Space.

Full of mysteries clouded in the unforgiving darkness. Planets unexplored outside of the mapped star system that could be harboring something invaluable. Like some sort of weapon that could destroy those Covenant bastards. A weapon that could put an end to this blood soaked war, hopefully one that would end with Humanity on the winner side.

"That's bullshit" Admiral Mikhailovich chuckled at the slightest idea of a weapon that could wipe out the Covenant war machine. But hey, a man can dream can't he? In all honesty it would take something like a big super weapon to stop the Covenant. But don't let the admiralty board hear him confess that. What would the men under his command of the rear fleet think if they heard their superior had no confidence in their efforts?

Mikhailovich pushed the thought of possible imprisonment for treason out of his mind as he continued to stare at the darkness of space. This didn't start out at first, the lack of confidence in his own kind. For years, He was a Captain of a Halcyon class frigate, UNSC Touch of Light. He commanded dozens of battles, both space and ground warfare. When it came to sending the Marines ground side the battles between the two sides were almost identical. Not one side had a large advantage, which was until the Spartans were sent in.

A small chill rocked his spine at the thought of those destroying machines. Large metal monsters that obliterated anything the Covenant threw at them. Brave men and women that took the ultimate pledge, trained to be more efficient than 3 squads of elite ODST's. They followed protocol and eddicate to the 'T' never a problem with successfully completing the orders given to them. The perfect soldier. With the Spartans leading the charge for Humanity, the Admiralty board thought that the tables could easily be flipped. And they were… at least for ground warfare.

Space. Oh man… The total amount of frigates destroyed, both civilian and military, were in the hundreds. So many people were killed without having any sort of way to escape it. The Covenant cruisers fired their plasma charges which ate away at the shields followed by the hull. The weaponry stationed on the enemy cruisers were just too much for any Human based shield to handle. The fire that erupted within the ship was just too much to watch. Mikhailovich had seen enough ships blown up to last him a few lifetimes. Every time he tried to sleep or even close his eyes, the picture of flaming ships and floating debris would cause his eyelids to snap back open.

The 54 year old Admiral sighed in disgust as he ran his warm, clammy hands through what was left of his brown hair. 'All this talk about the past is pissing me off'. With a quick push off with his legs the rolling chair did a 180 facing his desk and rather small office. The desk was made of a nice oak wood that was painted a deep blue, he had to pull a few strings to get this through security clearance. His office in question was painted the same color as his desk along with two metal chairs on the opposite side of his desk.

Primarily used for scheduled visitors or business meetings. That was it. Kind of boring right? What were you expecting some sort of bachelor pad with a couch, a TV and a coffee machine? Yet again a man can dream can't he?

Mikhailovich opened the top drawer and smiled at his favorite items in the galaxy. Now its question time. What do Admirals, who don't go out in the field anymore, do when they are either extremely bored or annoyed at something? Well there are two answers but Mikhailovich already quit drinking because it was bad for him. He pulled out a box of cigars and took a long smell of the box, like smoking was any better for him.

These cigars were made and shipped straight from Earth. Almost hundred times better than any cigar made in the colonies. Without the war going on these boxes of cigars were extremely hard to purchase. Either the prices for a single box would be too outrageous or would be sold out. The only way he was able to get his sweaty hands on this 6 pack of prestigious smoke ware was to do multiple favors and use his position as Admiral to 'convince' the makers to just let him 'borrow' one.

Water was now falling freely from the mouth of rear Admiral Mikhailovich. He opened the box, slowly slid one of the specimens out and placed it firmly in his mouth. It was already precut for him and ready to smoke immediately. Of course, with his crummy luck the matches were in the back of the small rectangular box. It took a minute or two to finally shake a match out and just as he was about to light it another distraction showed up.

"Sir I believe Doctor Gordon said that you should no longer be inhaling toxic fumes from those cigars". A small terminal on top of the oak desk was no longer empty like it had been a few seconds ago. A pink light was now engulfing the darkness of his private office as an AI stood there, her hands placed firmly on her hips and right foot tapping.

"God Dammit Elena, if I wanted a woman nagging me the whole day then I would hire my wife to be my receptionist". The smart AI smirked as she let go of her hips, allowing the white lab coat she was 'wearing' to return to its normal position. The AI, Elena, liked to wear the scientist get up with the lab coat, clipboard in hand, glasses, blue jeans and hair tied into a ponytail.

