It was a dark and stormy night. Except it wasn't. How could it be in space? It felt dark and stormy. The ODST no longer wanted to be a leader. He knew it would be a tough job, but he never expected it to be this tough. He looked at the now powerless teleporter he had just gone through. He was still in shock. He didn't want to go on, but he had to.

Three hours earlier:
0127 hours /Date: September 19th 2552 /Location: Pillar of Autumn, Unknown space.

Ace looked around the room. It was the same as it had been. Thar and Tridant were playing cards. Tridant was winning four to one. Ace was pretty sure Thar just got lucky during his win.

She looked over, where she saw Lucas lifting weights, alongside his spotter, Barney. Lucas was the muscles in the squad, and Barney was the spotter for their sniper. Their sniper, James, had been injured a few days ago, which is why he was not here.

Ace then saw an ODST resting. Aside from process of elimination, it was obvious that this one was Daniel. A last minute replacement. The way that you could tell this one was Daniel was because he was tiny. He was scrawny, as well. Daniel was also the only one in the room who was wearing his full armour, other then Ace. When she had approached him earlier, Daniel would not talk to her.

Ace later found out that Daniel could not talk, he has post-traumatic vocal disarticulation. That pretty much means there was a tragedy that had happened to him, if it was recent or long ago she did not know. She liked Daniel, though. She had read good reports on the solider. Ace and James were the only two who ever really got anything accomplished. She had faith that Daniel would not let her down, like Thar did.

Ace and Thar had never really gotten along. She did not hate him. It would take a lot to make her hate the kid. Thar was ambitious. He wanted be a leader, but Ace did not think that Thar had it in him. Thar was second in command, right next to Tridant.
Ace was bored again. She never really socialized. She just took orders, and carried them out. Until around two hours ago, they would only fight insurrectionists. Now, they were on a ship, running from the Covenant. Where they were going, she didn't know. Maybe somewhere nice, like a calm beach or a…

Suddenly, Ace lost her train of thought as the alarms sounded. These were the evacuate ship alarms.

"Alright, men! Go get your armour on and get to the drop pods!" Tridant ordered. Everybody was getting up and running around, except for Daniel. He eventually got up slowly, and walked over to Tridant. "That was right", Ace remembered "he does not know where the drop pods were".

"Ohh, you're the replacement, right?" Tridant asked.

Daniel nodded.

"What's the matter, son? No 'yes sir'?" Tridant suddenly got the look on his face. It was an embarrassed look.

"My apologies. I… forgot." Tridant said. "You can follow me to the drop pods; there should be an armoury right next to where we are headed."

Then Tridant walked out, heading toward the room. Daniel followed. Daniel was small; Ace could swear that the top of his helmet was shorter than where her shoulders came up to. Ace was not tall, but she was definitely not short.

"I have to put on my armour. Ace, can you walk him to the room?" Tridant asked.

"No problem, Captain." Ace replied.

"Good, I will tell Corporal Williams to get the pods ready."

"Understood, sir!" Ace said. She turned to Daniel. "Corporal Williams's nickname is Thar. Apparently Thar is not his real name, but that's what we all call him, just so you know." Ace said. The two then walked to the drop pod room.

After about ten minutes the last one had arrived.

"Barney, what took you so long?" Tridant asked.

"Sorry sir, the armour wouldn't go on so easily." Barney replied.

Tridant threw the late arriving trooper a battle rifle. Ace looked around the room. Thar had a pistol and assault rifle. Daniel had an SMG and sniper. Everyone else either had battle riffles or shotguns. Ace had a battle rifle and a pistol. She put the battle rifle on her back and the pistol on her thigh. She then stepped into her pod. The pod had FRG8 written on it. Ace could not tell if it was graffiti or if it was legitimate.

The countdown for the pods to drop started.

Ten…

Nine…

Eight….

Seven…

Six…

Five…

Four…

Three…

Two…

Suddenly, it stopped. All power went out, and it went dark. Ace turned on her helmet comms.

"Tridant, what the hell is going on here?" Ace asked.

"Ace, I need you to make sure everyone is calm. It's a small malfunction."

Ohh great, a small malfunction. Was it different from a large one? Suddenly, Ace's pod fell. She looked up, and they were all launching, but with no power.

"Brace for impact!" Tridant said. Then, Ace hit the ground, and she was out cold.

Thars pod hit the ground. It hit hard. He was lucky he wasn't dead. He figured he would go look for the other members of his squad. They should all be in the area.

He kicked the door off. It took some effort, but he did it. He climbed out of his pod, and looked around him. There was just grass as far as you could see. There was a river that leads to a waterfall a bit ahead, and flowers and trees everywhere. It was beautiful.

