seatbelt and stood up, three marines doing the same. The four marines checked on everyone in the life-pod, finding out that only two plus the pilot had died in the crash. The rest were knocked unconscious. They managed to wake up the two unconscious, who were both crewmen from the ship. Jack grabbed his assault rifle and opened the hatch again. The squad of six moved out of the pod, the marines armed with different types of rifles and the crewmen armed with magnum pistols. They quickly found that the room was clear of enemies and continued to the large hole in the wall that the pod had crashed through. Jack looked down. They were in the middle of a large town, with patrolling Elites and Grunts on the streets. The aliens were obviously looking for something. In the distance Jack could see explosions from human attacks. He tried to contact the HQ.

"Hello? This is Sergeant Jack Miller of the recently destroyed frigate, Eagle. We are in a hostile town, in need of immediate extraction," he said into his microphone in his helmet. He immediately got an answer.

"Sergeant Miller, your current location is filled with Anti-Air defenses, it is impossible to come anywhere near. Try to get out of there," a female voice said. Jack nodded.

"Roger that. Sergeant Miller out." Jack readied his assault rifle. "Let's move out."

"Sir, we are taking heavy damage from the human ships," a Grunt squealed. Neerg growled.

"Send out another Seraph squadron," he said and leaned back into his armchair. He smiled as the Seraph fighters utterly destroyed the human fighters, while the Divine Justice destroyed another frigate that had been attacking it.

"Fleet Master! A boarding ship of the humans are very close to docking with us!" an Elite in red armor shouted. Neerg ran over to him. Two human Pelicans were indeed docking with his ship. Neerg growled quietly.

"Send out a squad to intercept them. They will not get far," he said and turned away, as the elite repeated Neerg's command into his terminal.

The squad of humans quickly continued through the purple halls. It was a squad of at least 40 men, and with them they had a Spartan, John-117. They had only fought a small squad in the hangar, and they could easily defeat them. They were heading for the bridge.

"Breach that door!" the sergeant said while taking up positions. The door exploded and the squad ran through into a wall of plasma fire. A large covenant squad had intercepted them.

"Open fire!" the sergeant shouted while firing a magazine from his assault rifle at the enemies. The Spartan ran towards the aliens, firing his assault rifle and then hitting an Elite with his full body weight. He crushed the alien's skull with the butt of his rifle, and all around him the other covenant troops were falling. The humans were pushing them back. He ripped a grunt's breathing apparatus off, the grunt slowly choking and dying. The skirmish was over and the humans had only suffered light casualties. They continued down the corridor.

Neerg roared as he threw a grunt into a wall. The grunt was knocked unconscious, but not dead. He breathed heavily as he sat down again.

"Send the best spec-ops squad on the ship," he said slowly, standing up again. "They will die here."

The Arbiter, Ripa Moramee, stood quietly in a small valley, conducting the excavation for a forerunner artifact. His decorated silver armor shone in the morning sun. He shook his head. They were not about to find anything here either. He was about to call the excavation off, they would be attacked by the humans soon enough anyway, when a grunt ran up to him.

"Arbiter!" the grunt squealed. "A distress call from the Divine Justice! They request your help!" Ripa nodded silently.

"Neerg would not call me if it was not necessary," Ripa said and started walking towards a Phantom dropship. He jumped onto the hatch on the side, stepping past a grunt manning a turret. He walked into the cockpit.

"Take us to the Divine Justice," he said, the pilot nodding and taking off, Ripa going back to the troop compartment, seeing the hatches on each side of the ship close as they took off.

After a while the Phantom flew into the assault carrier's launch bay, which was filled with rows of Seraph fighters and Phantom dropships. The Phantom smoothly glided into a landing, opening the hatches. The squad inside stepped out, immediately seeing the two human Pelicans. Looking further into the hangar, they saw a door was blown up. Ripa growled and took his two deactivated energy swords from his belt. He motioned for the squad to continue through the breached door.

The human squad entered in formation through the opened door, with the Spartan towering over them all in the middle. They continued down the corridor. A beep was heard.

"Mines!" one of the marines in the front screamed, trying to save himself, but it was too late. The mines detonated and scattered the marines on the floor, a large black mark covering the floors and walls where they had detonated. The sergeant coughed and got up, when he saw at least ten energy swords activating around them. An invisible elite jumped at him, stabbing him with the weapon. The other elites attacked, while grunts opened fire with plasma turrets from further down the corridor.

"Die you alien bastards, die!" one marine shouted and fired his shotgun at the now visible elites. The humans had recovered from the ambush and they were pushing forward again, with the Spartan, John-117 in point. One by one they took the elites down, until they had obliterated the whole covenant squad. They quickly continued down the hallway, shooting any remaining resistance. They were close now.