"I'm sorry Admiral but its Doc's orders". Elena started to write down some notes on her clipboard and promptly closed the pen and placed it in her coat pocket once finished. Mikhailovich sighed in annoyance, she was right. During a screening two weeks ago the doc may have found a type of cancer in the Admiral's lung. It was unclear at the time if it was indeed cancer and even if it wasn't Doctor Gordon used that as strong desire to stop him from continuing to smoke.

With a slight twitch of hesitation and pure anger he threw the unlit cigar back into his desk, slamming it shut harder than usual. "Happy?"

"Technically Admiral it is impossible for a computer to feel such a thing as happiness, but-"Elena stopped mid-sentence and decided that words weren't needed at the moment only a nod of the head. "Anyway Admiral continuing on with your scheduled appointment today-"

"I don't have a scheduled appointment today?" never before in his years of service had Mikhailovich see an Artificial Intelligence actually rub her temples as if she was trying not to yell. It was actually kind of amusing to see, he almost smirked. Almost.

"Yes you do. Remember? The uh, spotter for Sergeant Hernandez".

Mikhailovich cringed at the mention of that specific, well he liked to call him more of a piece of work then human. "When his FLEETCOM going to learn that this guy is dangerous" the whisper tone was more of just to say to himself but of course his sneaky AI heard his statement.

"According to the military records, Sergeant Hernandez he could possibly be the most accurate and deadly sniper in the entire UNSC. With a total of 3,458 confirmed kills in a span of 6 years of service. But-"

"The man is a wild card" Mikhailovich cut in by slamming a folder onto his desk. "According to the Navy every sniper is partnered with a trained spotter. Even with his accuracy, Hernandez was assigned a spotter, and you know what happened?" Pulling open a 2nd drawer, Mikhailovich grabbed 4 files and threw them out one by one for the AI to see. "They were all killed in action."

"Private James Shumaker" he read off the first file, a small picture located in the top left corner. A 21 year old pale Irish man with brown hair, cut in a buzz of course, was smiling with his blue eyes. Full of life. "During an assassination attempt on a high valued Zealot class Elite. Both Private Shumaker and Sergeant Hernandez were forced to make an extremely quick retreat after successfully neutralizing the target. The enemy were hot on their trail. This is where it gets good. According to the pilot of Pelican Zulu 418, Sergeant Hernandez was 200 feet from the entrance to the Pelican when he stopped running, turned and started firing back at the trailing Covenant. This also caused Private Shumaker to stop his retreat and try to convince Hernandez to get in the Pelican. 4 plasma rounds successfully made contact with Private Shumaker's chest, killing him almost instantly."

Mikhailovich let loose a small curse and placed the folder down. "When Sergeant Hernandez was questioned about his actions he simply replied with 'the enemy was trailing us too close, I had to neutralize several forces advancing before the Pelican could safely take off'. Bullshit, the pilot of Zulu 418 said that he could have easily taken off."

The anger was rising in the seasoned war Admiral. The last thing he wanted to do was send off a good ODST who could help fight the war, die because the lack of Sergeant Hernandez caring for his partners. I mean didn't FLEETCOM or HIGHCOM look at the reports filed for the deaths of these men and women. "Here's another example."

This time he grabbed the last file, or more known as the latest casualty. "Corporal Emilia Murphy" this time a picture of a 26 year old white woman with black hair tied into a ponytail, a hat a top her head, with a neutral expression on her face. Portraying her menacing grey eyes. "Another Assassination job. This time one of those ugly ass Brute Chieftans was the target. A supposed meeting was held place in a city on the planet Kralin. The team set up shop in the tallest building and just like every other assassination before this, it was a success. And just like every spotter before Corporal Murphy something happened. The acknowledgment for a confirmed kill came over the comm line and it was after only a single shot. Yet again another eye witness testimony from 3-Delta-3, a Hornet pilot said he heard 8 total shots fired from the weapon. Seven other shots that more than likely killed seven more Covenant forces, at the same time giving away their position."