Thar sat down for a minute. He needed to rest before he moved on. He sat under a tree and looked in the sky. There was a giant ring around the sky, and it was coming down in front of him and behind him. Where was he?

Thar dismissed that for later. He could ask Tridant about it. He pulled up a picture of Haily in his visor. Ohh, how he missed her. If everything went good, and he made it out alive, he would get to see her again. There was nothing more he wanted to do.

As he sat under the tree procrastinating, he realized that a minute had gone by. He had regained his breath and strength. He got up, and started looking for the pods. As he walked around, he found one.

As he went up to it to open it, he looked inside. It was black armour with red striped. A tiger mouth on the visor. With a machine gun inside. So this was obviously Lucas. He opened up the door, and saw blood. He checked Lucas' pulse. He was alive. Thar dragged the ODST out of his pod, and sat him under a tree.

He looked around some more, and found Barney. He was up and kicking. Thar helped him open up the door.

"Thanks." Barney told Thar. Barney was a tall and skinny solider, with lighish brown armour, with red streaks. His hair had additional red streaks as well.

"Lucas is out under that tree over there. We know nothing about this place. Go keep an eye on him." Thar ordered the man.

"Yes, sir." Barney said.

"Also, don't take off your helmet; we don't know if this air is breathable yet." Thar said.

"Yes, sir!" Barney replied, and then headed to Lucas.

Thar then went ahead further, looking for the three remaining pods. He saw a tiny ODST, in just regular armour standing in the middle of the field, looking around. The new guy. Daniel. Thar had seen Daniels face one before, he was your average looking guy, with long black hair, and long bangs. Thar had no idea where he was from.

"Yo, Daniel!" Thar called. Daniel started looking for the voice, and saw Thar. Daniel rushed over to Thar, and grabbed his arm. Thar assumed this was to motion Thar to follow. Thar followed the short ODST, and saw two drop pods, in hard to reach places. These would be Ace and Tridant.

"Daniel, you think you can go get Tridant? I will go get Ace." Thar said.

Daniel nodded and took off.

Thar went over to the area Ace's pod was. He knew Ace was not her real name. Just like Thar was not his. He wondered if she did because it sounded cool, or because she was trying to forget her past.

As he climbed over to the pod, he could see her. She looked like she was out cold. That would be a problem. They were on the side of a mountain, and both needed to climb up to get back.

Another problem is her armour. Despite Lucas being huge, not fat mind you, but just big and bulky, Ace chose to have the biggest set of armour. Her shoulder pads were bigger then Thars helmet. Her chest plate had a tank of oxygen attached to it, and her ODST helmet had so many attachments to it. Ace, like Lucas, was not fat. She was really skinny, actually, even with her bulky set of armour. Yet she was still more maneuverable and flexible in armour than anyone else on the team.

Her armour was also purple. Like Barney, her armour was also her hair colour. Only she had full purple hair. Ace was not ugly by any means, but she was nothing really to look at either. She had a cruel personality to boot. She never treated any of them with respect, or trusted them.

Except James.

Ace and James seemed to be the best of friends. Right now though, James was safe in some military hospital on Earth. Thank goodness it was not on Reach. Thar busted open the door, and caught her. She was incredibly light outside the armour, but heavy with it on. He put her over his shoulders, and started climbing. He was almost to the top, when one of the vines he grabbed onto broke, and he slipped.

He started falling. It would be over for both of them. Suddenly, someone grabbed his hand, and he immediately grabbed Ace's arm as she slid off his shoulder. Thar looked up to see Daniel.

"Dan, grab Ace, and I will grab onto the cliff." Thar said.

Daniel nodded, and grabbed Ace's hand, letting go of Thar. Thar grabbed the top of the cliff, and pulled himself up. Thar then helped Daniel pull Ace up.

"Good… good job." Thar told Daniel. Daniel nodded. They were both out of breath.

"Did you get Tridant?" Thar asked.

Daniel nodded, and pointed to the tree. The three ODSTs were there. Two of them were up. Two of them without their helmets.

Thar put Ace over his shoulder, and carried her to the tree. Tridant was not conscious, but was obviously alive, as his chest was going up and down. Barney and Lucas were talking about how this place was so natural looking, and so nice. Thar found it odd that you could breathe on this place.

"Okay men, we will rest for ten minutes, then go try to find some way out of here." Thar knew that the Covenant had followed them, and looking up, knowing that they had not gotten lost along the way.

"Damn it!" Thar said, looking at the loud ship. "Okay, we need to find a place to hide those two." Thar pointed at their unconscious teammates. They went and found a place to hide, just in case.

"Okay men, we are about to go out and look for a way out of this place. Got it?"

"Yes, sir!" Said Lucas and Barney. Daniel nodded. Then, they headed out.