Mikhailovich felt more humid then he did a minute ago. He stood from his roll chair and returned to facing the black void known as space. "A single banshee were on them in a matter of seconds. Plasma torpedo struck the floor they were hiding on. Corporal Emilia Murphy was caught in the heat of explosion, her skin melted off of her bones and eventually melted her brain, killing her in the most painful and slowest way possible. No fucking body to send back to her husband and 4 children." With an extreme heightened amount of anger, that would give most of the men his age chest pains, he threw the folder down on the desk in disgust and hatred.

"And you want to know what he fucking said after getting checked out by the doctors, which by the way he didn't get a single scratch on him." he was asking the AI while at the same time he was sort of asking himself. Elena nodded, already knowing everything that happened but the Admiral looked as though he needed to get this off his chest. "He said 'I was able to spot seven more high ranking Covenant and I took it upon my judgment to neutralize them before letting them get away.' well you know what Elena? He can shove his judgment straight up his armored ass. This guy doesn't give a shit about anything. Disobeying orders, failing to saluting his superiors, no respect and doesn't care what happens to his fellow marines around him. All he cares about is himself and in my opinion war is no place for people like him."

The rant finally ended as Mikhailovich started to feel the sweat droplets roll down his forehead. He wiped a few off and felt how hot his skin felt to the touch. Damn how mad was he?

The anger started to subside at last, returning to his seat he added a little more. "Mark my words Elena, if he didn't have that kill count the admiralty board would have forcefully booted his ass out of the UNSC."

Mikhailovich couldn't believe the words he was about to say but he had to. During his cool down he noticed that Elena had copied the file of the new spotter to his terminal and the first words he saw were 'recommended by Lord Hood'. If the head of the Admiralty board was personally recommending this person, then he had no choice to assign this person. 'Sorry bastard'

"You know what to do Elena". The AI disappeared as it went to inform the person that was patiently waiting in the waiting room that she could now see the Admiral.

30 seconds of silence were broken as the door at the opposite end of the room slid open. In entered a lone soul, immediately saluting Mikhailovich and standing at attention.

"Sergeant Catherine Hill". A white woman standing at a solid 5-foot-7 simply nodded her head in response. She wore a white t-shirt which was usually used for working out in the ships gym with a pair of black combat pants and black combat boots. Her blonde hair was tied into a ponytail and olive green eyes seemed to stare into the soul of Admiral Mikhailovich. A pair of dog tags hung loosely from her neck and in between her C- cup breasts, the interesting thing was she was wearing a second pair of tags, not just hers.

A more energetic Sergeant for sure. Always feeling like she should be doing something, even when she was on leave for a few days. Sitting down for five minutes seemed to be something she didn't like to do. Why would she like to relax when there was a war going on? If anything something as monotonous as leave time kind of ticked her off.

ODST's were trained to fight whenever, without much sleep especially. Her comrades didn't seem to understand where she was coming from. They said leave time was so their bodies could recharge after battles and it also gave them time to either video call or write home. Catherine didn't have a family to write to unfortunately, like most her parents were taken from her by none other than the Covenant. There was a long story behind it but now wasn't the time to remember such a thing, actually in general it wasn't a good thing to remember ever.

"First of all I would like to send my sincerest regards for your last partner, Lieutenant Emmerson will be missed dearly."

"Thank you Admiral" Catherine looked down at the second pair of dog tags and started to fiddle with the piece of metal. "We were a team for four years, I'm still trying to believe that he's been dead for two weeks now". She gave her most sincere smile at the memories she shared with her partner. They could without a doubt have the most kills as a sniper team in the entire UNSC. She checked the records and the duo had recorded about 1,897 confirmed kills, something no other team could ever dream of doing.

"Well sorry to sound a little harsh Sergeant but it's time to start believing, you're being paired up again." Mikhailovich, regrettably, slid the folder for Sergeant Hernandez to the other side of the table. In a flash Catherine picked up the yellow folder.

First she noticed the name on the front, Sergeant Edward Hernandez. A picture was not clipped in the corner like usual with every military record folder. There was a slight twinge of confusion, but Catherine brushed it off as nothing and opened the folder. Intent on learning about her new partner for the foreseeable future. A single page was the only thing present. And it only took 20 seconds for her to read the whole profile. What the hell?

"Uh sir, I think something is wrong with this profile. There's barely anything in it. All it says is height: 6-Foot-5. Hair color: Black. Eye color: Hazel. Then the last thing is age: 30."

"No that seems about write Sergeant". Mikhailovich enjoyed the dumbfounded look on Sergeant Hill and decided it was time to tell her everything he knew about him. In fact he only knew a little more not much at all. "You see when Sergeant Hernandez enlisted into the ODST drill camp he was asked for the reason of him joining the war. His answer was the same each time, dead silence. He didn't speak a single word the entire time and despite distancing himself from the rest of his platoon and close squad mates, he was the highest efficient cadet in that graduation class."

"As a second note once he received his armor and helmet it never came off again. Sergeant Hernandez became so engrossed in fighting the enemy that he kept on his protective suit 24/7. In all honesty only a handful people alive today knows if Sergeant Hernandez actually has black hair, hazel eyes and is even the age of 30."

Catherine didn't have anything to say at the moment. Learning that the man she was being paired up with sounded like an insane person didn't help calm her nerves. If he didn't take off his helmet and other shit how did he do something as simple as eating or bathing?

"Despite all of this, Sergeant Hernandez has the record for most confirmed kills in the entire Navy, outside of the Spartans of course." Upon hearing that, Catherine's perspective of the man named Sergeant Hernandez changed entirely. "His number is 3,458 kills and counting as we speak."

This possible creep had 3,458 kills!? How the hell has she never heard of the guy before? A man with that many kills should have been spread over the entire Navy. His name would have been swirling around faster than a hurricane. Catherine was entirely intrigued now.

"Looking at the statistics is only half the battle. Normally it would be good for a sniper duo to know almost everything about each other but, in this case I barely know much about Sergeant Hernandez. There is one thing though, flip the page around." Catherine did as she was told and flipped it to see another name.

"Becky?" she said out loud to herself.

"That was almost all over his equipment during his first year of missions. That name doesn't come up with anything in the database but I assume that this 'Becky' was of great importance to Sergeant Hernandez. Which may be the fire that's been fueling his efforts in the war."

Catherine stared at the name scribbled down. This was the only clue to anything in Sergeant Hernandez's life. It was a start at least, even if it's an incredibly small start.

"Now that the small introductory is out of the way, I'm going to deploy you to his position effective immediately". Mikhailovich brought up the screen on his terminal and started to write out commands for the hangar to prep a transport ship. "Sergeant Hernandez is currently stationed on the Destroyer UNSC Heaven on Earth. A colony planet by the name of Articus IV is currently under Covenant invasion."

Catherine felt her blood boil to insane temperatures at the mention of the Covenant. "Lord Hood has directed me to send two Halcyon-class cruisers and a Marathon class heavy cruiser to help fortify the space defenses while the ground troops work to evacuate the civilians. I have already contacted the Captain of the Marathon class cruiser, UNSC Hannibal. He has agreed to let you stay on board for the ride."

Catherine nodded and saluted Mikhailovich, to which he happily returned. She seemed like a very nice girl and she had to have been extremely good at her job if she was given the rank of Sergeant at the age of 22. It's too bad what the reality of her being paired up with Sergeant Hernandez would bring. He found it better not to tell her of his past spotters and not get her all nervous before meeting the man in question.

"You are dismissed Sergeant. I wish you the best of luck with your new partnership." Catherine turned and began to walk through the door when she heard her name and turned back to the Admiral while standing in the door way.

"I forgot about one last thing. If you really want to find Sergeant Hernandez then you need to ask the marines using his nickname."

"His nickname sir?"

"Yes his nickname, the people he's around call him…"

"The Left Hand of God".

(*8*)

Elite. 7-Foot-8 inches. Armor blue, Ultra class. Probable male. Range 1,945 yards. Pattern of movement, west, approaching Charlie team defense fortification. Wind speed 12 MPH.

"Forgive me lord for I have sinned".

The bullet fired out of the barrel and headed for the firing window set up by the weapons user. It took 6 seconds for the piece of death to make successful contact.

14.5x114mm armor piercing round penetrates through flesh. Nasomaxillary suture, fractured (bone that connects nose to the head). Cerebellum badly damaged, internal bleeding located in the cranium. Bullet successfully exits the Lamboid suture (Back of the forehead). Subject is now brain dead. Kill. Confirmed.

1,536.

End of Chapter 1